SKIMMINGTON

This picture illustrates wives that are beating their husbands.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a skimmington as a ludicrous procession, formerly common in villages and country districts, usually intended to bring ridicule or odium upon a woman or her husband in cases where the one was unfaithful to, or ill-treated, the other. In addition Michael Bristol states that “a skimmington ride could be a brutal form of punishment for the offending parties, who would be forced to straddle a beam and carried through the town streets. But skimmington might also be a kind of burlesque spectacle performed by ‘actors’ who would represent and exaggerate the shameful conduct.”1

Back to Resistance to Gender Construction