Mick Hartley

A group of Malaysian Muslim women say they will fight divorce, domestic violence and other problems — by appealing to wives to be more obedient, one of the organisers said Friday.

Oh yes.

Maznah Taufik said "The Obedient Wife Club" being launched Saturday is aimed at drawing women who will be taught how to please their husbands better to prevent them from straying or misbehaving.

"We just want to ask all the wives to be obedient wives so that there will be fewer problems in our society," such as infidelity, divorce and domestic violence, she told AFP.

"Obedient wife means they are trying to entertain their husbands, not only taking care of their food and clothes," Maznah said. "They have to obey their husbands. That's the way Islam also asks." …

Maznah said it was also the men's responsibility to teach their wives to be obedient.

"Some wives, they just want to get married for leisure but they don't know the responsibility," she said.

"To entertain their husbands is compulsory. If she doesn't do this, the husband will look for another woman… and the house will break down."

Saturday's launch near the capital Kuala Lumpur will include speeches and a show to demonstrate to women how to be good wives, Maznah said, adding that a similar club was set up in Jordan last month.

It gets better:

Maznah is already involved in another controversial venture — the Ikhwan Polygamy Club, which was launched in 2009 to promote polygamy. Muslim men in Malaysia can take up to four wives.

She is herself in a polygamous marriage, as the second of her husband's two wives.

You may have to wait a while for the outrage from certain Western feminists though. Let's not forget Naomi Wolf:

[W]hen I travelled in Muslim countries and was invited to join a discussion in women-only settings within Muslim homes, I learned that Muslim attitudes toward women's appearance and sexuality are not rooted in repression, but in a strong sense of public versus private, of what is due to God and what is due to one's husband. It is not that Islam suppresses sexuality, but that it embodies a strongly developed sense of its appropriate channelling – toward marriage, the bonds that sustain family life, and the attachment that secures a home.

Indeed.

[Via Butterflies & Wheels]