Editing Rule of thumb (section)

=== 20th-century feminist revival ===
In the 20th century, public concern with the problem of domestic violence declined at first, and then re-emerged along with the resurgent [[feminist movement]] in the 1970s.{{r|Clapp}} The first recorded link between wife-beating and the phrase ''rule of thumb'' appeared in 1976, in a report on domestic violence by women's-rights advocate [[Del Martin]]: {{quote|For instance, the common-law doctrine had been modified to allow the husband 'the right to whip his wife, provided that he used a switch no bigger than his thumb'{{emdash}}a rule of thumb, so to speak.{{r|O'Conner}}}}

While Martin appears to have meant the phrase ''rule of thumb'' only as a [[figure of speech]], some feminist writers treated it as a literal reference to an earlier law.{{r|O'Conner}}{{r|Wilton|p=43}} The following year, a book on battered women stated: {{quote|One of the reasons nineteenth century British wives were dealt with so harshly by their husbands and by their legal system was the 'rule of thumb'. Included in the British Common Law was a section regulating wifebeating [...] The new law stipulated that the reasonable instrument be only 'a rod not thicker than his thumb.' In other words, wifebeating was legal.{{r|Davidson}}}}

Despite this erroneous reading of the common law (which is a set of judicial principles rather than a written law with individual sections) the spurious legal doctrine of the "rule of thumb" was soon mentioned in a number of law journals.{{r|Clapp|Kelly}} The myth was repeated in a 1982 report by the [[United States Commission on Civil Rights]] on domestic abuse titled "Under the Rule of Thumb", as well as a later United States Senate report on the [[Violence Against Women Act]].{{r|Clapp}}

In the late 20th century, some efforts were made to discourage the phrase ''rule of thumb'',{{r|Kelly}} which was seen as [[taboo]] owing to this false origin.{{r|Clapp}} [[Patricia T. O'Conner]], former editor of the ''New York Times Book Review'', described it as "one of the most persistent myths of political correctness".{{r|O'Conner}} During the 1990s, several authors wrote about the false etymology of ''rule of thumb'', including English professor [[Henry Ansgar Kelly]] and conservative social critic [[Christina Hoff Sommers]],{{r|Clapp}} who described its origin in a misunderstanding of Blackstone's commentary.{{r|Wallace & Roberson}} Nonetheless, the myth persisted in some legal sources into the early 2000s.{{r|Clapp}}