A new Afghan law allows men to withhold food from recalcitrant wives if they refuse to have sex.
The law, a sop to the nation’s Shia minority, originally legalised rape within marriage, forcing women to have sex with their husbands at least once every four days, as well as eliminating the need for a wife to actually consent to sex.
Progressive elements within the nation and all civilised nations without it condemned it as being barbarously oppressive, and the Afghan president relented and opted to revise the law.
However, the revised version, which quietly passed into law, is seen as almost as bad, as it allows a husband to starve his female slave if she has the temerity to refuse his lusts, and also requires the woman to have permission from her husband in order to work.
Afghanistan’s president was supposed to be promoting civilisation and development, but observers say he is attempting to court Islamist conservatives in order to assure his election victory.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8204207.stm 