Honor killing or murder?

There are regular reports from the Middle East countries where a hapless victim, typically an unwed lady caught in an amorous episode, get stoned to death in public by a family member, in the name of Honor killing.   Sometimes these are justified invoking Sharia law, on religious grounds.  Many times, these killings are sanctioned by the law of land, after a court-trial.

These are similar to the medieval practices in India, where Rajputs regularly killed their women and children, when defeat was certain in their battles against the Muslim rulers.  Their women folks were regularly degraded by their Muslim conquerors, and their children rendered Eunuchs.  The proud Rajput warriors chose to kill their family members to protect their perceived clan honor. 

The idea of honor was pushed to extremes at times.  Previously in India, the Hindu widows were perceived to lose their place in the society and forced to terminate their lives on the funeral pyre of their deceased husbands. 

Historically, there has always been a trade-off: upholding one's social standing, even at the cost of self-injury, or accepting potential humiliation to live another day.  Sadly for most of the victims, this decision was made by their community.

From a selfish gene point of view, it is hard to justify such deaths.  All living beings have an innate sense of survival and rarely give up their rights to live.  To overcome this resistance to death, society sometimes dangles such carrots as going straight to heaven on death for the religiously inclined, or honor and pension for the victim's survivors, for the modern day soldiers.

Laws of all civilized nations permit killing only under the most extreme circumstances, where the victim's death overwhelmingly benefits the society at large.  No life is deemed so despondent to justify terminating it.   It is crucial not to romanticize those who killed their dependents under the guise of family honor, patriotism, love or religion. 

A woman who loses her honor may redeem it some day.  One who loses her life loses it forever.