LETTERS: NOW OPPOSES MAN AS FAMILY'S HEAD

To the editor:

On Sept. 5 the Southeast Missourian ran a three-panel cartoon on this page. All three panels depicted Patricia Ireland, a prominent functionary of the National Organization for Women. The text was a dialogue between Ireland and another person. Ireland began, "Promise Keepers is a radical and dangerous group of men! They're intent on rolling back the gains the women's movement has made ... ." The other person retorts, "But all they do is teach men to love God, their wives and children, and to live by biblical standards ... ." Ireland finishes up, "My point exactly!"

The purpose of the cartoon is to inflame fundamentalist Christians against NOW. It would have been more informative to persons unacquainted with the controversy if the biblical standards mentioned there had been described. The one which stuck in Ireland's craw is the principle that in a Christian home, supposedly, just as Christ is head of the Christian church, so the male in the Christian couple is the head of the female and of the entire family.

Now, there my be women who are able to repress their egos and resign themselves to domestic domination by husbands who may very well be their inferiors intellectually and morally. And such women deserve what they get. NOW is for the other sort and for those who represent them.

DONN S. MILLER

Tamms, Ill.