For the morally equivalent among us, show me where any Christian, Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist religion has, not only an official position on beating wives but also the secondary status of women being just above slaves (remember, it's cool in Islam to keep slaves).
The exhortation to beat the disobedient wife is not an aberration, oddity, disjointed concept, or stand alone element, in Islam’s positioning of females, rather, the command to beat disobedient wives is founded upon a woman’s subservient / secondary status in Islam. You cannot separate the issue of wife beating apart from the context of her inferior position in the marriage relationship.
To fully comprehend the issue of Islamic wife beating her position with respect to her husband must be first understood. Wife beating is allowed because of the lower position she occupies. A person with a severe virus may run a high fever. While the fever can be quite a grave problem it is actually a symptom of another sickness at work. Wife beating is a symptom of the wife’s degraded status in Islam. Beyond the right of husbands to beat their disobedient wives, there is a deeper, more pernicious, disease at work. Wife beating is merely the bad fruit of a bad root. Once this element is understood the rationale behind Muhammad’s command to beat disobedient wives comes into focus and fits in its proper place.
When I first began to study the topic, I did not realize that an Islamic marriage is not equivalent to a Christian marriage. Its rules, roles, and requirements are quite different. In a Christian marriage, the husband is given the role as head of the household, and the wife is expected to submit to the husband’s leadership. However, she is his equal in terms of social and religious status; she is not inferior to him. In Islam, the husband is the custodian of his wife. She is considered to be in-between slave and free. The woman is managed and controlled. The relationship between a married woman and her husband is similar to the relationship between parents and children. Parents have a responsible custody of their children and expect their obedience. When children are disobedient they are disciplined and sometimes spanked. Muhammad’s viewpoint of women was that they lack self-control, and thus for their own good, and societies’ good, they must be subordinate to their husbands. They must obey. Although an adult women is more mature and capable than a child she is still not equal to a man; thus is subject to him. Islam teaches that men are superior to women. When a man gives his bride a dowry, he is accredited the right to manage his wife. By accepting his dowry, a woman is giving her husband the right to her regulation.
http://www.answering-islam.de/Main/Silas/wife-beating.htm
No question, there are Christian men who beat their wives but they don't do it at the urging of the Bible.