Remember not to follow religious advice for your marriage

Oh, Christian preachers. They do have a knack for speaking and behaving as though they honestly believed we were still living in the 1950s, don’t they? Whilst discrimination towards women is par for the course when it comes to religion, you can expect most bigots to be somewhat prudent and at least try to hide their intolerance, especially since being outed as a sexist pig does about as much good for your PR in our modern social world as being accused of racism or homophobia. Of course, this doesn’t stop some of the more staunch believers in the old ways from trying to remind us of the female half’s rightful place in society, particularly when it comes to their most sacred of all stones, marriage:

Church of England reverend Angus MacLeay issued a leaflet to churchgoers saying that women should not speak if questions could be answered by their husbands.

The leaflet, entitled The Role of Women in the Local Church, adds that wives should "submit to their husbands in everything.">

It continues, "Wives are to submit to their husbands in everything in recognition of the fact that husbands are head of the family as Christ is head of the church.

"This is the way God has ordered their relationships with each other and Christian marriage cannot function well without it."

Nice. I like how that sounds, “submit to their husbands in everything”. That doesn’t sound like it’s inviting non-consensual sex (ie. rape) or abuse at all, nooo. What a silly idea.

To compound the dangerous sexist nonsense, the church went on to present its solution for failing marriages:

Reverend Mark Oden, a married father-of-three, told the congregation, "We know marriage is not working.

"We only need to look at figures - one in four children has divorced parents. Wives, submit to your own husbands."

During the sermon, Rev. Oden also blamed "modern woman" for the high divorce rates in the U.K.

The problem with this archaic fool’s analysis is that he’s partially right, but not in the way he thinks. Yes, “modern woman” is somewhat responsible for increased divorce rates, but only in the sense that women these days are far less likely to be subservient, dominated little wifeys who take all the shit their spouses may throw at them like good little girls and never put up any resistance. Gone are the days where abusive, loveless or generally failed marriages were socially acceptable. While there are (too) many that are still that way, modern social tides and rules now favor equality between the sexes, which is obviously going to pose problems for sexist relics like these religious cranks when women assert themselves and decide to sever unions that no longer do and can work.

(via @religionnews)