16 AMERICAN BLUES THEATER TIMELINE OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE LAWS  Early 1500’s: Two English common laws explicitly allowed wife beating for correctional purposes. To limit such behavior, many U.S. states passed rule of thumb laws limiting what could be used for wife beating to a whip no bigger than a thumb.  1871: Alabama was the first state to rescind the legal right of men to beat their wives.  1882: Maryland first state to make wife beating a crime punishable by 40 lashes or a year in jail.  1886: North Carolina courts barred criminal indictment for spousal abuse unless the husband‘s battery resulted in permanent injury, endangered her life, or was malicious beyond all reasonable bounds.  1911: The first Family Court is created in Buffalo, NY with the goal of solving family problems in a setting of discussion and reconciliation with social service intervention.  Late 1960s/Early 1970s: The women’s movement of the 1960’s and the anti-rape movement of the 1970’s encouraged survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault to speak out leading to the formation of the domestic violence movement and the formation of women’s crisis centers and hotlines.  1962: New York transferred all domestic violence cases from criminal to civil courts, allowing men to avoid the harsh penalties they would suffer if found guilty in criminal court.  1966: Beating as cruel and inhumane treatment, becomes grounds for divorce in New York, but the plaintiff must establish that a sufficient number of beatings have taken place.  1967: The state of Maine opens one of the first battered women’s shelters in the United States.  1975: Most U.S. states allow wives to bring criminal action against a husband who inflicts injury upon her.  1976: Nebraska makes marital rape a crime.  1990: Stalking is first identified as a crime.  1990: For the first time judges are required by state laws to consider any history of spousal abuse before determining child custody or visitation rights.  1992: The Surgeon General ranks abuse by husbands to be the leading cause of injuries to women ages 15-44.  1992: The American Medical Association releases guidelines suggesting that doctors screen women for signs of domestic violence.  1994: The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) becomes law providing 1.6 billion dollars for 6 years to provide services for victims of rape and domestic violence, provides training to increase police and court officials' sensitivity, and provides that states and American Indian nations give full faith and credit to protection orders issued in another jurisdiction.  2002: The Violence Against Women Office was renamed the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) and was made a permanent office at the U.S. Department of Justice with a Presidentially appointed and Senate confirmed Director. Flyin’ West takes place in 1898, a time when victims of domestic violence had virtually no legal power. The timeline below outlines some of the laws—and some of the legal setbacks—that have been put in place to protect and empower survivors of domestic violence through the years. (edited from Library.niwap.org) Women protesting in Boston in August 1976