In early modern Europe the killing of spouses, children or servants was a serious crime, as was the physical or sexual abuse of them. Yet convictions for what today we would call ‘domestic violence’ were rare. This chapter will analyse the understandings of gender that underpinned attitudes towards intimate violence. Male heads of households, for instance, were entitled, indeed expected, to employ physical force in order to maintain discipline amongst those under their control. The use of violence was not at issue; instead questions concerned the levels and types of violence employed. But if the head had licence to use violence, the reverse was certainly not the case: violence by dependants was widely interpreted as a form of treason. Attitudes to certain forms of intimate violence shifted significantly during 1500–1800. For instance, although rape continued to be treated primarily as a property crime and remained difficult to prove, nevertheless it also emerged increasingly as a moral offence. Regulation of illegitimacy and infanticide increased after 1500, yet by 1800 communal and judicial tolerance of the latter was on the rise. The chapter will not only highlight such gradual changes, but also seek to explain why they occurred and what they meant.