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The old Pakistani maulawi fiddled with the combination and hauled on the iron door of the a giant British-made safe. Then he placed the 100 rupee bill inside and locked the vault. "You see?" he said. "This is like a woman. She must be protected and looked after, because she is more precious than us."

I was supposed to be impressed by the high status which he accorded women. What struck me, of course, was that this high status appeared to accord women an exclusively economic value, and that this might lie behind the whole misogynistic system which has led us to the curse of "honour" crimes.

Tariq Rahman, Professor of South Asian Studies in Islamabad, wrote that "since a woman is, as it were, a treasury or a vault where men's "honour" is stored away, she is their property. She is to be guarded, of course, but only as a box of treasure is guarded – not for itself but for what it contains."

"Honour" crimes are set in traditions. "Religious men are very important in this matter," Jordanian lawyer Ahmed Najdawi says. "After the French Revolution, the West broke the stranglehold that religious people had on society. Unfortunately, here, we have not managed to get rid of the hold of religious men."

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-truth-about-honour-killings-2075317.html