ABSTRACT
Entremeses approach women battering from a comic angle; nonetheless, they are to be read as part of the wider debates regarding women’s nature and the legitimacy of wife battering that were taking place among moralists, scholars, and theologians across Europe. If moralists oversimplified wife battering, assuming that all cases were similar and could be resolved in the same manner, entremeses showed multiple scenarios and different outcomes for similar scenarios. The entremeses demonstrate that the general population was well aware of the mechanics of annulment and divorce and of the role wife battering played during trials. Something similar happened in trials for wife battering and divorce. The use of force to discipline children was common in early modern Europe and, as was the case with wife battering, as long as the punishments were not unreasonably cruel or unsubstantiated, there was no much legal and moral opposition.
