RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Bishop of the evangelical Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, Edir Macedo, was one of the most talked-about names on social networks.
The controversy surrounds a viral video in which the billionaire Bishop, one of the wealthiest of Brazil’s religious leaders, says that he did not allow his daughters, Cristiane and Viviane, to go to college, justifying his ideas that if they studied, they would be the “heads” of their families and the failure of their marriage would be inevitable.
The daughters appear in the video accompanied by their respective husbands.
“When they went abroad, they said they would only go to high school and that they wouldn’t go to college. My wife supported me, but the relatives thought it was absurd. Why not go to college? If you graduate from a certain profession, you will serve yourself, you will work for yourself. But I don’t want that, they came to serve God. I’m not against you graduating and studying, no. But in their case, I did not educate them to serve themselves. I educated them to serve the Lord,” the Bishop stated.
The bishop went on to explain that his daughters could only go to college after marriage. “You’ll go to high school, after that, if you want to go to college it’s up to you, but it will be only after your wedding and, until then, you’ll just be a high school person. Because if Cristiane [his daughter] were to be a Doctor and had a high degree of knowledge and then met a man with a lower degree of knowledge, he wouldn’t be the head [of the family], she would be the head. And if she were the head, she would not serve the will of God”.
Referring to his wife, Macedo also recalled that her desire was for her daughters to marry Americans, as she considered them, according to him, as more polite and gentle people. “I want my daughters to marry a macho. A man has to be the head [of the family]. They have to be the head because if they’re not the head, their marriage is doomed to fail,” he said.
The Bishop lamented, however, saying that what is taught in contemporary society is that women should seek studies and be independent.
“What is taught today is: ‘my daughter will never be subject to a man.’ Ok, so be it. She will be subject to unhappiness because there is no family, there is no marriage, and because there is no happiness if the woman is the head and the man is the body. It is a failure. So much so that there must be women here who know what [I am] talking about. Some brilliant women cannot find their heads. Isn’t it true?”
Bishop Macedo is one of the most prominent religious entrepreneurs in Brazil, with significant influence on President Jair Bolsonaro. The president recently kneeled before Macedo, a pose of submission that points out whose moral values Bolsonaro wants to impose on the country.
Bishop Macedo is also the uncle of Rio’s mayor Marcelo Crivella, which may explain why the latter recently tried to confiscate a book from the Rio Biennale that depicted the kiss of two men and exposed himself to ridicule throughout Rio.
Source: Correio Braziliense