Albion Chambers family law barrister Daniel Leafe has appeared in a video alongside his wife, where she argues that “leadership of the church and the family is a male role” because “women look to men for some of the most crucial decisions of their lives”.
Mrs Leafe (pictured above with her husband in a screenshot of the video), who is a member of the General Synod of the Church of England, uses the examples of social conventions in relation to marriage and the story of Adam and Eve to support her assertions…
“Why is it that only once every four years we have one day where women are allowed to propose, and the rest of the time women are waiting for men to ask them to marry them?” she asks, before continuing:
“That’s something really inherent in women: we wait for them. Otherwise what we tend to do is what happened in the Garden of Eden: Adam stood back and did nothing; Eve made a bit of a bad decision and the world got into a bit of trouble.”
Despite Mrs Leafe’s insistence that she relishes a passive role in life, her husband – a lay preacher in his free time who is described by Legal500 as “Legally excellent and sensitive too” – doesn’t utter a single word during the video.
Instead, as he sits in silence and the camera zooms in on his face, Mrs Leafe explains on his behalf that: “My husband, Dan, is a very godly man. He has led our family very well, and together I hope we are a good team that brings glory to god.”
The video, which can be viewed here, rounds off with a message from Mrs Leafe directed at “women who long to be bishops in our church”:
“I think it’s sad, in many ways. There’s no doubt that some members of the Church of England are sexist but that’s not the experience I have in the churches that I belong to. Here, in those churches, where men and women serve alongside each other, equally but in different roles, there is a great deal of respect.”