Were most men actually good or bad husbands in the old days?

[Vesuvius87]

I'm going to be straight forward without sugarcoating for anyone. My paternal grandfather (dad's father) was a horrible husband towards my grandma. He was an abusive, lying, cheater.

Both are long dead but he used to hit her during their marriage when he got drunk. He stopped hitting her as soon as my dad's older siblings (2 sisters and a brother... dad was born years later when everything got ''solved'' and he didn't get to witness any of that) were able to defend her. It was by then 3 against him. Oh wait not just that. He also had a child from an affair too. That man is my father's age by now, the half brother he doesn't care to ever meet either.

Be honest, how were most husbands in general back then? This was a terrible time when a woman was stuck and her luck relied on the provider. If she got lucky, the provider was a faithful gentleman but if not, then he was an abuser and cheater.

Updates

+1 y

He was born in 1913.

[FilmGuy93]

Men were definitely more traditional, so they were probably better overall. Women got screwed a lot harder when the men dropped the ball, though. My guess is that it was probably a situation where most men, probably 50-ish% were good men, another 30% were probably basically decent, but absent. Then, that last 20% were bad, with some smaller portion of those men being the actively abusive, controlling monsters that feminism holds up as the shining example of masculinity that they think all men followed.

It's important to remember that society has always looked down on and punished men who were abusive to their wives. That crap was never accepted as the norm, even if the defintion of what we would consider "abuse" was different.

[DryGermanGuy]

More traditional, for certain. That did not make them good or bad spouses per se, as this is - like today - up to the individual’s behavior.

[Vesuvius87]

I understand the traditional part but where most like my grandfather (cheaters and/or wife beaters) or decent, faithful ones that didn't hit their wives?

[Vesuvius87]

**were

[DryGermanGuy]

Considering the much lower divorce rate and from personal family experiences (grandfathers from 1915 and 1920) I am certain the large majority were decent people.

[midnightmoon05]

That was terrible.
I think things haven’t change for some.

as far as I know…most of my grand parents/great grand parents were respectful of each other.
may distance relatives mostly sane except for one aunt who was married into our family, she was not nice to my uncle. She wasn’t good to her kids either till her son got brain damaged due to neglect.

[rizeliman34]

God helps u