For those readers who are interested in hearing an explanation of the Quiverfull philosophy and lifestyle, “Children Are a Blessing” by Moore Family Films is available free online through April 30th.
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Millipede: Part One
by Millipede
(Editor’s Note: Millipede has been recounting her history of how she came to join a patriarchal lifestyle on our forum starting about six months ago. She’s graciously agreed to allow her writing to be reposted here. We thank her for that!)
To tell it in a nutshell; my husband and I became part of a reactionary milieu, joining a “movement” which addressed various issues such as gun rights, survival ism and so on. I still hold my beliefs pertaining to these issues and so this is not an indictment of “right wing extremism”. In fact those early years were wonderful and I would gladly join such a group.
I was not new to such views. Years before I even met my husband, I had been active in various causes. In the intervening years I had become inactive and so when my when my husband and I started exploring various issues I felt joy at becoming politically active again.
I am giving background, not getting up on a soap box.
Anyway, the road to patriarchy was at first slow. Even in right wing “extremist” circles there is quite a diversity of beliefs concerning patriarchy. Also, there are some who may on the surface appear to endorse patriarchal belief systems, but are actually pretty mild if not “enlightened” in their views and treatment of women. There are even some who could be called feminists. Again certain causes attract all sorts of people. It was sort of our version of the “popular front” so to speak.
Emotional Incest: The Mama’s Boy and the Other Woman
by Sierra
I have already written about the ways that growing up in fundamentalist-evangelical culture made me especially vulnerable to covert incest from my father. There is a flip side to the father-daughter craze in Christian patriarchy, though. I am here to bring you two stories: and one of them isn’t about me!
In what would have been my high school years, a miracle happened. Sven, my best friend from my early childhood, came back to my church. We were fourteen. We had been estranged for about three years while his family lived in another state. But we quickly reconnected (not least due to my idealistic hopes that we could pick up where we left off, and some aggressive book-lending). But the stakes were so much higher now.
Sven’s mother had all but declared me a slut at seven years old, a fact I’ve alluded to several times as it was formative for my conception of myself (in a quite negative way that required overcoming later). But now that we actually had secondary sex characteristics, my apparent sluttitude was all the more threatening. Who knew what debaucheries my round, pimpled face might concoct? Meanwhile, I dreamed that Sven would take me away somewhere to live in childless bliss in the mountains. In retrospect, Sven could hardly have taken me across his driveway without asking his mother’s permission. But who is better at sustaining ill-fated wishes than a lonely fourteen-year-old?
Emotional Incest Part 2: The Botkins
by Libby Anne
After discussing the definition of Emotional Incest in Part 1, I am now going to address the way the teachings of leading Christian Patriarchy organization Vision Forum and its close affiliates, the Botkins, essentially mandate emotional incest.
Vision Forum teaches that adult daughters are to stay at home until they marry. More than that, it teaches that they are under their father’s authority just as they will after marriage be under their husband’s authority, and that well they remain at home it is their duty to adopt their father’s “vision” in place of their own and serve as “helpmeets in training” to their father in preparation for serving as “helpmeets” to their future husbands.
The possibilities for emotional incest become obvious. In fact, like I said, emotional incest is practically mandated. Adult daughters are to subsume their identities in loving, adoring, and serving their father, and they are to make his vision, his hopes, and his dreams their vision, their hopes, and their dreams. The father in turn is to guide his adoring daughter to maturity in preparation for handing her off to an approved suitor.
Emotional Incest: The Junior Wife
[Editors' note: At the time of writing, Libby Anne and Sierra were unaware of the controversy surrounding Hugo Schwyzer. The discussion of his critique of emotional incest is not an endorsement of Schwyzer by NLQ.]
by Sierra
Libby Anne has begun a series on Emotional Incest at Love, Joy, Feminism. In her latest post, she also links Hugo Schwyzer’s striking analysis of the problems with the “Daddy’s Girl” myth and princess culture. The following is my attempt to confirm and add more perspectives to the issue they are bringing to light.
As a child of a believer and a nonbeliever, I walked a confusing and sometimes torturous line between the prescriptions of my church and the realities of a divided household. Additionally, I was the only child, and female. For the first couple of years after my mother joined our fundamentalist church (while my age was still in the single digits), we basked in fellowship and preoccupied ourselves with the joys of home. Fundamentalist culture is extremely good at fostering an environment that feels like shelter, with clearly-defined expectations and an emphasis on the “simple life” – about which I’ll write more later. So for the early years, I happily did my homeschool lessons, read books, played outside, and ran to the door yelling “Dad’s home!” whenever his pickup truck began the descent of our long rural driveway.
Then puberty hit like a bombshell.
Maternal Martyr, Michelle Duggar, Willing to Risk Life for Baby #20
by Vyckie Garrison
Mega-family parents, Jim Bob & Michelle Duggar of TLC’s “19 & Counting” fame announced on TODAY they are expecting baby #20 – due in April 2012.
Despite a difficult pregnancy and premature delivery of now-23-month-old, Josie, Michelle told TLC viewers she is willing to “lay down her life” for another baby.
“We do not take for granted the wonderful blessings of life that God has bestowed upon us!” writes Michelle on The Duggar Family website. “Many years ago, Jim Bob & I gave this area of our lives to God, allowing Him to grant life as He saw fit.”
The flip side of the Quiverfull ideal of “trusting the Lord with our family planning” which Jim Bob & Michelle embrace and promote through their TV Reality show, website, and numerous books, is that Michelle also accepts the possibility of her own or her baby’s deaths, should such tragedy occur, as God’s will.
In her book, The Way Home, Beyond Feminism and Back To Reality, Quiverfull proponent, Mary Pride explains that mothers who risk their lives for the sake of building the Kingdom of God are to be honored the same as missionaries:
“Routinely we send missionaries off to work in unsavory climates, knowing full well that they will probably come down with amoebic dysentery, be overheated (or frozen), receive inadequate medical care in second-rate hospitals, and on the average live ten years less than other people. But we don’t tell people not to be missionaries. Instead, we commend missionaries for their courage.
“Missionaries go to foreign countries to beget new Christians; mothers get pregnant to be beget new Christians. Even if maternal missionary work has some hazards (and what missionary work doesn’t?), the noble way is to face them with courage. Likewise, we really ought to honor women with medical problems … diabetes, asthma, quadriplegia, arthritis, heart problems … who are willing to serve God with their bodies as mothers. These are the unsung heroines of the modern church. (p. 57 emphasis in original)”
To further understand Michelle’s willingness to risk her life, consider that Quiverfull leaders routinely downplay the health risks when questioned regarding the prudence of prolific motherhood. Again, Mary Pride, citing page after page of examples of supposedly bogus health risks and throwing in as an added bonus, the “medical dangers of not having children,” encourages women to trust the Lord in the face of suffering:
“Devotees of evil will sacrifice all they have — money, health, reputation — to maintain their lifestyle. If the actual threat of venereal disease or AIDS does not deter the wicked from their pursuits, why should the mostly phantom threat of “medical problems” deter us from ours? God will stand by His daughters who are willing to serve Him.”
I explain this idealism which led me to repeatedly endure high-risk pregnancies and life-threatening deliveries in greater detail at No Longer Quivering: here and here.
Quiverfull moms are nothing if not consistent in their submission to the will of God – for better or worse.
Me? Obey Him?
A review of “Me? Obey Him?” by Elizabeth Rice Handford. Trigger warning for former Quiverfull believers who actually read this book and tried to live according to the principles … this post is a disturbing trip down memory lane.
by Vyckie Garrison
Those fortunate enough to have never actually read “Me? Obey Him?” may be shocked and appalled by the teachings in support of “biblical patriarchy.” This review is simply quotations of Handford’s own words (in italics), followed by comments from my personal experience as a former Quiverfull Believer.
God’s Perfect Creation Required Order
Jesus, the Creator of Heaven and earth, submitted Himself to God the Father. He took His place in the chain of command. … It is no shame, no dishonor, for a woman to be under authority, if the Lord Jesus — very God Himself — submitted to the authority of the Father. (p. 14)
The submission of the Lord Jesus is our example. He submitted not just to the tender ministrations of the Father. He submitted to revilings and curses, persecution and suffering. He was our example, not just to obey a gentle and kind husband but a harsh and mean husband as well.
You may find that your obedience to your husband and your obedience to God are all tied together. You may not want to obey your husband because you are in rebellion against God. (p. 51)
By intimately linking Christ’s willing subjection to God the Father with a woman’s submission to her husband in “the chain of command,” the teachings of patriarchy create such an intricate tangle of enmeshment that it’s nearly impossible for an abused woman to extricate herself from the bondage of her husband’s tyranny without also throwing off her spiritual bond with Christ.
Kristen Rosser, who writes the FAQs for No Longer Quivering, is currently working on an article which will address the popular Christian teachings on the absolute necessity of hierarchy – coming soon …
Woman’s Nature Requires Obedience
We’ve had the impression that women as a class are more spiritually minded than men, with sensibilities more refined, and purer thoughts. Scriptures say the opposite is true! Women are more often led into spiritual error than men. Perhaps it is caused by her intuitive, emotional thinking. (Intuitive thinking is God’s gift, not to be despised, but it needs the balance of a man’s reason.) I should add too, that a woman does not have to be led into error. That is the reason God commanded her not to usurp authority over the man, so she can be protected from false doctrine. (p. 17)
Sexist generalizations are never useful in understanding human relationships.
In reality, I am no less rational than my (ex)husband. He also is gifted with a strong intuition and emotional intelligence. Convinced as we were that I was more susceptible to Satanic deception, our family was deprived of my reasonable input in decision making. My intelligence was squelched, my intuition was distrusted and my feelings were denied. My husband developed an artificially inflated sense of his own powers of logic. I can’t count how many times he said to me, “What you are saying sounds reasonable, but how do I know that Satan is not using you to deceive me?” I had no good defense. According to the Scriptures, we had every reason to believe that I was indeed being used to lead my husband astray.
His authority and my obedience did not protect us from tragic deception which ripped apart our family.
What Do the Scriptures Say About a Wife’s Obedience?
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the Scriptures say a woman ought to obey her husband! … [Note, these ellipses represent page after page of scriptural support given by Handford to bolster her argument that God commands wives to obey their husbands.] If you are intellectually honest, you will have to admit that it is impossible to find a single loophole, a single exception, an “if” or “unless.” The Scriptures say, without qualification, to the openminded reader, that a woman ought to obey her husband. (pp. 24, 25)
1) She Is to Obey Regardless of His Spiritual Condition
The wife who obeys her husband may win him by her meek and quiet spirit, her loving behavior. (p. 25)
2) She Need Not Fear Conflicting Authority
There is no hint that a woman may have to choose between conflicting authority. … If it is needed in order to fulfill both obligations, God will do a miracle to make it possible. … It is safe to conclude that when God told a woman to obey her husband, He intended for her to be able to do it without risk of offending other authorities. (pp. 25, 28)
3) She Obeys Without Reference to Her Feelings About the Will of God
The Scriptures say a woman must ignore her “feelings” about the will of God, and do what her husband says. She is to obey her husband as if he were God Himself. She can be as certain of God’s will, when her husband speaks, as if God had spoken audibly from Heaven! (p. 28 – emphasis added)
When a concerned friend reported our family to Child Protective Services, my ex-husband lost custody of the children due to his abuse. The social worker told me that I was guilty of “failure to protect.” The only thing that prevented me from having my parental rights terminated and my children placed in foster care was my willingness to submit to a full psychological evaluation, undergo individual and family counseling, and cooperate with random unannounced home visits by Social Services.
My older children rightfully blame me for not protecting them against their father’s abuse. Even though they know that I was influenced by books such as “Me? Obey Him?” to believe that it was God’s will to submit to the abuse, my children cannot be fooled into thinking that I was not really responsible for their suffering. I have apologized for my neglect. Most of my children have forgiven me — still, the damage is done and some things can’t (and shouldn’t) be forgotten.
Michelle says, Never enough babies!
Karma Will Run Over Your Dogma & Squash It
(Editorial note: What follows below is my own personal thoughts on this, no one elses, I’m not speaking for the group, just me. I cannot stay silent to this. If you’re offended or triggered I’m so sorry. Warning if you are triggered by scriptures or the like.)
This morning several of us at NLQ were directed to look at “Women’s Prayer Group Praying That the Women at MRFF All Get Incurable Breast Cancer” posting on Free Thought Blogs.
Apparently there is a group of ladies calling themselves Christians who’ve decided to make praying for the death of anyone connected with the Military Religious Freedom Foundation their number one priority. And why is that? Perhaps because the MRFF is a watchdog organization that keeps the the Dominionist evangelical Christians in the military from discriminating, harassing or intimidating people that believe or don’t believe differently than them. Yes, the MRFF protects the religious FREEDOM our country was founded upon. Oh how very evil!
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