Getting Biblical in Daily Life
Corporal Punishment
The Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye wrote that Proverbs 19:18 ("Discipline your children while there is still hope, do not set your heart on their destruction") has probably caused more human suffering than any other Bible verse—since the rest of Proverbs makes it plainly clear that "discipline" means beating your kids. Most people in contemporary America and Canada might agree (if they were familiar with Proverbs, that is).
Obviously, the authors of Proverbs view the matter a bit differently. They probably wouldn't disagree with the basic contention that they're recommending making your kids suffer, though. Obviously, that's what beating them with a rod would do, but Proverbs likely takes the "suffering builds character" line. The world is a crucible where pain makes human beings progress towards holiness and success.
This issue isn't totally dead in American today—corporal punishment still happens quite frequently, taking "corporal punishment" as an intentional disciplinary method, as opposed to unhinged physical abuse. Still, the lines between these two things obviously get completely blurred all the time—that's part of the issue. Opposition to corporal punishment, and the lingering pain it's caused, can be found in the work of writers as prominent and frequently read as Roald Dahl and George Orwell.
Thirty-one states in the U.S. ban corporal punishment in public schools—but it's still semi-common in parts of the South (though it usually requires parental consent). The Biblical warrant for the practice clearly remains an important part of the issue.
(See this New York Times 2006 article for some more semi-recent detail on the debate.)
Women's Rights and Feminism
Proverbs can be used to argue both for and against feminism. On the one hand, it spends a great deal of time discussing adulterous women, while it seems to view adulterous men more as the victim of seductresses. At the same time, its image of the capable wife is not the picture of a meek and cowed human being—the capable wife is able to consider and buy property with her own money, and generally seems to be pretty in control of things, and not particularly subservient.
Jack Miles argues that the advice Proverbs gives is not only fatherly, but motherly as well—many of the proverbs could easily have originally been things that mothers would tell their children. Whatever the case, it's difficult to judge Proverbs by contemporary standards, given how immensely different life was at the time (though in many ways similar—as evidenced by numerous sayings that are still around today).
Whether Proverbs is a feminist or anti-feminist text is largely a matter of interpretation—it can justifiably be seen through either lens depending on who is doing the interpreting. It provides ammunition for either side in any such debate—kind of like… the rest of the Bible.