The issue of violence against women has always been a major concern of feminism, simply because women have suffered grievously from it throughout history. So many cultures have ignored, condoned or even encouraged the brutal subjugation of women that justification of the practice in all its manifestations seemed to acquire the status of immutable natural law. Violence and the threat of violence serve to intimidate and demoralize women so that they are less likely to challenge their inferior status within the family and community.
Violence is a powerful tool of oppression.
Many social customs, schools of philosophy and religious teachings have validated the convoluted theory that women are inherently inferior because they are smaller, weaker, less rational, more emotional and more cowardly than men and therefore naturally subject to male domination. Before that we were ownable, like cattle or chairs. What a man did with his own property was nobody's business. There was one notable exception. In the 19th century, a few women in Europe and the United States proffered the preposterous notion that women, although different from men, were equally valuable and entitled to the very same rights being claimed by men.