Hands of Discipline

There's been an awful lot of sanctimonious guff lately about the perfidious effects of - and I'm using the "politically correct" term here - domestic violence. The notion that any nation which fails to maintain order and discipline soon slides into chaos and savagery goes doubly for the domicile. As inconvenient as it may be, the hand that caresses must occasionally transform itself into the fist that pacifies.

To the effeminates who disagree out of a misguided sense of chivalry, I say pish-posh. They may think they can reason with the fairer sex, but even they know, on those dark nights when the wench insists on trifling over the amount of Port consumed, such thoughts are folly. To indulge the personal for a moment, my wife, who's seen as much of the inside of a mathematics textbook as an Indonesian aboriginal has of the Louvre, magically transforms into a distaff version of Archimedes once the third bottle is uncorked. Would reason prevail over her shrieking, a noise known only to me and fabled Phineus? Clearly not.

Of course, corporal punishment delivered without restraint is to be avoided; after all, you must look at her face for much of the evening, and divorce is no longer the cup of tea it was for Henry VIII. But with measured delivery, the hands of discipline yield a bountiful harvest of tranquility on the homefront.

- Twimbley Duddleston IV