It is never OK to beat the wife. The meaning of verse 34 chapter 3 multiple ideas that are wrong. First, let's see the quote of the translation which is mostly accepted, and the link provided has multiple translations into all the languages once can imagine.
"Men are in charge of women by [right of] what Allah has given one over the other and what they/men spend [for maintenance] from their wealth. So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in [the husband's] absence what Allah would have them, guard. But those [wives] from whom you fear arrogance - [first] advise them; [then if they persist], forsake them in bed; and [finally], strike them. But if they obey you [once more], seek no means against them. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted and Grand."
God describes the righteous woman as devoutly obedient to her husband, while a husband doesn't require such obedience to be righteous. Here, a man is righteous by default, doesn't need the special warning. Clear, unmistakable inequality between (or among) genders. Men in other places are called to be righteous, but obedience to a spouse isn't related to manliness.
I know about many hadiths that portray Muhammad as a man who said multiple times that the best man is the one who treats his wife well. However, again, it is a pure showing of double standards. The Holy book in other places mention women and put them in line of importance to the second place, after men, with children, and before slaves.
A woman is voiceless semi-person in the culture that brought the holy book of Islam. This culture is also the one that shaped the collections of hadiths - narrations about what Muhammad, and even his followers (based on their understanding of how he would react), did. In those hadith, factual irregularities about nature, physics, embryology, take for granted women as minor people.
How to understand the verse?
Every person understands the revelation individually. Scholars of all schools of thought in Islam agree on the certain meanings of each verse, and when they disagree, it is a door for creating another division, or eventually entire school of thought. Theophany is by a default an individual experience, and regardless of it being a prophetic one, or an inspiring one, it is still individual. The only possibility to present the understanding of it to others is with words. Images make no sense because it is again subjective to personal feel, impression and/or senses. The petro-dollar-funded schools of thought tend to maintain a singular stream of thought, but it is again liable to different ideas. The ideology behind the Wahhabi understanding of everything is that everybody must understand things the way "the first generations" understood it.
How the first generations understood the Qur'an
It is blasphemy to question their ability to understand the verses. However, it is obvious that it shouldn't be. When we analyze hadiths in which the first generations explain how the sun sets into a muddy pond, without having one tiny bit of today's pragmatical "metaphorical" description of it, they understood it literally. This isn't a bad thing necessarily, because it also gives us an idea how they understood other verses.
It is safe to accept they really didn't know that the earth was a sphere revolving around the Sun, which is a huge star, central celestial body in our planetary system. They believed the Qur'an when it described the Earth as created by a god while the sky (the ceiling above us) was "smoke", and the sky itself is the ceiling along which the Sun and the Moon travel each day and night. Also, a day was something like a sheet over the sky, and the night was also a sheet that would cover the sky. We find no discussions about what it really is. We do find discussions of the people from the first post-divine-revelation generation talking about the Sun.
The sky is the platform that can be folded like a sheet of paper, from which rain falls, on which are stars - which serve as protection for it, from which a voice can be heard. These are all hadiths which you, my dear friends can find online, and you can simply use the search word "sky" to see what interesting descriptions we have about the sky.
But, take a look at this hadith, from Sahih Muslim, narrated on the authority of Abu Dharr that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) one day said:
Do you know where the sun goes? They replied: Allah and His Apostle know best. He (the Holy Prophet) observed: Verily it (the sun) glides till it reaches its resting place under the Throne. Then it falls prostrate and remains there until it is asked: Rise up and go to the place whence you came, and it goes back and continues emerging out from its rising place and then glides till it reaches its place of rest under the Throne and falls prostrate and remains in that state until it is asked: Rise up and return to the place whence you came, and it returns and emerges out from its rising place and it glides (in such a normal way) that the people do not discern anything ( unusual in it) till it reaches its resting place under the Throne. Then it would be said to it: Rise up and emerge out from the place of your setting, and it will rise from the place of its setting. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said. Do you know when it would happen? It would happen at the time when faith will not benefit one who has not previously believed or has derived no good from the faith.
You can think it is not, but if you open your heart, you'll know that the verse https://quran.com/14/33?translations=101 means here that the sun and the moon are doing something together, in this case, gliding across the sky, and not moving separately, the Moon around the Earth, the Sun in the galaxy, with other stars.
It's clear, the two are in pair, just like the night time and daytime (النهار - is different from "a day", like period of time)
Again, the sun has a resting place as the people understood it back then. It was a "fact" that the world works in a certain way, and no divine revelation denied it, rather it accepted it as a fact, and it used the wonder of how a sky has no visible pillars, and how the sun and moon glide - the wonder of that was ascribed to divine power.
Likewise, humanity in its early civilization was closer to a herd than to a town we know today. The females weren't women, they were closer to how harems of apes we observe today fight for the females, and the females accept their role as child-bearers. The prophets of the day wanted to improve the position of individuals, and we see the willingness of the prophet Muhammad to ban wife-beating.
Iyas bin 'Abdullah (May Allah be pleased with him) reported:
Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said, "Do not beat Allah's bondwomen." When 'Umar (May Allah be pleased with him) came to Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) and complained saying: "The women have become very daring towards their husbands," He (Muhammadﷺ) gave permission to beat them. Then many women went to the family of the Messenger of Allah (wives) complaining of their husbands, and he (the Prophet (ﷺ)) said, "Many women have gone round Muhammad's family complaining of their husbands. Those who do so, that is, those who take to beating their wives, are not the best among you".
However, we see him struggling to impose his ideas on his companions. This is also by many a blasphemy, but we can use any words we like, the fact is that Muhammad's order to not beat women was challenged by one of his companions.
This is why we should not accept the morality of social standards from the people who had different facts of nature, as well as human interactions.
We should look at Muhammad's ideas solely, without allowing other ideas to interfere.
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