Interesting blog post I came across which briefly discusses the plight of women who were maltreated by their husbands.  There was one case that stands out:

Wife-beating was both widely tolerated and sanctioned by law in 18th-century England. Yet the ordeal suffered by Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of Strathmore, at the hands of her husband so shocked Georgian sensibilities that she not only won landmark legal battles but her husband was banished to prison.

We've come a long way since.