This story, which first came to my attention a week or two ago, makes me truly grateful to be a woman living in the United States.  To contemplate being an Afghani woman, subject to laws making it illegal to refuse a husband's advances, is truly mind-boggling.  I am happy to see women protesting this move, but can only imagine the price that they will have to pay before they acquire any small measure of dignity in that country.

They face an uphill battle in a society in which they can be refused an education and shuttered behind doors at the whim of the male head of their household. 

Perhaps, the most terrifying part of the article:

Afterward, when the demonstrators had left, one of the madrasa’s senior clerics came outside. Asked about the dispute, he said it was between professionals and nonprofessionals; that is, between the clerics, who understood the Koran and Islamic law, and the women calling for the law’s repeal who did not.

“It’s like if you are sick, you go to a doctor, not some amateur,” said the cleric, Mohammed Hussein Jafaari. “This law was approved by the scholars. It was passed by both houses of Parliament. It was signed by the president."

The power of the appearance of authority is convincing to people who do not trust their own consciences.