really?

From today's newspaper: "A recent report of the National Family Health Survey 2005-06, says 47 per cent women in Uttar Pradesh believe it is justifiable for their husbands to beat up them. But what comes as a surprise is that the number of men who subscribe to this view is less — 44 per cent."

The last sentence is indeed very depressing. I am curious what % of this consists of urban population. Also its worth to note that this is just dealing with physical abuse, verbal abuse being not counted for. My guess is if that was included the numbers will be much higher --- even the notion of whats acceptable level of physical/mental abuse is can vary across person (although really the only acceptable level is NIL). Moving away from numbers, what does this really imply. It just shows us we do not honor our women enough, and for whatever reason women of our country have low self-respect. Its a culmination of how they are treated, their education, environment, myths, etc. Overall quite depressing -- no amount of economic improvement counts until we can address such a basic issue. The only comparable one may be basic education.