The Great Indian MCP: Beating wife social right

NEW DELHI: A woman requires a man... men are the real heads of any family... without a man a woman is nothing.
* It is not a constitutional right to beat our wives... it is a social right.
* If women have too much freedom, they will only bring a bad name to the family... they have to be controlled.
* If I hit my wife who can question me? I have to put fear into her.
These are only a sampling of responses from men who have no qualms admitting that they beat their wives. In fact, they try to rationalise and justify their actions as being provoked and a justified show of strength, says a study on the attitudes and perceptions of men and women about domestic violence.
Conducted by Oxfam, an international development organisation, the study covered metros, small towns and rural areas and encompassed men and women from all socio-economic segments and income profiles. Presenting the key findings of this study at a workshop on Thursday, Oxfam officials said their research shows that most people look upon violence as endemic to life while women feel that they are never safe from violence.
"While all respondents condemn acts of violence and in practice tend to treat these as a family matter, they feel men have the sanction to be violent and women deserve punishment," says the study.
This comes through quite clearly in the responses of the men, and even young boys, who were interviewed by the Oxfam team. The study says that men believe that male domination is both natural and socially sanctioned, particularly those who have grown up watching women being physically and verbally abused. Referred to as the "Male Privilege", these men have clear do''s and don''ts for women.
Then there are others, dubbed as the "Victims of Circumstance", who resort to violence out of frustration when they find that "women do not give them the respect they deserve".
Yet another category of perpetrator, termed as the "Moral Masquerader", is a self-righteous male who sees himself as the custodian of the social and moral order. "He is the repository of all knowledge and virtue. The attitude of such men is that they are the voice of God and must correct those around them. Such men see their mothers as deified but fallible women, the wife as someone to be mistrusted simply because she is a woman, the daughter and sister as women to be controlled, protected and groomed," the study points out.
Another category, "The Outlaw", sees himself as above social and moral codes, who sees masculinity as the right to instant gratification of primal emotions. "He revels in brutality," says the study.