 In legal theory about gendered violence, the possibility of separating the public from the private sphere is critical. Historically law did not address injuries inflicted by intimates. So, while the single greatest civil purpose of law has been to keep men from violating one another (the only greater being to repel foreign invasion), much violation of women by men has been considered as a private matter beyond the purview of law. Domestic chastisement was once considered legitimate discipline of one’s wife and marital rape was excluded from the definition of rape in many criminal law statutes. Feminists criticized the presumption that such behavior among intimates was beyond the purview of the criminal law and these limitations have largely been overcome, at least in the United States and Europe.