Our question would naturally be, "Do the people of your country ever strike women?"
In our particular state of chivalric civilization, striking women is one of the things so entirely out of the question that we do not consider it even a possibility, except in cases of insanity or of drunkenness, where the brute of the moment is not responsible for his action.
The very fact of its being an impossible, and therefore unmentionable, crime is the strongest suggestion against it.
If "Thou shalt not strike a woman" were listed in the category of commandments, and were constantly repeated as something hard to resist, and hence commanded against, I believe the crime would become common in circles where it is not thought of as possible now.
The best thing to do with a condemned thing is to cover it up, seal it up, and relegate it to the custody of the awful, unwritten law of unanimous disapproval.
It is said that when the Jesuit fathers went to Japan at the end of the sixteenth century they were warmly welcomed, and not only were permitted but invited to teach their religion.
One of the first things they did was to have the ten commandments of the old Mosaic law printed in Japanese, in the form of what we call a tract, and distributed among the people.
Reading was then, as now, a common accomplishment with the Japanese, and they were interested in the tract. They did not quite understand its purport, however, and one of their number was delegated to ask for an explanation.