Moral to the story? A secular newpaper is a poor forum for publishing bare-boned, hit-and-run excerpts from a broader theology. Especially when, in the case of Christian marriage, most Christians need a healthy dose of contextual background provided before they can fully understand the teaching themselves!

Christianity [in its first few centuries] seems to have been especially successful among women. It was often through the wives that it penetrated the upper classes of society in the first instance. Christians believed in the equality of men and women before God, and found in the New Testament commands that husbands should treat their wives with such considerations and love as Christ manifested for his Church. Christian teaching about the sanctity of marriage offered a powerful safeguard to married women. The Christian sex ethic differed from the conventional standards of pagan society in that it regarded unchastity in a husband as no less serious a breach of loyalty and trust than unfaithfulness in a wife.


http://www.coffeeshoptimes.com/index.htm

and

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_...abee-wives.html

and

http://www.amazon.com/Early-Church-Penguin...2866&sr=8-1