I’LL give him this much, Tony Abbott is certainly creative.

As part of his ongoing efforts to prevent marriage equality, the former Prime Minister is always looking for new arguments against doing what the vast majority of the population want. And on Wednesday, he came up with an absolute pearler.

Speaking with Alan Jones on 2GB radio he said:

“It [marriage] is something that evolved many centuries ago to protect women and children in a world where they were much less secure than they are now. That’s why I would be very reluctant to change.”

Sorry, what now?

While modern Australian marriage is a perfectly lovely institution into which (some) women are allowed to enter and exit freely — its history is not a pleasant one. In fact for many women living in those centuries Tony Abbott so sentimentally recalls, marriage was pretty darn awful.

Anglo-Saxon marriage (to which I presume Abbott refers) was never about the protection of women and children but safeguarding the wealth and security of men. In ye days of old, marriage was a strategic tool. It established mutual obligations among families and allowed the transfer of property between them.

In the mid 19th century the principle of “coverture” was still enshrined in British (and by proxy, Australian) law. It meant that legally a husband and wife were one person. A woman’s legal existence, her property, her money, her children, and indeed her very being, were subsumed by her husband upon marriage.

She was his to possess and control. She had no legal rights of her own.

Tony Abbott, it seems, has an awfully funny idea of what it is to be protected.

As recently as the 1960s, Australian women were still subject to what was called “the marriage bar”. When a woman got married she had to give up her job. Her financial and economic independence entirely curtailed, leaving her wholly reliant on her husband’s generosity to live and function in the world.

Rape in marriage was perfectly permissible in Australia until the 1970s. A man who raped a woman was immune from prosecution for his crime, if the woman he assaulted was also his wife. English judge Sir Matthew Hale explained it like this:

“The husband cannot be guilty of rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife, for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband, which she cannot retract.”

I wonder if the women reading those words now are feeling safe and protected?

Even in the 21st century, researchers have found to that marriage is beneficial to men on a range of measures. That is, men who are married tend to have better health prospects and report being happier than men who are not. For married women, researchers found no such discernible benefits.

To hail ‘marriage’ as the historical protector of women and children would be utterly laughable if not for the enormous harm that has been done in its name for so long.

Of course, the farcical nature of Tony Abbott’s latest argument proves just how ridiculous the marriage debate has become. Research released this week shows support for marriage equality exceeds 50 per cent among all demographics, except men over 65. It is the politicians, not the people, dragging their feet on this issue.

In 2004 John Howard’s government — of which Tony Abbott was a part — legislated to change the Marriage Act. It was only then that marriage was formally defined as being between a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others. The law even requires that this phrase be read aloud at Australian wedding ceremonies, presumably as an extra slap in the face for every LGBT person who is attending the celebration of a union they’re prevented from entering.

Speaking of whom, I wonder whether Tony Abbott believes that restricting marriage to heterosexual couples also benefits lesbian women? I wonder if he thinks it benefits the children of LGBT couples, who are served an insulting daily reminder that the relationships of their parents are considered second-class.

I am not anti-marriage. I am a happily married woman who simply accepts that the concept has evolved. Today, marriage is an institution that holds significant status in our society; it is an expression of love and commitment that is recognised by the government. The fact that it is still denied to so many Australians is to our very great shame.

It’s high time that Tony Abbott and others stopped making up phony excuses, buying time with wasteful plebiscites, got on with it and said ‘I do’ to marriage equality.

Jamila Rizvi is writer, radio presenter and news.com.au columnist. Her first book, Not Just Lucky is available now. You can also follow her on Facebook and Twitter.