text: kind of complicated question? present-day western society: its discouraged for parents to hit children, and hitting a woman is a no-no a few decades ago: acceptable by society to hit an unruly child did this "evolution of values" apply to women long ago? was it acceptable long ago to "correct" a wife? lots of otherwise good men thought it was okay to give a hit to keep her in line.  as times changed, that attitude did too.