Outlander: Wives and Punishment

The contemporary mind recoils from wife-beating.  It largely rejects physical punishment of any kind except that self-inflicted kind that falls under the heading of keeping 'fit'.  So spanking as child discipline frequently registers as child abuse.  Corporal punishment in schools is still on the books in Texas, but is generally rejected.  And it is from this vantage point--this thoroughly modern rejection of physical punishment--that the reader shares in Claire's outrage that her new husband proposes to physically discipline her--an adult woman, his beloved wife--by taking a strap to her bare @ss.

I am certain that I disapproved when I first read the novel.  I must have disapproved.  I was not necessarily outraged, because it is, after all, a historical novel, and I was wholeheartedly along for the ride.  We have already had two near-rapes, by this point, as well as a forced marriage, so the real questions are 1) whether Jaime will go through with it, and 2) how or whether Claire--with her 20th Century sensibilities--will react to it.  There are two additional questions, however:  3) how the narrative will justify it, and 4) whether the reader can accept it.  #4 depends, of course, on the answer to #3, and in justifying corporal punishment of a wife, the text returns to the physicality of existence--the embodiment of the individual consciousness.

In preparing Claire for her punishment, Jamie stresses the influence of the body on the mind:

"Now, listen.  Ye understand me, ye say, and I believe it. But there's a difference between understandin' something with your mind and really knowing it, deep down. [...] I will have to punish you... so that you will know." (392)

Truth, he suggests, is felt in the body in a more real way than it is known in the mind.  As troubling as the situation is to a modern sensibility, corporal punishment will reinforce what she has already confessed to understanding--that she needs to obey and trust her husband, because he knows the tangible consequences of action in a way that she does not.

Without knowledge of where she has come from, Jamie nevertheless connects Claire's failure to understand the physical, tangible realities of existence to her origins:

"Ye come from a place where things are easier, I think.  'Tis not a matter of life and death where ye come from, to disobey orders or take matters into your own hands.  At worst, ye might cause someone discomfort, or be a bit of a nuisance, but it isn't likely to get someone killed." [...] "It's the hard truth that a light action can have verra serious consequences in places and times like these." (391)

In Claire's time, things happen on a different scale, and though she feels connected to the horrors of mechanized warfare, she is detached from the relationship between personal actions and consequences.  Consequences in the modern world are less harsh, less tangible, and less connected to the physical reality of existence.

There are other possible justifications for corporal punishment in Claire's case, if one allows for one minute that corporal punishment of a wife by a husband can be justifiable.  The reader might consider the fact that Claire has just betrayed Jaime--not simply refused to follow his orders, but engaged in an actual act of betrayal, which, however justified, was still betrayal.  The narrative allows the reader to sympathize with Claire's motives, however, so this is not a valid justification for corporal punishment--even if the mind were inclined to turn in that direction, which it likely is not.

Jamie also provides possible justifications by painting a picture of the 18th Century Scottish culture of corporal punishment.  His stories of being beaten evoke a kind of primitive justice--but one meted out by elders and parents to children, not by a husband to a wife, whom we would wish to see as his equal. The closest we come to accepting this kind of logical rationale based on a kind of justice comes from a different analogy--the punishment of a wife as akin to the punishment of a soldier.

Before she knows that Jamie plans to discipline her, Jamie presses Claire to understand the seriousness of her actions:

"Do ye realize, Claire.. that all of us came close to bein' killed this afternoon? [...] Aye, so ye realize," he said. "Do ye know that if a man among us had done such a thing, to put the rest in danger, he would ha' likely had his ears cropped, or been flogged, if not killed outright?" (390)

 A kind of equality arises, in which Claire is put on par with the men in the party, who would also be expected to follow orders and to avoid acting rashly and putting the others in jeopardy.  Again, he stresses:

"There's such a thing as justice, Claire,  You've done wrong to them all, and you'll have to suffer for it."  He took a deep breath. "I'm your husband; it's my duty to attend to it, and I mean to do it." (392)