divebuddy - "Human nature is pretty constant. Shakespeare wrote plays about people who lived two thousand years ago, but those plays can be staged in a modern setting and still be relevant and entirely believable.
What you consider OK behaviour is in many ways instilled into you by your upbringing and culture. In this case, even more worrying is the lawyer's happy assertion that he would pour petrol over his daughter and set light to it, if she offended his sense of honour. If someone like him, I presume near the top of the food chain in India, thinks like that, what hope is there.."
I absolutely agree (Wow!)
The vast cultural differences around the world mean that one society's taboos which arouse horror and disgust are another society's accepted behaviours.
Again, that does not make these appaling situations right, or tolerable, but it does explain how they come to be.
All we can do is try and make others see that instances that bring pain, suffering, and death on innocent people can never be right, no matter how culturally entrenched they may be.