Wives only go for physical violence when they reach a state of explosion and can no longer control themselves, said Fathiyyah Al-Qurashi, member of the Saudi Human Rights Commission.

She was speaking to Arab News on reports about the growing number of wives beating husbands.

Al-Qurashi rejected violence in all its forms — from men and women alike — but said women had few means to express their anger, including violence.

She called for the establishment of more family counseling centers and social institutions to deal with this trend. "We should give more attention to this problem before it snowballs," she added.

Head of the Reconciliation Department at the General Court in Makkah Mokhtar Muhammad Mawloud, who is a family counselor, recalled that his department had settled several disputes between husbands and wives, and cited two examples in which reconciliation was reached.

The wife used to beat him regularly. He said the husband had been keeping quiet, but he complained against his wife when she beat him up in the presence of his in-laws.

"All those years I had been silent. I never complained. But it was too much for me when my wife beat me in front of my in-laws," the husband said in his complaint to the court.

Mawloud also said another wife beat her husband brutally because he had waken her up for Fajr (early morning) prayer. "All I did was waking her out of her deep sleep to offer Fajr prayer on time. She woke up very angry and immediately started beating me," he complained to the court. Mawloud said these two cases had ended in reconciliation.