Killer Advice For Couples

Having trouble with your spouse? Try this: when you arrive at a relaxed moment, "make agreements... to be used as guidance in critical times, especially during a fight." That gem of wisdom comes from Twenty Practical Ways to Educate Your Wife, a self-help tome making the rounds of publishers in Jakarta. Its author: Ali Ghufron, a.k.a. Mukhlas, the self-confessed mastermind behind the Bali bombings of 2002, which claimed 202 lives. Mukhlas, while appealing the death sentence he received in October, kept himself busy in his Bali jail by penning his marital guide and two other books: The Men Who Influenced Me and My Life and The Jihad Bali Bombing: a Defense, both of which justify his role in the Bali attack and offer up lengthy quotations from the Koran. Twenty Practical Ways is altogether more unexpected: along with advice on how to ensure your wife knows who's boss—if she really gets out of line, a beating is permissible—Mukhlas writes at length about sex, with graphic descriptions of when and how conjugal relations should take place. Even so, no publisher has agreed to print the books, which Mukhlas' lawyers say are intended to raise money for his wife and six children.