PETALING JAYA: Wanita MCA has criticised Selangor mufti Datuk Tamyes Abd Wahid for his justification of hitting a woman with a handkerchief if she was disobedient or did not listen to reason.
MCA vice-president Senator Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun said that it takes care and compassion for a marriage to succeed.
“His clarification and elaboration indicate he views any matrimony as based on a power-vs-submission relationship bent on punishment whereby the husband is the dominant partner who dictates while the wife is expected to be subservient and in complete obeisance,” Chew said in a statement on Friday.
Tamyes was reported to have said on Wednesday that Muslim husbands could cane their wives with the intention of “training” them as a form of “rehabilitation”.
He, however, refuted the report and said that if the wife was “disobedient and refuses to listen to reason”, a husband could hit her with a handkerchief after many “processes” such as giving her the cold shoulder and not sharing the same bed.
Chew also said that Tamyes did not give boundaries, expectations, subject matter or rules as to how a wife would be judged as having been “disobedient” as they were too broad and subjective.
“The wife is rendered in complete anxiety trying to decipher how to avoid being sebat with a handkerchief by a demanding spouse,” said Chew, who is also Deputy Minister of Women, Welfare and Community Development.
“Would Datuk Tamyes care to consider a role-reversal whereby a wife who is tired with her spouse’s idiosyncrasies which irritate her and fails to heed her despite her countless reasoning then sebat him with a handkerchief? Surely not, as such an idea is thoroughly inconceivable and preposterous,” she added.
Chew said that Tamyes’ advice would cause unhappiness and humiliation leading towards a marital breakdown and a dysfunctional family.
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