ABSTRACT
Just as Gowing has noted with regard to early modern England, the prototypes for the guilty party were a whoring wife and an abusive husband. According to Brockenius, marriage was a holy state that was all about 'loyalty, honesty and divine communion'. The case demonstrates that the continuity of the marriage was ensured by clearing the man's reputation, even though the allegations of adultery laid against his wife had not even been proven. In premodern Sweden, spousal violence did not constitute a legal basis for divorce, but those who were dissatisfied with their marriages could still try to refer to it in court. Sometimes the courts wanted to underscore the limits of objectionable masculine behaviour. The preservation of the marriage would maintain harmony, and this should be the target, even if it meant staying in an abusive relationship. According to modern-day data, intimate-partner violence appears in all social classes, but the lower echelons of society are overrepresented in statistics.
