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You're assuming morality is 100% relative, Fotzlid. It's not. There's a very, very good reason that humans developing in completely different parts of the world with no interaction whatsoever came up with very, very similar laws: the social contract is based on innate human needs and social understandings. I may be born in the US and a Saudi in Saudi Arabia, but encoded through millions of yeas of evolution are the same social understandings that were required for the continuation of our species. You can only go against those so much before offending a human dignity or understanding that predates whatever stupid cultural crap you're trying to follow. Take premeditated murder as an extreme example to demonstrate the point. Premeditated murder, that is an unjustifiable killing of another human being that was planned and executed by one of sound mind, is universally immoral. Sure, there have been pockets of societies that have rebelled against this, but overall this is a basic human morality that supersedes culture. Why would it supersede culture? Premeditated murder is dangerous to our species. If, when humans were developing, murder was allowed, our important population numbers and our pack-unity would have both been threatened, which would have put the survival of our species at risk.
Slapping women is not necessarily a danger to our species (and actually mass murder isn't anymore, either), but once, the rapport between men and women was necessary for mating, and as such, it's a part of innate human behavior for men to not beat a woman (any woman, as they might have a shot at mating with in the future).
Anyway, aside from all that evolutionary sociology, any ideology or cultural belief that causes harm to someone doesn't have a moral leg to stand on, as no ideology or cultural belief isn't as important as the golden rule. The golden rule is the center of all human interaction and is the foundation for all human law. This shit about being allowed to hit your wife is simply institutionalized sexism and demonstrates a fundamental weakness in certain Saudi men that are incapable of communicating with women in a healthy way because the society they grew up in didn't teach them correctly. I wish it were as simple as blaming religion, but I know plenty of Muslim men that are able to have a healthy and loving relationship with a woman without resorting to physical violence. The blame lies with sexists that use religion as a shield (much like homophobes here in the US that use religion as a shield, a flimsy excuse for their childish bigotry).
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