Blog Posts by Lylah M. Alphonse, Senior Editor, Yahoo! Shine

Ishak Md Nor, 40, is surrounded by his wives, Aishah Abdul Ghafar, left, 40, and Afiratul Abidah Mohd Hanan, 25, who are members of the newly launched Obedient Wives Club in Malaysia. (AP Photo)Earlier this month, a controversial new club launched in Malaysia. Dubbed The Obedient Wives Club, the 800 or so members are certain that they've found the key to a long and happy marriage: Obey your husband without question, and cater to his every sexual whim.

"Disobedient wives are the cause for upheaval in this world," the club's vice president and co-founder, Dr. Rohayah Mohamad, told told the Associated Press. She blames the country's rising divorce rate-as well as incidents of prostitution, rape, and even incest-on wives who have neglected to keep their husbands satisfied in bed.

"When husbands come home, wives do not welcome their husbands with warm alluring smiles and sexy dressing ... That is the reality today," she said. "A good wife is a good sex worker to her husband."

The Obedient Wives Club is the creation of Global Ikhwan, a religious group founded by former members of Al-Argam, a sect that was outlawed in 1994 for straying too far from the tenets of Islam. In 2009,

Read More »from 'Obedient Wives Club' blames social ills on women who aren't 'good sex workers to their husbands'

Also on Shine:

• 10 things we love about Courteney Cox

• Celebrity friends forever: 7 famous moms on the playdate circuit

• Celebrity trainers give their best advice

Read More »from Designer Trip Haenisch takes us inside Courteney Cox's revamped Malibu haven

Women in the U.S. military are barred from the front lines and direct ground combat, thanks to a long-held belief that female soldiers suffer more serious combat-related stress and post-deployment mental-health problems. But the Pentagon may have underestimated the women who serve: According to a new study, women warriors may be as resilient as men.

The ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq make it difficult to keep female soldiers completely out of harm's way: More than 200,000 women have served in those two wars over the past 10 years, many in positions that put them at risk for gunfights and other combat situations. About 750 women soldiers have been wounded or killed in combat since 2009.

"I know what the law says, and I know what it requires, but I'd be hard pressed to say that any woman who serves in Afghanistan today or who served in Iraq over the last few years did so without facing the same risks of their male counterparts," Admiral Mike Mullen, former chairman of the Joint

Read More »from Study says female soldiers are as resilient as men when it comes to combat-related stress

This week, Japan confirmed that three of the four reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant experienced full meltdowns after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami there. Trace amounts of radiation have already been found in milk from Washington State and California. And now, a new study warns of another side-effect that hadn't even crossed our minds: In the past, fewer baby girls have been born world-wide because of nuclear radiation from power-plant leaks and bomb tests.

Not just hundreds fewer. Millions fewer. Could enough radiation spread from Japan to the United States to affect parents over here?

Left to nature's own devices, males naturally outnumber females by a little more than 5 percent, so for every 1,000 girls born, there are about 1,056 boys. In countries where sex-selective abortion is practiced, though, boys outnumber girls by a greater margin, leading to a lack of potential mates when young men are ready to marry. (The latest census data from India shows

Read More »from Japan admits 3 reactors melted down. How will the nuclear radiation affect our families?

Artist Aelita Andre at work in her studio. (Photo: Screengrab/YouTube)It's amazing what a little kid can do with colored canvases, glue, pipe-cleaners, pompoms, plenty of paint-and the understanding that she won't get in trouble if she makes an enormous mess. The question is: Is she just playing, or deliberately creating art?

Aelita Andre's parents, both artists, are certain that their daughter is a bona fide Abstract Expressionist painter. The Australian girl has been crawling around on canvases since she was about 9 months old, according to her dad Michael Andre, and she made her first piece of authentic art just a few months later. Now, at the ripe old age of 4, she's got her own show in New York, "The Prodigy of Color" at the Agora Gallery in Chelsea. And she just sold three of her paintings for a cool $27,000.

On the one hand, her work seems like joyful play of any random 4-year-old. ("Blue! Yay, Blue!" she exclaims in a video, gleefully getting as much paint on herself as she does on her canvases.) But her parents and some art critics insist

Read More »from 4-year-old Aelita Andre gets her own NY art show, sells paintings for $27K

This is a vacation? Sarah Palin talks to reporters about Paul Revere during a June 2, 2011, When 10-year-old Piper Palin muttered "Thanks for ruining our vacation" while in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, last week, it was hard to tell whether she was talking to the media or to her mom.

Sarah Palin's "One Nation" tour of historic American landmarks is being billed as a fun family vacation, with stops at historic spots all over the country. It sounds like an old-school family road-trip, except that:

• Fans are invited to follow along with her trip on Sarahpac.com, her political action committee's website, and encouraged to submit requests for her appearances.
• Judging from the photo and the on-the-bus interview with Greta Van Susteren of Fox News-and in spite of the fact that she says "It's not a publicity-seeking tour"-the former vice-presidential candidate doesn't seem to be trying to avoid the media. (Piper, however, looks less than pleased.)
• The trip is being paid for by her political action committee (which is perfectly legal, by the way, since she hasn't declared

Read More »from Sarah Palin's 'One Nation' tour: Is a working family vacation really any fun?

Photo: ThinkstockThanks to Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Edwards, and now Anthony Weiner, infidelity has been making headlines-and people are reexamining their own relationships.

The Pew Research Center recently found that 40 percent of Americans think marriage is becoming obsolete. Another recent Pew study found that Millennials (people age 18 to 29) say they think that being a good parent is way more important than having a good marriage.

Once considered an imperative of sorts, traditional marriage is getting a second look-and research suggests that it may be coming up short. Instead of considering themselves to be happily married, some people are discovering that they're only "semi-happy," and their quest for fulfillment can lead them to extramarital affairs and divorce.

A semi-happy marriage is one of low conflict, low passion, and low satisfaction. "One minute, you love the stability and contentment. The next minute, you think it's not the right marriage, and there are flaws in the marriage that

Read More »from Are you stuck in a semi-happy marriage?

Bobby Bradley, 9, holds the crown line of his new ultra-light hot air balloon as he watches it inflate at a launch site near Tome, N.M., in May. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)Another entry in the "We're Sooooo not Helicopter Parents" category: On Sunday, 9-year-old Bobby Bradley of Albuquerque, New Mexico, became the youngest trained pilot to take off and safely land a hot-air balloon by himself.

His parents, Tami and Troy Bradley, have both been licensed hot-air balloon pilot since they were teenagers (him: 16, with his first solo flight at 14; her: 17), and they were confident that their son would be fine. Bobby's balloon is a custom-made ultra-light version, with a scaled-down, light-weigh basket, and he has already logged more than 30 hours of airtime with his dad in a standard hot-air balloon. In fact, the day before the big flight, his mom told the Associated Press that she was more worried about "him needing to go to the bathroom" than she was about her third-grader being at the mercy of the winds.

"I'm afraid of heights," he told a local TV station, "but I'm not scared when I'm up in a balloon."

"I will have my GPS, two radios," he added. "It's

Read More »from Parents let 9-year-old pilot a hot air balloon solo: Cool or crazy?