Honestly guys.. in the context of which this dude was speaking, he was clearly exhorting muslims to be patient and non-violent.

It's sort of like the newspaper trick with dogs. It's not like the newspaper actually hurts the dog. It's a symbolic action that expresses that a limit has been reached.

Of course i do not mean to compare women to dogs at all. The point is that in the way he explained the allowance the quran makes for husbands disciplining their wives, the allowance is there to give men another avenue to expression. It does not imply that women can only be disciplined by corporal punishment, but instead the opposite. Just as the silent treatment and the physical distance are ways of expressing dissatisfaction, so too the "beatings" must NOT take any other form than as a symbolic expression.