Premarital Counseling Against Divorce

Re “Crusade to Save Marriages,” March 17:

I fully agree that people both marry and divorce too hastily, especially when they have children. I endorse any institution that helps sustain strong, loving marriages. But I ask myself how many women have stayed married to husbands who beat or killed them, because their churches said: You are less than men, you must be subservient to your husbands and your church has “zero tolerance for divorce.”

There are things worse than divorce. One of them is telling women that humans should not evolve beyond the misogynist beliefs of the Apostle Paul and his contemporaries. We have now rejected the human race’s eons-old traditions of infanticide and slavery. Why do we still accept sexism in the name of religion?

KAY M. GILBERT

Santa Monica

* Here the Christians go again preaching that “wives submit to their husbands,” rather than interact as equals. From now on I’ll be rooting for the lions.

LLOYD A. CUNNINGHAM

Redondo Beach

* Pastor Michael Douglass is preventing divorces with his premarital counseling. But let’s compare the trials of marriage to riding a raft down the Colorado River. Would you rather be told that once you begin your journey, you simply cannot stop, or would you prefer to be instructed in white-water rafting and swimming?

It’s good to see more churches addressing real-world marital situations. I hope the pastor’s course also covers how to take a timeout when there is controlling intimidation; or what to do when one partner has an affair or becomes alcoholic. Patriarchal concepts of obligation won’t help navigate these marital rapids.

Obtaining irrevocable commitments to their marriage may coerce some couples to stay in unhappy marriages. But helping couples walk through solving their problems as partners, so that they feel committed, is the best insurance against divorce.

MARC SADOFF LCSW

Pacific Palisades