{Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because They support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband's) absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (next), refuse to share their beds, (and last) beat them (lightly); but if They return to obedience, seek not against them means (of annoyance): for Allah is Most High, great (above you all).} (Qur'aan, chapter 4, verse 34)

Beating & desertion of the marriage bed are forms of treatment reserved only for the very disobedient or rebellious wife. This is an exception to the rule, in Islaam, of treating your wife with kindness and love. As a matter of fact, those forms of treatment reveal the Qur’an’s amazing insight into the phenomenon of wife-disobedience or rebelliousness (nushooz) & they also accord with the latest findings of modern psychology about the abnormal behaviour of women. The first form of submissiveness scientifically known as ‘masochism’ –the abnormal condition in which a woman finds pleasure in being beaten, tormented, and subjugated.

The other kind is the domineering behaviour or ‘sadism’, to put it in psychological jargon. It is that abnormal condition in which a woman derives pleasure from domineering, controlling, subjecting, tyrannizing over, & inflicting harm on others. The only way to deal with such a type is to disarm her & render her weapon hegemony useless.  That weapon is her feminity & by deserting her bed she is disarmed. As for the first abnormal type, the woman who finds pleasure only in being beating & subjected, beating will be the best cure for her...The hadith in Muslim states that the Prophet (peace be upon him) in his Farewell Pilgrimage said,

"Lo! My last recommendation to you is that you should treat women well. Truly, they are your helpmates, and you have no right over them beyond that -except if they commit a manifest indecency (fahisha mubina = adultery). If they do, then refuse to share their beds and beat themwithout indecent violence (fadribuhunna darban ghayra mubarrih*)." `Ata' said: "I asked Ibn 'Abbas, 'What is the hitting that is ghayr al-mubarrih?'

He replied,

'[With] the Siwaak and the like'." (Narrated by al-Tabari in his Tafsir (Dar al-Fikr reprint 5:68))