Did you notice the article says, "Although Islam prohibits violence against women, many believe spousal abuse is common in the almost entirely Muslim Saudi Arabia."
Where are they getting that from?
Quote from ArchAngel:
Don't know what a survey would show (although you'd probably get similar or higher results in parts of West Virginia and Arkansas).
What people in the US would say in a survey is immaterial - what they actually do was the point of my earlier post.
A "survey" in the US might not show 1/10th the numbers of the UN survey, but the FBI statistics do show actual occurances much higher than I'm presuming you were expecting - domestic violence in 25-35% of American homes and a woman beaten every 15 seconds on average, etc.
Is it worse in the Middle East? Quite probably. Is the issue exclusive to the Middle East and is the "civilized" West immune to it - nope.
Quote from spect8or:
And with these muslims (those who believe it's right), not only do the believe it's right, they believe, literally (and fervently), it's a god given right. Which again, is very, very different to what you'd find in the west. Sure, spousal abuse no doubt happens the world over, but you don't see an entire socio-religious structure lending support to it in america the way you do in the middle east do you?