From a Washington Post profile of Karen Pence, wife of the vice president:

In 2002, Mike Pence told the Hill that he never eats alone with a woman other than his wife and that he won’t attend events featuring alcohol without her by his side, either.

Which reminds me of something we learned about the marriage of David French, the National Review writer who was briefly under consideration as an anti-Trump candidate for president last year. French, also a Christian conservative, was was deployed to Iraq in 2007 as a military lawyer.

I'm not mocking monogamy. But in the modern world, women and men have to be able to interact in a non-sexual way, or we can't function as a society with gender equality. Mike Pence, as a politician, is going to work with women. David French's wife, Nancy, is a writer who's collaborated on a number of books, including a couple written with men.

Conservatives never stop complaining that Muslim societies have extreme restrictions on women. Many right-wingers insist that Islam is incompatible with Western values, citing, among other things, the differences in gender relations. So what's up with the Pences and the Frenches? They seem to be living in a way that's incompatible with Western values, too.

I say it's their right to do as they please -- but shouldn't their conservative compatriots be talking about these marital pacts the way they talk about sharia law? Shouldn't they be calling the Pences and the Frenches un-American?

Crossposted at No More Mr. Nice Blog