Wives "submit" to your husbands
Predictably that quote from the Bible by curate Mark Oden has stirred up a hornet's nest.
The apparent lack of obedience of "modern women" he's blamed for the high divorce rate in a sermon entitled "Marriage and women".
Ah, I hear your deafening cry.
"How dare he. How outrageous. What a nerve. What does he think we are, dogsbodies? I know I'd be clobbering him if I was Mrs Oden."
That's the popular cry of women affronted by this Kent curate.
But me? I'm delighted that he's turned the spotlight on this touchiest of subjects. Brave man and more fuel to his fire.
It's a wake-up call for the strident, power-mad females who have yet to learn the lesson that it's not by laying down the law that we get our own way, but by letting him think he's made the decision.
Those of us who nurture that old-fashioned notion that the man should be head of the house – anathema to so many younger women – should take it to heart that women far wiser and more experienced than them, have learnt this cardinal rule.
And when the you-know-what hits the fan, he can take the rap.
Women are so much wilier than men.
It's a natural asset and those of us with the nous to use it play the game with a quiet confidence that KOs them every time.
I say this from experience. Sadly, it's something that so many wives today haven't cottoned on to in their demanding, equality culture. And that's their downfall.
The Rev Oden wasn't talking about sexual submissiveness – wives letting their men tie them to the bedpost – or indeed, submit to his sexual demands.
He was urging women to look at their marriages and his follow-up sermon last Sunday was aptly entitled "Marriage MoT".
He had earlier said: "Whatever we do, it (modern marriage) is not working.
"The Bible's claim is that God invented marriage. Marriage was God's idea. God knows how it works."
God alone does because it's beyond me. And so he's been lambasted by saying what he knows "might not be palatable " but "we need to hear them".
Defiant he stands and Mr Oden, 35, says he has been deluged with messages of support from across the country – someone even left a bottle of wine on his doorstep.
I told Him who would be obeyed and I opened the floodgates: "It's about time somebody stood up and said that women should keep quiet. I agree with every word he says. Men daren't speak these days. It's about time women kept quiet for a while."
There was no stopping him. I've never heard him so impassioned for a long time.
And he hadn't finished: "Somebody has to be in charge. Somebody should take the lead in the house, not in an authoritarian way. It all depends on how you interpret it."
My sentiments exactly ...
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Friday 10 February 2012
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