good grief... to take a line from the Peanuts comic strip

the song most encountered in my school books for "folk song" was Frankie & Johnnie... how's that for confusing and not a great tune either for kids- imho

and if you go through the verses... he DID NOT actually hit his wife, which is part of the joke...

1. the wife is what we would now refer to as "high maintainence" - not much of a domestic partner in any case

2. he uses the sheepskin as a ploy to threaten her into cooperation

3. the ploy works

the tradition is filled with songs about dark subjects, and if I were teaching kids the "Wee Cooper of Fife" I would see this as an great opportunity to broach the subject of conflict resolution - without violence... though my sad experience has been that there are too few who use the opportunity when it arises.

As I kid I bristled a bit at the thrashing line - but I also felt that the wife was far from being a nice person herself.

also, make no mistake about it... wife beating is a whole different kettle of fish, just like rape has less to do with lust, this is more to do domination and aggression mixed with other negative traits.