Toni Bentley reviewed a new biography of Mary Wollstonecraft in the NY Times Book World on May 29. In discussing women's status at that time, she threw in a parenthetical statement that is false.
"(In all fairness, a new law in 1782 stated that a husband should not beat his wife with a stick wider than his thumb.)"
One thing we can say for sure is that there was no "new law" in England that said such a thing.
http://tafkac.org/language/etymology/rule_of_thumb.html
http://research.umbc.edu/~korenman/wmst/ruleofthumb.html
http://www.europrofem.org/02.info/22contri/2.04.en/4en.viol/28en_vio.htm
Credit to the Bookworld, yesterday they published a long letter that included a rebuttal of this legend.
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