The Bible
- A husband is to respect his wife: “Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel” (I Pet. 3:7).
- A husband should treat his wife like he treats his own body: “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies” (Eph. 5:28). Men make sure they have their needs met; if they love their wives, they will take care of them. Men do not want to be beaten; if they love their wives, they will not beat them.
- A husband should not be hateful toward his wife: “Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them” (Col. 3:19).
- A newly married Israelite man was to “cheer up” his new bride (Deut. 24:5).
- A wife has just as much right to sexual satisfaction in marriage as the husband: “The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife” (I Cor. 7:4).
- A wife has just as much right to divorce a fornicating husband as a man has to divorce his fornicating wife: “And if a woman shall put away her husband…” (Mark 10:12). The exception in Matthew 19:9 applies to her as well as to the husband.
- The penalty for rape under the law of Moses was death (Deut. 22:25-27).
- Israelite men were protective of their sisters’ sexual purity, though they were sometimes inconsistent in their own lives or excessive in dealing with those that had violated them (Gen. 34:31; II Sam. 13:28-29).
- Boaz warned his workers not to disrespect Ruth; he respected her for being a God-fearing woman (Ruth 2:9,12).
- A virtuous woman is priceless and should be praised (Prov. 31:10-31).
Islam
- Husbands are told to beat their wives into submission: “As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill conduct, admonish them, refuse to share their beds, beat them” (Quran: Al Nisa, 4:34). The most prominent Muslim organization in this country is the Council for American – Islamic Relations (CAIR). The translation of the Quran they distribute tries to soften this harsh passage by saying “spank them (lightly)” instead of “beat them.”
- The Quran tells men that their wives are like a field: “Your wives are as a tilth unto you, so approach your tilth when or how you will” (Quran: Al Baqarah, 2:223). Muslim men might say no disrespect is intended by calling a wife a tilth (field) to be plowed, but would they allow their wives to call them oxen or donkeys that work in the field?
- A woman’s testimony in court is worth half the testimony of a man: “And get two witnesses out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women…so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her” (Quran: Al Baqarah, 2:282).
- The founder of this religion, Muhammed, contracted a marriage with a six-year-old girl named Aisha when he was 49. When she became nine, he took her as his wife (Al-Bukhari, vol. 5, book 63, no. 3896).
- Other despicable Islamic traditions in some countries include: Female circumcision (to keep wives from having any pleasure in sex and thus to prevent them from committing adultery), easy divorce (for men, that is—all a Muslim man has to do is say “I divorce you”), temporary wives (just as it sounds: a Muslim man is allowed to start and end these relationships at will), and harsh restrictions in court (in some countries a woman who accuses a man of rape must have four male witnesses).
Remember, there is no separation of religion and government in Islam.
-Kerry Duke