Domestic violence and the law

How an instance of domestic violence was punished not by the law but by a mob during the Victorian era
During our research into ‘Skegness in the 1880s’ we discovered an instance of the practice of ‘rantanning’.
‘Rantanning’ was the practice of publicly humiliating someone who had broken one of the local taboos, unwritten laws, or code of ethics. A mob would humiliate the offender in various ways, and as we discovered, could even murder the offender.
During our research we found only one instance of it occurring in Skegness.
It was however fairly common in other villages throughout Lincolnshire and may have been fairly common in other counties.
The rantanning incident in the above publication relates to a wife-beating incident. The local community was so outraged by this domestic violence that it decided to ‘rantan’ or punish the offender.
This sense of outrage might conflict with the traditional view of Victorian society; traditionally it is viewed as a society in which brutality - including wife-beating - was common, and acceptable.
The incident is vividly described in the historical publication ‘Skegness in the 1880s’ which is available locally and will soon be available to international readers.