Thing that bothers me: Religious leaders in theocratically-dominated societies defending oppressive things they do or advocate (e.g. forced marriage, child marriage, marriage coerced by economic necessity, child-stealing via adoption, virginity testing, male guardianship...) as well-intentioned solutions to problems -- THAT THEIR OWN INSTITUTIONS HAVE CREATED.
Oh, you claim it's "for the best" to imprison pregnant women and steal and sell their children? Because a single mother can't support herself and would otherwise be living on the street? Well, gee, WHY IS THAT? Who decreed that single mothers should be so stigmatized and so excluded from social participation that they and their children can ever escape persecution? Yes, that's right, you guys!
You have to marry an unwilling woman for her own good, because she has no money? Why is that? Who made the rule that women can only have money by way of men? Yes, you guys again!
Although it's not just religious leaders; we see the same argument that psychiatric institutionalization is defensible because otherwise, psychiatrically disabled people would be homeless and starving. The argument is still "They should be oppressed because other people oppress them."
Complete social marginalization does not happen by accident. It takes quite a bit of structure to support it. When you successfully marginalize an entire demographic and ensure that they have no access to any form of meaningful participation in society, it becomes easy to justify holding them captive as "protecting" or "rescuing" from their inevitable fate of total deprivation of social and economic participation.
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