Perak mufti supports Obedient Wives Club
(The Star) – Perak mufti Tan Sri Harussani Zakaria has given his backing to the Obedient Wives Club, which offers “sex lessons” to help women keep their husbands.
Harussani, who recently banned the poco poco dance in Perak, said women needed to be reminded of their roles and responsibilities to their husbands.
“The younger generation is too absorbed in cultures that are not their own. Wives must be very obedient to their husbands.
“However, in Islam, the wife can go against her husband if what he does is not according to the religion,” he said, calling for more such clubs to be set up throughout the country as a way to counter social ills.
He was responding to a statement by club vice-president Dr Rohaya Mohamad that a husband who was kept happy in the bedroom would have no reason to stray, seek out prostitutes or indulge in other social vices.
The club had also offered sex lessons to help wives “serve their husbands better than a first-class prostitute”.
However, Johor Islamic Council advisor Datuk Nooh Gadut said the use of the term “first-class prostitute” was extreme, adding that marriages in Islam should not be just for sex but for, among others, love.
The Joint Action Group for Gender Equality (JAG), which includes the Women’s Aid Organisation, Sisters in Islam and Women’s Centre for Change, said the club’s principles were narrow-minded, degrading, and an insult to women around the world.
JAG spokesman Maria Chin Abdullah said Malaysian women had contributed enormously to society and that the latest development was a setback in progress.
“It is degrading to ask another individual in this case, a woman to wait on another person hand and foot. Our group is fighting for gender equality but the club is looking to degrade women even more.
“To objectify women as mere sex objects to satisfy their husbands’ lust is simply unacceptable.
“I hope more men can speak out against the club’s outrageous stand,” she told The Star yesterday.
Social activist Pang Khee Teik said women should realise that they were not only “doing it” for their husbands but for themselves as well.
“We must remember there are people with little or no sex drive. Any campaign by the club must not pressure women into feeling guilty about it,” said Pang, who is also the co-founder of annual sexuality rights festival that advocates equal sexual rights for all.
