[cloudmountain]

Wives of shoguns and warriors (women in the samurai class) were always armed (with a dagger), and were trained from childhood to defend themselves, both with the dagger and with the naginata, which was a sword mounted on a pole. So you did not mess around with them.

Understood, but HUSBAND still had the right to beat the holy crap out of them. So, though warrior/shogun husbands COULD have beaten up wives, since it was/is so much of the culture, they DIDN'T. Are you telling me that wives would fight back? I don't think they would...and they wouldn't stand much of a chance again their husband.

Side note: MY husband always told me that there is NO defense for some pissed off person to sneak up on someone they hated and BASH the guy in the head with a two-by-four...with nails :o).

[kaehurowing]

I dunno, I grew up watching Japanese TV and come to think of it, I never saw a samurai abuse his wife, although a lot of them were good at ignoring them.

All I know is you don’t want to get a samurai woman angry enough to the point she would take revenge. When you see her in the white (death) kimono, with the sleeves tied up and the headband on, holding a katana, you know you can kiss it goodbye. O-ren in the fight scene in Kill Bill is a pretty good modern adaptation of that.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Warriors tend to be given women of high station to marry as rewards for service.

Abusing a gift from the boss tends to be impolitic to say the least.

Warriors married daughters of warriors. You learn what you see and they saw daddy treat mom with politeness. Part of this was because even the girls were trained with weapons and part of this was because while the men were away the wife was in charge.

Warriors tend to be away a great deal. Not wise to abuse the lady who was in charge of your home and lands 75% of the time.

And of course there is, as your husband observed and as my dad taught me, the little fact that everyone has to sleep sometime.