I was reading a promising-sounding book “English Girlhood at School” by Dorothy Gardiner, and wasn’t disappointed in my search for the historical spanking material:

Thomas More stressed the importance of ‘educating a girl to take her place worthily by her husband’s side in the making of a Christian home’… At the outset More’s picture of the ideal wife is drawn in firm lines; ‘may she be learned if possible… or at least capable of being so.’ Youth in a bride (is) an advantage, in so far as it afforded an opportunity to the husband of shaping tastes as yet unformed into harmony with his own. More’s first girl-wife had come but little educated from her country home, and owed to him her training in music and letters; even his second wife, a woman of mature years, learned after her marriage, in deference to his wishes, to sing and play the harp.

I hope the lucky women appreciated being able to play schoolgirl scenes with their husband.

Also, -

Erasmus and Vives also lay great stress upon the teaching office of the husband. … The reformers are much concerned with the question of education through the eye and the ear, with the need of surrounding a child from earliest years with influences with may give it a bent towards virtuous living. In particular Vives condemns parental over-indulgence. …He believes that the rod should never be off the boy’s back; ‘especially’, he adds, ‘the daughters should be handled without any cherishing.’

I don’t think I agree with that last bit. I believe firmly in being cherished; I positively insist on it from any Daddy of mine. This usually does involve spanking, the rod never being off my bottom and so on, but a little cherishing is surely not too much to ask for…