(Image credit: Emma Barnett/The Daily Telegraph UK)

A label found in a pair of pants in England suggested an Internet-trending alternative to machine washing in warm water: "Give it to your woman, it's her job."

The instructions were found by British technology writer Emma Barnett of The Telegraph. As she was cleaning up her apartment, she noticed the label in her boyfriend's pants.

She saw the typical instructions about temperature, bleach and drying, but then she read, "Or, Give it to your woman, it's her job."

"If the comment had been remotely funny, I would have been the first to laugh and shrug it off, as it really wouldn't have bothered me enough to photograph it, tweet it and then write about it," Barnett wrote in the London newspaper today. "But it was the lack of any implied humor and the horrible surprise of such an incongruous message hidden away inside some trousers, that left me just plain stunned."

Barnett tweeted the image of the label Monday and was inundated with messages asking her to "name and shame" the pants' maker.

She disclosed that her boyfriend bought the pants from Madhouse, a discount men's store in England, but did not name the brand. The store's website shows that it carries and sells a number of brands.

"The chinos in question are manufactured by a jeans brand that we stock but the care instructions on this product were not proofed by our buyers who normally concern themselves with quality, style and price of the products they order," Madhouse posted today on its Twitter and Facebook accounts. "The first Madhouse was aware of the care instruction on this product was today."

The statement said the wording on the label was not "instigated or ordered" by the store.

"The wording is clearly meant as a joke but now it has been pointed out to us it is something we will need to be more careful about in the future," the store said.

The label has incited so much debate on Twitter that #Madhouse was trending. Some were outraged by the label, while others advised the critics to calm down.

"This is hilarious!!!!!!! I want them!!" someone exclaimed.

"I think its [sic] well funny @MadhouseFashion. Some people just need to learn to take a joke."

Others were less than amused.

"How dare #Madhouse this is 2012 not 1950's!" one person wrote.

"I am completely disgusted in #madhouse & would not enter their shops again," tweeted another.