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