Sometimes it’s easy for us to forget that only about 40 years ago women were commonly held as second-class citizens - not so much legally, but culturally, as a matter of habit. Marilyn French’s The Women’s Room details radicals in the 1960’s nicely; so does Nora Ephron’s early writing. A lot of the things they fought for are now taken as simple common sense (while other aspects of women’s lib have not turned out quite as they would have imagined).
So that male/husband domination thing really pushes a lot of peoples’ buttons. Cloaking it under a religion is disingenuous.
So, if they do not believe in legal marriage, are they not shacking up and therefore committing sin in the eyes of God?
Why hasn’t CSS been called in to investigate this case?
Actually, regarding the Husband/Male domination thing, you’d be surprised on just how many women out there ( young, like this chick) actually want their husbands to make the decisions for them. It’s like they cashed in their brain. I cannot hang around these types w/o fear of developing a stroke.
Marc, I think lieu’s, characterization of the validity of these folks’ “religious” beliefs is pretty fair- they do so much in the way of mental gymnastics to find scriptural support for the attractive idea of avoiding taxes and the penalty of law, but somehow manage to turn a blind eye to an anecdote that’s included in three of the four gospels:
Um, I’d babble on a bit more, but “Shew me the tribute money” reminds me enough of Jerry Maguire that I’m going to off in the corner giggling for a bit.
Yes, they say that marriage in the eyes of God is all that’s needed to validate the marriage, and that it’s then recorded in a family bible, and if it was good enough for George Washington and Abraham Lincoln it’s good enough for them, and yada yada yada.
These people are NUTSO. I hope I run into them in Tax Court one day. (That’s a great place to find frothers-at-the-mouth.)
Oh, and they also don’t believe in any interpretation of the Constitution or any following of legal precedents. Except their own interpretations, I hasten to add.
Hmm…methinks perhaps there’s just a wee logical crevasse here?
Surely Federal laws are always going to trump religious rights: eg - what if the religion requires human sacrifice? Incest? Child rape? (eg if the religion requires marriage at age 12, and the Federal government and state government do not?)
Anyway this guy’s a fuck. And the woman’s a stupid cow for taking all his patriarchal crap.
Muslims are all about the men being the head of the house. I doubt anyone would be calling this woman a stupid cow were they Muslim instead of Christians (albeit really really weird ones, don’t get me wrong).
Depends, raised in a foreign culture and enculturated to believe women are property, I probably wouldn’t call her a stupid cow, although I’d feel a lot of pity for her.
Raised in the US and well aware of the rights she is entitled to - Muslim or Christian - well, I still wouldn’t call her a stupid cow (I don’t know I’d call many women stupid cows), but it is a different story.
I do know a women (a sister of a former coworker) who chose to marry into the Muslim faith, and a version thereof that did consider women to be definately second class citizens (I know Muslim women who are NOT second class to anyone). I don’t think I called her stupid, but I think I may have referred to her as misguided.
