Wrong. Oh yes, all these facts are true, but they are only a veneer across the face of a world in which she is beaten, assaulted, tortured mentally and physically. As soon as the woman in Gujarat steps inside her home, she becomes -- statistically at least -- vulnerable to domestic violence that has been spiralling for the past few years.

Violence behind closed doors is a malaise that cuts through barriers of class, caste and creed, say organisations and officials working with women. ``It is a fact of life in most households, whether their daily income is Rs 5 or Rs 5,000'', says Elaben Pathak, secretary of the Ahmedabad Women's Action Group, which has been working on women's issues for 18 years.

Of the disproportionately large number of accidental deaths, Pathak offers only this terse comment: ``More than 99 per cent of the accidental deaths of married women are actually murders committed by their families. Husbands and in-laws get away because of lack of evidence that women are pressured (by family and society) not to provide in their dying declarations''.

Pathak's belief that domestic violence is not restricted to a particular class is backed up Deputy Commissioner of Police (Administration), Vadodara, Meera Ramnivas, who launched the local Women's Helpline three months ago. ``About 50 per cent of those who approached us are from the upper strata of society; the rest come from the middle and lower strata'', she says.

The triggers of domestic violence, however, vary. ``Extra-marital affairs among the wealthy; ego-clashes (brought on by the woman's attempt to assert herself) among the middle-classes; and financial crisis (brought on by habits such as addictions and gambling) among the economically backward are the chief reasons behind violence at home'', says Ramnivas.

``Domestic violence is linked to the social set-up'', says Pathak. ``In a large number of cases, a lack of support from the parents prevents women from fighting torture at their in-laws. Even when a woman approaches her parents for help, she is advised to return to her husband''.

Apart from social conditioning, fear, too, holds back tortured women from taking on their tormentors. ``A woman from a well-educated family, who was severely beaten up by her husband over a trivial issue, refuses to lodge a police complaint in apprehension of further atrocities'', says Ramnivas. ``In yet another instance, an upper-class woman who threatened to report her husband to the police was told by him that the police could not provide her an alternative and would ultimately return her to him''.

Sheer helplessness brought on by lack of support, in Ramnivas's opinion, eventually drove women to suicide.

Director-General of Police C P Singh, however, maintains that domestic crime against women appears to be high because registration of cases was high (that is, fewer cases go unreported). But he too becomes a victim of popular fallacy when he says, ``Women are more safe in Gujarat than in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh or Bihar. I am told women can't move out alone in Patna''.

But maybe they can move about without fear of violence in their homes?