A modern folk etymology holds that the phrase is derived from the maximum width of a stick allowed for wife-beating under English law, but no such law ever existed. This belief might have originated in a rumored statement by eighteenth-century judge Sir Francis Buller that a man may beat his wife with a stick no wider than his thumb. The rumor produced numerous jokes and satirical cartoons at Buller's expense, but there is no record that he made such a statement.