Ok Hmmmm - easily representing emotional beating not physical.
Except for the many credible allegations that John Lennon actually was a wife beater.
In a 1980 interview in Playboy with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Lennon, when asked about the song, said that the song’s lyrics came personally from his own experience abusing women in relationships in the past. He states: “It is a diary form of writing. All that ‘I used to be cruel to my woman / I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved’ was me. I used to be cruel to my woman, and physically—any woman. I was a hitter. I couldn’t express myself and I hit. I fought men and I hit women. That is why I am always on about peace, you see. It is the most violent people who go for love and peace. Everything’s the opposite. But I sincerely believe in love and peace. I am a violent man who has learned not to be violent and regrets his violence. I will have to be a lot older before I can face in public how I treated women as a youngster.”
Hello? did you read the lyrics?
“I used to be cruel to my woman
I beat her and....”
i beat her sounds like it means hit-physical, imo.