"Wife-Torture in England" and "Beale Street Love"

A prevalent connection between Langston Hughes’ poem “Beale Street Love” and “Wife-Torture in England” is enforcement of the power structure. Cobbe writes that wife beating (or torture) occurred primarily among the poorer class, although it was not invisible in the richer class (Cobbe 58). The subjects in “Beale Street Love” are presumably black Americans, set in a time period when black meant intensely inferior to white. Household violence, in this context, becomes a way to establish some sort of power hierarchy; poor men beat their wives to feel that they’re above someone else.

Whether or not the women accepted this power hierarchy is less clear. Hughes’ poem suggests that the woman being beaten encourages it. This echoes a point brought up in Cobbe’s article, when it states, “The women of Lancashire are awfully fond of bad husbands… women are like dogs, the more you beat them the more they love you” (Cobbe 64). Perhaps women support the same power structure that their husbands brutally try to enforce; it seems that women have desired the more masculine and powerful man throughout history, and still today. “Clorinda” in Hughes poem appears to represent this group of women, which only encourages acceptance of domestic abuse.

On the other hand, it is also clear that women did not have much of an option to fight back. “Clorinda” can be seen as a passive victim; it’s difficult to sympathize with her position when she seems to be encouraging the abuse rather than countering it. However, Cobbe’s article, as well as Domestic Tyranny, shed a different light on this question. Cobbe clearly distinguishes a difference between women who beat their husbands in addition to being beaten, and women who are beaten without physically fighting back. The woman who fights back (it is unsaid who starts the fight) is not as pitiable as the woman who takes it, and therefore less of a victim. Current rationale would argue that both women are equally victimized. In Cobbe’s time, even women who desperately grabbed a weapon in self-defense for their lives were looked at as the aggressor at fault. In this way, fault is always placed upon the woman.

Both Domestic Tyranny and “Wife-Torture in England” give evidence that women who tried to use the law to escape domestic violence were largely unsuccessful. In Cobbe's’= article, domestic violence was the only area where men could bend the law; public opinion rationalized that a man could beat their wife if she deserved it, and they assumed that she did. Once again, fault is always placed on the woman. In Hughes’ poem, “Clorinda” would have still been to blame even if she fought back, perhaps even more so for trying. Essentially any woman short of perfect was looked at as guilty in some way. The tone of Hughes’ poem hints that the speaker disagrees with this reality, yet he depicts is seamlessly.

Cobbe writes that a woman’s words are her weapon, and a man’s weapon is his fist. “Nagging” becomes a crime punishable by violence. Perhaps the line, "Hit me again," in Hughes' poem is simply Clorinda nagging, making her abuse justified. In the society Cobbe lived in, this seems entirely possible. Would fighting back have helped her cause, or worsened it? It seems both scenarios would have resulted in the same amount of bruises, the same blame placed upon her, and the power hierarchy violently established in the same way.