A much smaller lie than the 1-in-4 lie and the income disparity lie, but nonetheless an attempt to re-write history.

The story that the expression "rule of thumb" comes from a law allowing a man to beat his wife with a rod as long as it was "no thicker than his thumb" is to be disbelieved for the following reasons.

  1. The law itself is attributed to various situations. At least one of these circumstances is in itself fictitious (attribution to the folk myth of Romulus, mythical founder of Rome) and none of the others can actually be found. There is no English law which can be found relating to this.

  2. There is a perfectly good explanation of this phrase; a thumb can be used as a measure. I have seen tradies count thumbwidths, and it is notable that the English unit of an inch originally meant thumb-width. The French word for inch is still the same as the French word for thumb (une pouce).

  3. The story is totally illogical anyway; if you are going to be beaten with a rod, you want the rod to be as thick as possible to spread the blow.

This rule of thumb lie serves to promote the idea that women have in the past been victims of male brutality and abuse, useful in the event that current statistics showing DV to be a two-way street start to get the attention they deserve.