Mother Spanking Her Children

Editorial cartoon

By: Anonymous

Date: 1889

Source: © Bettmann/Corbis.

About the Artist: The woodcut illustration is a part of the Bettmann Collection of images maintained in the archives of the Corbis Corporation, a worldwide provider of visual content materials to such communications groups as advertisers, broadcasters, designers, magazines, media organizations, newspapers, and producers. The artist is unknown.

INTRODUCTION

The use of corporal punishment as a means of providing discipline to a child by a parent extends throughout recorded history. The most famous Biblical passage cited in support of the physical discipline of children is set out in the Book of Proverbs of the Old Testament: To spare the rod is to spoil the child. This admonition in favor of physical child discipline is echoed in other world religions.

The earliest settlers of the United States were almost exclusively Christians of the Protestant faith. Protestant religious practices tended to significantly influence the early American colonial legal system that was based upon the English common law. At common law, a parent or any other person with authority over a child was permitted to use reasonable force to compel a child's obedience, or to punish a child for misconduct. School teachers, near relatives and the employers of children were the most common classes of persons permitted to exercise corporal punishment upon the children in their care; the legal authority of these persons to strike a child was derived from their status as being in loco parentis, or standing in the place of the parent.

The term 'reasonable force' had a broad meaning in American law through the nineteenth century. Corporal punishment could be performed with a leather strap, custom crafted sticks, belts, or any other similar implement so long as serious injury did not result. Spanking, the striking of a child's buttocks with an open hand was perhaps the most common form of physical discipline in the home; the strap or the cane were the typical implements used in school settings.

At the time of the publication of this illustration in 1889, corporal punishment was not a universal disciplinary method in American schools. A number of state school boards had abolished the practice; New York State was one such jurisdiction that had done so in 1877. Corporal punishment was banned in most European schools (excepting Great Britain) by the end of the century. These educators believed that the physical punishment of students had an adverse effect upon student discipline.

In the twentieth century, corporal punishment became far less common in American schools. By the year 2000, while no state had a specific legal prohibition in place that outlawed spanking, more than thirty states had formal policies as to when such contact with a student by a teacher was permitted; corporal punishment was now retained as a disciplinary tool of last resort. In addition, the fear of civil action on the part of the subject teacher was a profound limitation on the practice.

In contrast, the use of corporal punishment within the home by a parent has remained a common aspect of American family life. It has been a hotly debated social issue for at least 150 years in the United States. Prosecutions for the excessive use of force by a parent towards a child are relatively rare. The question of whether corporal punishment hinders or helps in the emotional development of a child has remained a very contentious area of academic study.

PRIMARY SOURCE

WOODCUT OF MOTHER SPANKING HER CHILDREN

See primary source image.

SIGNIFICANCE

The 1889 illustration of a mother spanking her children is a work that combines several symbols placed within the depicted scene, each of which conveys a particular meaning.

The first important features of the illustration are the relative roles of the mother and the father to the act of spanking a child. The home appears to be an otherwise comfortable middle class residence, judging from the décor and the clothing of the characters rendered in the scene. The mother, as the homemaker, is the parent responsible for meting out punishment; the father, apparently interrupted in his reading of a newspaper, is an onlooker only.

A symbol of significance is the wall hanging that is partly obscured. The words on the wall are a clear reference to the Christian maxim 'Peace on Earth, Goodwill towards Men,' an ironic sentiment given the spanking being administered in the home.

The combination of the messages conveyed by the illustration is an encapsulation of the historic tension between the parental right to maintain order and discipline over the children resident in their home and their corresponding obligation to use reasonable methods in their dealings with their children.

Recent public opinion polling conducted in the United States suggests that the conflicting philosophies regarding corporal punishment for children such as that portrayed in the 1889 illustration have remained a part of the modern attitude towards this practice. In a study conducted by ABC News in 2005, sixty-five percent of Americans surveyed supported in principle the right of a parent or near caregiver to spank a child. This percentage has remained relatively constant since 1990. In contrast, seventy-two percent of those polled opposed any form of corporal punishment in schools. Fifty percent of the respondents stated that they either did or would spank their child; forty-five percent stated that they would not.

Courts in the United States have traditionally given parents significant latitude in determining whether the force applied to a child was reasonable; even where the force resulted in injury or was otherwise excessive on a objective basis. Parents who have been charged with assaults arising from the application of physical discipline have frequently secured acquittals on the basis that they, in applying corrective discipline, did not intend to cause injury. The analysis of a similar Canadian law conducted in 2004 by the Supreme Court of Canada is one that is of application to all common law jurisdictions. The Court held that the provision of the Canadian Criminal Code that permits parents to use corrective force upon a child was a legitimate exception to the general law of assault so long as the force used was part of a genuine effort to educate the child and the degree of force used does not pose a risk of harm beyond that of transitory or trifling injury (such as a sore buttock or minor bruising).

In every country where the physical punishment of children is lawful, there are well organized lobbies on each side of the question. In the United States, the constituency favoring corporal punishment tends to include conservative religious groups and others who believe in the ability of parents to set appropriate rules within the family structure. On the abolition side are a diverse range of liberal groups and a significant number of experts who believe that corporal punishment is a danger to a child's long term emotional well-being.

A number of recent academic studies, including that of New Hampshire sociologist Murray Straus, suggest that the administration of corporal punishment in the home is no different than any other violent domestic conduct such as spousal assault; such studies see corporal punishment as undermining the desired notion of a non-violent home. The effects of the physical discipline of children are seen as cumulative in terms of the later negative impact upon the self esteem and emotional health of the child.

While United States and the other nations of the common law tradition permit the physical discipline of a child in limited circumstances, the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in which all of these nations have representation, has pledged to work to eliminate all forms of corporal punishment used against children throughout the world.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Cavanaugh, Mary M., Richard G. Gelles and Donileen R. Loseke, eds. Current Controversies about Family Violence. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2005.

Straus, Murray. Beating the Devil Out of Them. Somerset, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2001.

Web sites

Canadian Department of Justice. "Section 43 Criminal Code of Canada." 2006 〈http://www.justice.gc.ca/en/news/fs/2004/doc_31114.html〉 (accessed June 26, 2006).

University of Wisconsin. "Parenting the Preschooler." 1999 〈http://www.uwex.edu/ces/flp/p/pdf/punishment.pdf〉 (accessed June 27, 2006).