Not really expert, just interested. Others here have more authority.
My understanding is that a paterfamilias had pretty well absolute power over his family and household,
there were laws protecting women, children and even slaves, but a wealthy, powerful man could safely ignore them -
certainly if I were an erring daughter, or an adulterous wife, I think he would have been able to punish me and even kill me
without the law intervening (though in the case of a wife, her own family might)
The scenario you've described may be pushing it a bit, but I don't think it's all that far from the truth.
After three lashes I'm a sobbing babe, after six a screaming madwoman,
kicking, hurling my body around, crashing against the post and the squirming body of the slavegirl.
I pray to the gods, I plead for mercy, I feel my warm blood trickling, streaming, cascading down my back, my flanks,
soaking my loincloth, oozing down my thighs.
After twelve lashes, the lictor pauses, but only so he and the crowd can enjoy the way I'm shuddering and shaking in spasms
as my nerves absorb the pain, my body tries to cope. And then, as the lashing resumes, I let out a howl like a vixen in the night.
Another ten strokes, the lictor's tired - poor man! His colleague takes over, wraping the single-thonged bullwhip
around my ribs, my hips and my thighs, it's a new kind of pain, shaper, more concentrated,
I'm too breathless now to yell, I just gasp as the strokes drive me on, kicking frantically, swinging on the chain,
dancing the dance of the furies.
He stops - is it the end? I've long since lost count, surely I've had far more than 36? The crowd are roaring,
the man with the Scourge strolls back to the Whipping Post, tugs back my hair, looks into my eyes,
"Oh no," I croak, "p-please, no more..."
The last six are the worst, he makes me spin round to face him, I daren't disobey,
he rips the knotted cords across my bare breasts, blood spurts, I whine weakly,
lower now, my rib-cage, my stomach, the wretched rag falls away and my womanhood's exposed,
his final blow drags the torture-instrument right across my female part,
I throw back my head and force out a shrill screech of utter despair, horror and shame....
death, even the death of the cross, can only be welcome relief...
