Originally Posted by Willravel

I don't think morality is the right word for it. There are innate behavioral tendencies and there's the social contract. The innate behavioral tendencies wouldn't necessarily transcend culture, but culture often clashes with these tendencies. The slapping of one's wife is clearly a part of the regional social contract, but it would likely be against a human's innate behavioral tendencies. Since the social contract works best when founded on the innate behavioral tendencies, this seems to be a situation where one can judge the legal decision as ultimately poor. The same can be said of pious laws that forbid normal human sexual tendencies, for example.