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Post by Emily on Oct 7, 2010 10:56:53 GMT -5
I find myself frustrated by one thing from the contributors to this website, the blanket statements many of you make. I don't deny many of you went through terrible things, and there are others like you. I don't deny that patriarchy gives a dangerous opening for an abusive man. I feel such disgust at the horrors many of you endured and write about here. But I do disagree with statements that say it can never work, or all but a few men will become abusive. I am frustrated when you ladies say 'this is what patriarchy/quiverful looks like'. It is certainly one form of what it can look like, what it can look like when it goes wrong. But it isn't what all patriarchy looks like, or even necessarily what the majority of it looks like.
I came from a secular home, all of this was foreign to me until recently. I married the eldest son of 8 children, a homeschooling, quiverfull, patriarchal family by all their core beliefs. But they did not even know what the term quiverfull was until I mentioned that was what they were after doing some research last year. I doubt they have even heard of ATI let alone these key names in the movement. 4 of the 8 children are now grown adults, the eldest daughter is not an enslaved babysitter but a confident, though somewhat blunt, young woman who is doing many things with herself while waiting for the man God has destined her for. The three eldest sons are at differing stages of life, one is even trying to become a professional sound engineer, for secular music! I can say with absolute certainty two of the older children are devout Christians, and I believe the other two are also. The youngest 4 children are working through being teenagers, and not doing all that badly. The parents are in a bit of a slump right now with business issues, and aren't afraid to show that, they feel no pressure to pretend they're perfect and life is roses. They are nothing like people here describe they should be. The father is in no way abusive, and the mother most certainly has her own life, her own mind, her own opinions. However, you still see very clearly she is submissive to her husband while holding her own personality quite intact. The children were raised with the same biblical principles and ideals outlined by people here, the girls learn to keep a home and the bible is the center of life. But these children didn't suffer, they have become competent young adults with christian and secular friends, and interests.
My husband and I know many patriarchy based families, some are closer to NLQs idea than others, they range from homeschooling mothers of many who are certainly not the exhausted, silent doormats often described here, to one family we know, where the wife works and the husband remains home. She is still submissive to him, but in their case it makes more sense for a multitude of reasons that she work while he homeschool the kids, she is best able to act as his helpmeet by taking over the role of breadwinner while he home schools their children, and that works for them.
My husband and I live in a patriarchal relationship, but that dosen't mean he micromanages my life, in fact he has only had to 'pull rank' and make a decision as head of the household a handful of times, always after listening closely to my opinion first. I defer to him, if I am going to make a major change to, say, cooking or house organization I will run it by him, but he trusts me as an intelligent, thinking woman, and will only disagree with me if he has a real reason to do so. When I was horribly ill for a few months and unable to stand he took over cooking the meals, and when he got completely overwhelmed juggling multiple jobs to make ends meet early in our marriage I took over as much of the 'busywork' as I could in areas like finances and paperwork. If he goes off track I have no issue questioning him, submission means I am to submit to his final decision and to support him even if I think what he does is wrong, it dosen't mean I am not to have an opinion of my own, or can't give a viewpoint before he begins to do something I think is wrong. God is also a higher authority over me than my husband, if he does something sinful, then I do not need to submit to that action, I follow what the bible outlines for calling up a person who is in sin. Even my husband does not have the right to overrule God in my life.
Patriarchy can look like many different things. Even quiverful dosen't have to look like the model given here, I knew one quiverful family who sent their kids to state school! The problem is, there appears to have been a group in America who followed these ideas, and added a bunch of extra-biblical ideas, and had a bunch of abusive men make their way into the group. I recognize the women and children who got involved in this group went through severe traumas as a result, but not everyone who adheres to the biblical principles of children as a blessing and wifely submission acts it out the way this group has. I mean, what's with the grind your own grain by hand for bread thing? It almost sounds like an old catholic superstition, am I not truly a submissive wife because I don't grind my own flour?
I, and the families I speak about here, are Australian. Here we don't have the labels and the names and the duggars and ATI. People who live like this are called conservative Christians, and we come in many different forms. Modern churches don't like us much, but being so spread out we don't tend to have our own churches, so we either home-church, or just ignore the rude people. Isolation is also not a requirement to children being a blessing or wifely submission, it seemed to be for the people coming out of this group in America, but for other Americans who don't associate with the label, and for Christians around the world, sure some isolate themselves, but many don't.
Please go ahead and warn everyone you can about the cult that seems to be growing around certain people at the top of this movement. But not everyone who believes in having large families and the father being the head of the household has it play out even close to how it played out in your lives. I'm sorry for what you went through, but patriarchy and full quivers didn't cause it, abusive men and cult-like atmospheres did.
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Post by Sierra on Oct 7, 2010 11:30:52 GMT -5
I believe that the doctrine that women should always be submissive to men (whether or not they have their own opinions) IS abuse. It was the doctrine that I was created for one role (submissive motherhood) that did the most damage to me as a child, not the myriad of abusive behaviors modeled by people I knew.
You claim patriarchy works for you. You also claim a secular upbringing. You evidently weren't raised to believe that you did not control your own destiny, but that's exactly what you're doing if you're "raising your daughters to be keepers at home." You're telling them that God demands they fit a script, regardless of how well that script matches who they are. There would have been a lot less heartbreak in my life if, instead of being raised to be a submissive keeper at home, I'd been raised to be whatever I wanted to be.
You implicitly claim that you have a choice to submit or not to submit to your husband. Do you realize who gave you that choice? It wasn't the society we used to be, where women were legally extensions of their own husbands without independent identities or the right to own property, get an education, work, or "choose" anything other than submissive keeping at home. You have the "choice" to be submissive today because women in the past asserted their right to choose despite their husbands (and their country) "pulling rank" on them and telling them to get back in their place.
If you want to submit, knock yourself out. If you insist on teaching young girls who don't know any better that God demands that they live their lives in perpetual obedience/submission/servitude to men, then I've got a problem with you.
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Post by nikita on Oct 7, 2010 16:11:25 GMT -5
I think though that you are by your post actually illustrating the problem -- patriarchy works as long as you aren't actually practicing real patriarchy. There are so many examples of exceptions to strict patriarchy in the lives you describe that they seem patriarchal in name only.
Put another way, if a system, when carried to its logical conclusion, is abusive, is the system not abusive if some followers decide not to follow it fully and temper its abusiveness with egalitarianism?
Is the doctrine of pater familias, where the patriarch of a family has absolute right of life and death over all family members without question or consequence, okay as long as your particular patriarch was a kindly old soul who wouldn't hurt a fly? When the only reason it was okay for you was because the patriarch chose to be a kindly old soul but could just as easily have chosen to be a monster on the level of a Caligula and no one could have opposed him on it because that was his right under law? Is the rule of absolute monarchy fine because your king is a good man who feeds the poor and looks kindly upon his kingdom when he could just as easily have turned out to be a cruel despot who delighted in the suffering of his subjects? After all, it is the ostensibly biblical doctrine of 'the divine right of kings' that justified the absolute monarchies of Europe for centuries. Just as it is supposedly the biblical doctrine of patriarchy that justifies the current crop of absolute rulers in their own homes, their own 'dominons', today. Permission for abuse of this power is given both implicitly and explicitly by the teachings of the movement. That they are misinterpreting the scriptures to do so is mostly ignored and they have attracted quite a following in the US.
The other problem with it is that although a woman certainly has the right to follow such teachings and choose to submit and keep quiet and keep sweet etc, her daughters are being raised to have no such understanding. They are being raised to submit and shut up without choice or question. Her sons are being raised to believe that it is not a choice their women make but their right as men to demand. The 'choice' part of submission and obedience is lost in this movement. And the result is a natural human tendency to demand and take what is conceived as rightfully 'his' and for the subject of this power and control to be increasingly viewed as 'less than' and a person to be acted upon and not related to as an equal person with their own rights and dignity.
The system itself is corrupt and tends toward corruption. That there are fathers/patriarchs out there who, like the kindly absolute monarch of old, are by temperament or chance not abusive does not make the system itself any less dangerous to the subjects of its doctrines. My right to be treated with dignity, respect, and kindness should not hinge on the moods and whims of the man I have married or happen to have been born to. But the teachings of this movement tell me that this is exactly what my life should be -- if he is abusive or a tyrant or cruel, then my role as wife or daughter is to keep quiet and let the Lord work it out in his heart. It is supposedly my role to accept abuse in the name of obedience to God.
You have a nice happy family. That's wonderful for you. But ask yourself this: what if one morning your husband decided he didn't want to be a nice reasonable man any more. What if he became a controlling abusive jerk who made your life and the lives of your kids miserable? What would your doctrine tell you to do then? Is your belief only valid as long as the patriarch involved is a kindly man but becomes null and void if you don't like him any more? Where is your obedience to God and your husband if said husband turns on you? Is your following of this system purely situational and dependent on how easy it is to like and trust your husband?
That is why we say the system itself is corrupt and wrong. Not because there aren't kindly patriarchs and happy families who are out there somewhere, but because there is nothing in this doctrine that says these happy families need exist at all. The system tends toward the opposite result, in fact.
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Post by krwordgazer on Oct 7, 2010 22:00:12 GMT -5
Nikita makes some really good points. Emily-- the way I look at it is this.
What it appears to me that Paul was doing in his letter to the Ephesians, was speaking to people who lived within a patriarchal cultural paradigm– the husband was in authority. Paul's counsel to husbands, if we keep in mind his shared understanding with his readers about the way things were in that society, is actually advice to Christian husbands to change their authoritarian ways and lay down their power and privilege in order to raise their wives up.
It was impossible under the circumstances for Paul to counsel an overthrow of cultural institutions, nor did he consider it his mission to do so. But his instructions did have a way of undermining patriarchy from within. If Paul's original audience would follow his instructions, then they could have a happy, mutually respectful marriage even inside patriarchal structures.
The same works for "Christian" monarchy. Where kings followed Christian teachings and humbled themselves to serve the kingdom rather than their own best interests– if they understood that their subjects were also God’s children, if they put their subjects’ best interests first, dedicated themselves to justice, refused bribes and corruption– they could have a fairly happy kingdom.
But– and this is a big but– the kings’ subjects were completely dependent on the voluntary choices of the king, and there was nothing and no one who could hold him accountable to do what was right. If the king was selfish, grasping, uncompassionate and unjust, then there was nothing for his subjects to do but suffer, or flee.
This, when it comes down to it, is why some form of democracy is an inherently superior system to monarchy, and why the people who live under democracy have a much better chance to be happy and prosperous. Power is shared by more than one person, there is accountability and limitation on how far any one person can exploit selfishness or corruption.
The Bible doesn’t say anything about democracy as a possible system of government– but it is not illogical to take a step from Christ's ideas of those in charge humbling themselves, to the idea that a leader’s power should be limited by law, so that the leader cannot abuse it.
The same idea applies in a Christian discussion of marriage. Marriages in the Bible were patriarchal. but were dependent on the Christlike behavior of the husband, to make a happy, healthy family. "Complementarian" marriages today are similarly dependent on the voluntary Christlikeness of the husband, and if his Christian character is bad, the wife and children must suffer or flee-- or seek outside aid, if they can obtain it (which here in America, they usually can't get from their churches).
So just as there was no democracy in Bible times, but democracy as a system yields more Christ-like results, so there was no marriage egalitaranism in the Bible. But because egalitarianism shares power and thus limits the potential for corruption, the outcomes in general are more Christ-like (in terms of across-the-board better treatment of wives and children, which is more in line with Christ's teachings).
For some women, complementarian marriages where their husbands had lots of power, no checks and balances, and did not voluntarily choose to act Christlike, resulted, for the wives, in hell on earth. Do not discount the real fact that their experiences were directly related to the unchecked power their husbands had in their complementarian marriages. Just because your complementarian marriage works (because you and your husband follow Paul’s teachings about mutual submission, love, nurture and respect as a husband’s duty), doesn’t mean complementarianism is in itself a good system.
Paul's teachings on marriage must be read in light of the structures of his time. We don't need to perpetuate the structures of Paul’s day. Egalitarianism works better, and promotes the same values that Paul was teaching– mutual submission, love, nurture and respect.
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Post by Emily on Oct 7, 2010 22:01:12 GMT -5
I would like to address one question, being what would I do if my husband became abusive, where does that leave my beliefs.
We believe there is accountability for my husband within the church, and within Gods law and the law of our country which we are also called to follow as long as it dosen't contradict God. If his requests are not sinful then I would submit to them, though I would tell him how I feel about it. However, if he becomes sinful, my submission is first to God, before my husband or the church or anyone else. If he acted sinfully towards me or my children (abuse of many forms of course comes under this) I would be obligated to approch the church and, depending on the legal status of the sin, the police.
The bible outlines a whole system of accountability, to focus on wifely submission above all other things will break the system in place. To relate it to the real world. Vegetables are healthy, so we should eat vegetables to follow the rules of healthy eating. But if we do this to the exclusion and ignorance of all other rules regarding health (eat dairy, get protiens and iron, have moderate amounts of fatty/salty food, eat fruit) it will all fall apart. If someone is lacking in energy, then the need to eat protien overrules the principle that they should eat as many vegetables as they can, because vegetables alone won't give the energy needed to deal with the current problem. To follow no rules of accountability except wifely submission is like eating nothing but vegetables constantly.
I can actually speak about this from real occurance. My husband had trouble dealing with anger early in our marriage, every family has flaws they pass onto their children, my husbands family hadn't learnt how to deal with emotions so well, the same anger problems can be seen not only in his brothers but in his sisters as well. Whether or not what happened constitutes abuse depends on your exact definition, we see it more as an issue he had within himself and was trying to cope with, but it did put me in danger for awhile. When he was simply getting angry, I tried to help him, calm him down, talk to him, all that sort of thing. After awhile it did start to become violent, not toward me directly but I did begin to get caught in the crossfire. When this happened I confronted him, I told him what he was doing was sinful, that he needed to get help and I needed help in a practical sense. In the bible when someone is in sin the first step is for brothers in the church to confront him. I spoke with one of our brothers in christ, again I don't believe this was breaking my submission because I spoke to him about a sin my husband was committing and needed help with, I'm not called to submit to sin. I didn't speak to him about complaints I had that were not related to this sin.
This brother in christ helped me, and became my husbands link to being accountable to the church. He was there if I called saying I was in danger because of my husbands sin. Again, I did not call him to complain about my husband, or petty things, I called him when he was sinning against me and that put him in danger. This friend told him in no uncertain terms what he was doing was unacceptable.
The next step would have been me removing myself from the situation temporarily, and going to the heads of our church. If he had ever actually hit me, I also would have contacted the police. I would have forgiven him, but forgivness dosen't mean lack of concequence, there are earthly concequences that he would have to live with for committing these sins. Just because I might forgive a murderer dosen't mean I wont turn him in. Through all of this, I would still submit to him as my husband on things not sinful, for example if he had a request regarding childrens education while we were temporarily removed from the home. Again, patriarch dosen't mean micromanager, so someone who is practicing what I beleive is godly patrarchy isn't going to make absurd demands of me through this.
As it was, my husband listened to the confrontation of his brother and sister in christ and began seeing a christian counciller and learnt to cope with his emotions in a healthy way before we got to that stage. He is still accountable to the church for his actions, in this case through our friend who I can still call if I am put in the same situation again. I believe this chain of events and actions does not go aagainst the biblical principles we have, I don't believe what I have described above to be 'not real patriarchy', and I think a woman who feels she needs to submit to abuse as a submissive wife is focusing on just one aspect of the entire accountabiloity system the bible outlines. There is more to biblical accountability than a wifes obedience to her husband, and certain rules and actions will overrule others.
This isn't incomplete patrarchy, this is one example of what biblical patriarchy should look like in the greater context of the bible and everything else it has to say about submission.
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Post by krwordgazer on Oct 7, 2010 22:14:42 GMT -5
Emily-- we seem to have posted at the same time. I'm wondering how you would address the issues I have raised in the post above yours, which you may have missed. As far as church accountability is concerned, I agree that it's better than no accountability. But I wonder-- if the church can step in when your husband sins against you, would it step in if your husband told the church you weren't being submissive enough to him? Would a sister be sent to talk to you? Or does your husband's authority include the right to enforce it himself? And if so-- how? And if he does not, and the power to enforce this way of living actually lies in the church, then who actually has authority? Is there such a thing as authority when there's no power to enforce it? Most Christians would agree that the Bible gives husbands no powers to enforce their supposed authority in the home. The sacred texts of some of the other major religions allow husbands to beat their wives, or deny them the marriage bed. Not only does the Bible not do this-- but it makes "rights" in the bedroom absolutely mutual, according to 1 Corinthians 7. So does the Bible really give any authority to husbands at all? Maybe Paul really was just working within authority structures that existed in the society of that time. Maybe husband authority was a human institution only. . . It's something to consider, don't you think?
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Post by livingforeternity on Oct 8, 2010 10:16:40 GMT -5
kdwordgazer, I really love you and the way you say things. I thank God for te wisdom and graciousness of your words.
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Post by whiteclover on Oct 8, 2010 10:39:20 GMT -5
We believe there is accountability for my husband within the church, and within Gods law and the law of our country which we are also called to follow as long as it dosen't contradict God. If his requests are not sinful then I would submit to them, though I would tell him how I feel about it. However, if he becomes sinful, my submission is first to God, before my husband or the church or anyone else. If he acted sinfully towards me or my children (abuse of many forms of course comes under this) I would be obligated to approach the church and, depending on the legal status of the sin, the police. However, in a church steeped in patrio-centricity, there will be NO help. The MAN is infallible. My ex-husband repeatedly approached the church and eventually had himself a little following of "sympathizers," to whom report my sins and lack of submission. But being human (and sinful himself) he exaggerated and lied, built himself up to God-like perfection and blame-shifted. As a result, for years, I was rebuked, reproached, corrected, disciplined, lectured, and advised of "trumped up" charges of wickedness. If I tried to defend myself, I was reminded that I was the WOMAN. I had no voice, no rights, and they thought I was the liar when I tried to explain what was really happening in our home. As in, saying anything against him, even in truth. It was ALWAYS the woman's fault if the man deviates from being a good, sweet, loving man, and IF he was perhaps a little "harsh," it's likely the woman deserved a "little discipline." An elder in our church molested his daughters, but the daughters became the victims the second time when they were disbelieved and disciplined for their consequent rebellion against their father -- and mother, who knew about the ongoing molesations, but exonerated their father since it wasn't "all the way." The church had an open vote for this man to remain in ALL his positions of authority. The CHURCH believed it can and should handle these issues WITHOUT outside "worldly interferences" telling them what to do. My ex-husband poisoned me . . . and tried to burn the house down. Yet he passed the polygraph test because in all probability, HIS reality and HIS belief system had convinced him that I was his chattel, to do with as he wished. At best, he was trying to "help" me. At worst, he was entitled to do "whatever it takes" to "teach" me to submit in all things, and that I needed and deserved such "tough love," even if it was "God's will" that I should die in the process.
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Post by amaranth on Oct 8, 2010 15:04:13 GMT -5
I think there's a bit of a slippery slope one can get on with the argument when a woman has a moral obligation to submit to a man except when he "asks her to sin".
What constitutes a sin?
For example, if you had your own car and he asks you to sell it, he isn't asking you to sin. He may even give you some good reasons why you should sell it: "we need the money, insurance is too expensive, not enough space in the garage..." Now, if you agree with those reasons, and both of you together figure out ways to manage with just one car, then that's fine.
However, what if you know in your heart that he really wants you to sell the car because he wants to keep you in the house and away from certain friends he doesn't like? He may give you the exact same reasons why you should sell that car...but you know him, and you know that he's still upset about you coming home so late from that girls' night out or whatever. How do you explain that to your church, especially when it becomes your word against his? Is making a demand out of spitefulness a sin? Must you still, in the end, submit to his will...since he's not asking you to sin? Let's say giving up your only means of transportation will have long term consequences for you. Is he really within his rights to demand this of you, especially if you have made your disagreement clear? Are you still obligated to do as he wishes if it's not a "sin", and he absolutely will not change his mind? Patriarchy teaches that while a man can and should listen to his wife's opinions, the call is still his. Period.
That, I believe, is where the crux lies. There are so many ways to manipulate people, and the most insidious ones do not look like sin from the outside. And in a patriarchal arrangement, who is the church more likely to believe? The man: the head of the house, the provider, the one who was not deceived...or the woman: the weaker vessel, the more easily deceived, the one who needs a covering?
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Post by madame on Oct 8, 2010 19:02:31 GMT -5
Emily, I understand your frustration with what you understand to be "blanket statements" made against patriarchy. I am sure there are many patriarchal marriages that manage just fine, but as others have said, those are marriages where the relationship is actually egalitarian.
I like the questions Wordgazer asks you to consider because those are the same ones I started asking myself: What if the church has been teaching it wrong?
I have many problems with Complementarian or Patriarchal interpretation of Scripture when it comes to marriage. They read into what is written and are teaching these interpretations as though they were written word, but they are not. For example, the husband is not called head of his home, he is called head of his wife. The wife is not told to obey her husband or submit to his authority, she is told to submit to her husband, as the church submits to Christ, who is the head of the church, of which he is savior. Does the passage suggest that "head of" means having authority over?
Leading on from the understanding that being head of means having authority over, the husband is now called the leader. Where in the Bible do we find a direct command for husbands to lead, rule, have final decision making authority and so on? Because it has been decided that leadership is the husband's role in marriage, the direct command to love, cherish, honor, and live with as an heir together of the grace of life, are secondary. They aren't completely ignored. If you honor someone as the "weaker vessel" you wouldn't ignore her desire to stop having children, or to reconsider some decision that is going to mean a lot of sacrifice or hardship for her. If you consider her an "heir together", you don't view her as spiritually inferior and thus less in contact with God. If you love her as Christ loved the church, you don't demand that she follow, you place her needs and wellbeing above yours, and you would never seek to "pull rank".
But the problem is that men are taught that they will be neglecting their calling if they don't "pull rank" when "necessary". But what if God wants to use a stalemante to bring a couple closer together? What if the fact that they can't agree means that they have to pray some more about the whole thing? What's the hurry?
It seems odd that there is so much fixation on a wife proving that she is submissive and on a husband proving that he is the leader, the head of the household. The one in charge. Why?
In my understanding, a man is called to be the leader by leaving father and mother and cleaving to his wife so they can become one flesh. Could it be that wifely submission is her response to the husband's initiative to unity in marriage? What do we submit to when we become part of the church? Is it Christ's atoning love or is it his authority over us?
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Post by Emily on Oct 8, 2010 22:29:19 GMT -5
krwordgazer - I'd like to come up with an argument and reason and have something to say against the idea you have presented, I've been thinking about it since reading your post yesterday. But I am still a young christian, and my first church was not a good one, so my knowlege is not as broad as I wish it were. I think there has to be more to it but I can't think of it off the top of my head and I can't remember everything I've read, so I have nothing I can present against your theory.
You have given me something to think about, and I have actually put aside your posts to bring to my husband next time we do a bible study. Thank you for giving a well thought out alternate theory, often the arguments I hear against my beliefs are not well thought out at all, but I appriciate being challenged with an intelligent argument, because I will learn something from it either way. I find the differences in belief systems among christians very interesting.
I'm sorry I don't know enough to debate the topic further with you, it would have been fun.
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Post by krwordgazer on Oct 9, 2010 0:58:49 GMT -5
Emily, I appreciate your willingness to consider my point of view. How about, instead of thinking of my ideas as something you wish you could "come up with something against," you simply look into them further? You're right, there is more to it-- for instance, I have written a number of essays for NLQ presenting the "egalitarian" perspective on the Bible. Setting aside (at least temporarily) the idea that these are something you need to come up with arguments against, would give you a chance to view them on their own merits. Here's the introduction: nolongerquivering.com/2009/10/05/nlq-faq-quiverfull-and-the-bible/And here's one on "The Bible and the Nature of Woman." nolongerquivering.com/2010/08/19/nlq-faq-the-bible-and-the-nature-of-woman/And one on birth control: nolongerquivering.com/2010/05/24/nlq-faq-the-bible-birth-control/I promise you, all of these take a high view of Scripture. I have also just completed a three-part series called "The Bible and Male Headship," but it has not been posted on the NLQ forum yet. I hope you will stick around and read it when it comes out!
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Post by cindy on Oct 9, 2010 14:06:22 GMT -5
I am also disturbed by some of the blanket statements made about patriarchy, and I likely make some of them. That is one of the things that's helpful about this forum -- we can bring one another into balance and a greater understanding of things. I've got two major points to make, and I feel long winded today... 1. Personality types and high demand groups who follow scripted living
2. Personal perspective affects if, how and why you arrive at blanket statements.
PERSONALITYIn the study of these high demand groups like patriarchy who employ specific techniques to manipulate people, I believe that there is something to the argument that certain personality types do not respond as well to the pressure and stress as others. This should not be misunderstood as a statement that mitigates that all people are vulnerable to getting sucked into manipulative systems like patriarchy. All people are vulnerable to social pressures and personal factors which compel them to displace their own beliefs and previous ideas of better judgment with that of a group or system to achieve a greater good. What I am saying is that I think there is sufficient evidence from the literature to argue that certain personalities suffer more than others under this kind of stress. Some people will suffer less problems or no problems, but a significant number of people will suffer greatly. I think that in concert with what KR is saying, some people will do nicely under the patriarchal paradigm, suffering marginal problems, and other people will have really awful problems. From this perspective, I think that much of it can be traced back with the styles a person uses to cope with stress. That is not to say that patriarchy is right or okay or the ideal Scriptural model. NOT AT ALL! It is more of an issue of making the minority of folks who have awful experiences characteristic of the whole group of people that follow the ideology. Here are my reasons for support of this hypothesis (and it does need to be tested scientifically which is hard to do): In William Sargent's book, he talks about the patients that he treated after this kind of manipulative program to direct behavior -- and these were men who were hospitalized, so they had a full dose of manipulation. Long story short, he observed that certain personality types had a harder time with manipulation than others, and he relied on the Hippocratic model, the one popularized by Tim LaHaye in Christian Circles. He found that Phlegmatics suffered fewer difficulties than did the other types, followed by the Sanguines. Melancholys suffered greatly, but not as badly as did the Cholerics. Generally, it is believed that people have personalities that blend aspects of two types. My husband, for example, is a Choleric Melancholy. He is not a follower, though he is a devoted team worker when the goals make sense. He is also a dutiful, loyal person. But, boy, he does not deal well with manipulation and devious, double-standard behavior from leadership. He has a blend of the personality types that William Sargent found the least adaptable to manipulative programs. The other bit of info that sticks in my brain, telling me that there is some reason to consider this hypothesis as true concerns what Yeakley found in the study of the Boston Movement of the Church of Christ. They followed a patriarchal system mixed with heavy ecclesiocentricity (the church runs your life). The church suffered criticism, so they called in people to study the church. Back then, they didn't have assessment tools that had been studied and validated for this kind of thing like they have now. (We've been working on this for 30 years since this happened.) They used what they had available, and the researcher used the Meyers-Briggs Personality Inventory to assess churchgoers. They found that the church preferred one type of personality in terms of MBTI: the liked the EFSJ ( Extraverted, Feeling (as opposed to Thinkers), Sensors (as opposed to Intuitives), Judgers (as opposed to Perceivers). The church members were studied and then followed after the church broke apart. It turns out that the pressures of the group caused members to actually bury their natural tendencies to become ESFJs, and after they left the intense rigors of the church, many reverted back to their natural, God-given personality type as observed by the MBTI. And do you know why I remember what type they preferred? I am the complete, polar opposite of personality type preferred. I am also half melancholy, and my husband is a combination of the type of personalities that Sargent identified as those who suffer greatest in these kinds of programs. Women are accepted as sanguines and phlegmatics. In the patriarchal paradigm, melancholy and choleric traits are not seen as ideal or typically womanly. In the same respect, women are expected to be extroverts and feelers (as opposed to thinkers). If you are a woman and of the personality type that is not desirable or is wrongly and narrowly defined as a masculine type, I assert that you are going to have a lot of trouble. And I think, given on the numbers of people who have these traits, I very roughly estimate that 20% of people who find themselves in patriarchy (by birth especially because they did not gravitate to or choose this system willingly) will have a lot of trouble adapting. Based on personality alone, their problems will be greater. Again, this is not a scientific number and is a "SWAG" (Scientific Wild A_ _ Guess). But it is something that I think deserves fair study. Getting back to what KR proposed, some people adapt well to patriarchy, and others struggle more to make it work. But not all people are going to have the really awful struggles that some have. THE PROBLEM with patriarchy then is not that it is entirely evil but that it ignores and denies that anyone has trouble adapting, as this is seen as a voice of testimony against God. But if patriarchy were more dedicated to serving God as opposed to preserving a system of men that is imperfect, patriarchy would be willing to acknowledge and care for those whom they hurt. They don't, however. They curse them instead. The system would not be so bad if it were more realistic and leaders were responsible enough to really confront and deal with the problems that the system fosters. PERSPECTIVE:What you've been through can often cause you to loose sight of the fact that others have different perspectives. If you were physically assaulted in your QF/P marriage, you're going to see it as entirely evil, most likely. And depending where you are in your recovery process personally, I think that seeing things otherwise is probably very unhealthy. When you are concerned about your own survival, it is inappropriate to think about balance. You've got to be focused on your own perspective for the sake of preserving your life and healing yourself. Later, you can have a broader perspective. Emotional healing from things like this is not a linear process, so just being out XX number of years does not necessarily mean that you healed. If you replaced one "addiction" or way of making yourself feel better or getting your life to work by switching from patriarchy to something else like a new belief system that is rigorous or even just a very different alternative. If you didn't deal with the problem you were hoping would be solved by patriarchy, you likely might be tempted to level all of your angst at patriarchy, loading it with all of your baggage related to some junk that might have nothing to do with patriarchy (though the system certainly didn't make things for you any easier). A good analogy might be that we are "loaded for bear," and we end up shooting pigeons with machine guns or land to air missiles. Zimbardo talks about this in the Lucifer Effect and what happened at Abu Gharaib Prison. It happened in the US Military, and good military people ran and worked at the prison, but the whole mix and the "bad barrel" created by poor planning and inexperienced people who were expected to set up a prison turned into a huge, huge mess. Some people are like bad apples, but if you put good apples or average apples in a really bad barrel that crushes the apples, keeps them too hot and doesn't allow for air circulation, and no one keeps an eye on that barrel, your apples are going to go bad. Patriarchy's like a bad barrel that's intended to store good apples, but it's not ideal by design. It might be a good barrel for some, and not all the apples are going to go bad. But like a bag of apples that gets old, there are one or two apples in a peck that go bad first. I've got my own weird take on patriarchy, as though I followed patriarchy pretty hard within my marriage, I also have the baggage of being rejected by the larger group because we never had kids, largely due to how illness affected our lives. I see it a bit differently, and I have healing wounds from it that are very different from the typical example of someone who have the stressors of the large family with which to contend. My perspective is a valuable one that contributes to what patriarchy is like, but it doesn't provide a full and complete picture. It is limited, just like all of our perspectives are in describing this beast. But part of that includes some families that are not examples of abuse and alienation. Some people have good experiences to some extent, and because they have not experienced the really hard luck experiences that others have, they don't see it as a negative thing. --- Another idea, too, about seeing it in all or nothing terms. That Danvers Statement maintains that either men get passive or they get abusive when their wives don't submit. (Wives are ultimiately responsible for their husband's sin.) In patriarchy/QF, you learn to look at life in extreme terms of all or nothing. When we get out, we should not do the exact same thing and make the exact same errors as patriarchy like the Danvers Statement does with its oversimplifications. That doesn't mean that I think patriarchy is great!!!! I think it is a bad barrel and cultic and manipulative that objectifies people by viewing the world mechanistically by making everything standardized. This is always bad and soul crushing in some way. But I go back to what I said initially -- not everyone suffers the terrible stuff that some do, and it shows its evil colors when it fails to own up and take responsibility for the abuses it fosters. Some people who follow it and some churches do own up to the problems and deal with them, and I think that these are the people who are able to make the system work a bit better, even though the fundamental problems still remain and predispose to problems. That should NOT be misinterpreted as a statement that patriarchy is okay or ideal.
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Post by sandra on Oct 9, 2010 15:09:10 GMT -5
Oh, Cindy,
This makes so much sense of my experience in a way I have continued to have questions about! My childhood in fundamentalism was not extreme by any standard that might be developed from the stories reported here yet I came out of my childhood with PTSD and all kinds of skeletons in my closet that I buried.
I have been really wondering what it was about ME that made my perception of my experience so damaging when others in more extreme situations were much less affected. In particular, I wondered about my siblings' insistence that our upbringing did NOT constitute spiritual abuse and that there is no such thing as religious addiction. How is it that we who had as similar childhood experiences as siblings generally have could perceive those experiences so differently?
And this personality typing thing is an excellent answer (although certainly not the only way to understand it). Having take the Myers-Briggs probably two dozen times in high-school and college psych classes and studying Hippocratic humors in depth in my current field, I am keenly aware of my personality also being typified as the most unacceptable of possible personalities for a woman in performance-based religious communities. Both my siblings have a higher dose of the more acceptable qualities in their personalities--hence, they probably experienced a lot more acceptance in the religious communities than I did.
I also agree that one symptom of a lethal system is to vilify one or more personalities or "ways that people relate to their world" as being evil or of Satan and to commend other personalities as holier or more Godly. Personalities are largely something one is born with and no amount of beating square pegs into round holes is ever going to make those pegs actually round. When there isn't room in God's community for pegs of every shape in nature, then the god of that community is just too small.
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Post by krwordgazer on Oct 9, 2010 15:48:26 GMT -5
This is all very interesting, Cindy and Sandra. I actually got along fairly well in the spiritually abusive cult I was in, though I did have scars later. But I "fit in" well-- because even though I'm sensitive and artistic like a "Melancholy," I'm also a people pleaser-- and I was adept at figuring out how the cult wanted me to behave and giving them exactly that. The problem was that I felt I lost myself in the process; I became someone else, someone I was later ashamed of having been. With regards to some people doing better under patriarchy than others-- I think a lot does depend on personality types, and also leadership orientations. Families where the husband is a natural leader and the wife is more of a goes-along type, are going to do better under patriarchy. The thing is, though, that they will do well under egalitarianism too-- because egalitarianism is not a one-size-fits-all template of "roles." Egalitarianism says, "If your husband is a natural leader and you are more comfortable following someone's lead, then as long as there's mutual respect-- he should feel free to lead and she should feel free to let him lead." But egalitarianism also says, "If the wife is a natural leader and the husband is more of a goes-along type, as long as there's mutual respect, she should feel free to lead and he should feel free to let her lead." The problem with patriarchy is that it considers the second couple to be in sin, merely because of their personality types and inter-relational dynamics. Most egalitarian marriages are characterized by first one, and then the other, partner taking lead in her/his own area of expertise, and deferring to the other partner in that area. In other words, it runs like a meritocracy-- whoever is better at something, leads in that area. (A lot of happy "complementarian" marriages work like this too, actually, with the husband's "headship" being really just nominal.) But I have also seen egalitarian marriages work where one partner takes the lead much more often than the other. I believe the biggest problem with patriarchy is that it has no checks and balances on power. But when the man will check his own power (and especially when the woman is naturally compliant), it can still work.
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Post by whiteclover on Oct 9, 2010 16:08:14 GMT -5
This has been remarkably helpful, Cindy and Sandra.
I am the worst possible personality, according to your posts . . . a Melancholy . . . and an Intuitive Thinker / Perceiver. I asked questions a lot and showed thin spots in their dogma and teachings. I internalized everything, trying to make sense of it, trying to come to peace, something I could live with, but there was SO much wrong with it. I wanted to understand, but I just couldn't.
Every time we took those personality and / or gifting tests at church, my results were always the same, and I was told repeatedly that I had done the test incorrectly, because women could NOT be thinkers. Or perceivers. Those were "high" and "holy" gifts for men only.
Finally, I was told to stop thinking. For the last 15 years or so in the system, I "played dumb." I can identify with having "lost myself." I became a non-entity, as it seemed they wanted. They left me alone, then, but I died inside.
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Post by nikita on Oct 9, 2010 16:42:52 GMT -5
I did both personality tests when I was deep into my cult and I came out rare and very unfortunate under both systems. So unfortunate that I kept re-taking the tests to see 'if I just answered this question differently would it make a difference?' but no, it usually just gave me an even stronger score than my original one! And under the Myers-Briggs system I later read that my personality type was the only one who would take the test over and over hoping for a different result. Anyway, I am both a sanguine-melancholy and an INTJ. Now I really do fit those types and I actually am glad I do now since I am not trying to meet anyone's elses standards about what my personality should be. I am at peace with it and happy. But it was pretty clear then and now that my personality was not meant for following anyone anywhere unless I understood completely why and where we were going. So Cindy, I couldn't agree more about your analysis. My own marriage was complementarian but with a man who was perfectly happy to work out things in an almost egalitarian way so although it was bad it wasn't bad for being patriarchal. We had our own problems. But I knew then as I know now that had I chosen to marry a real patriarchal man, one who really asserted leadership in our lives, my personality type would have screamed under that situation and serious conflict would have resulted no matter how sincere my attempts to be a good obedient wife were. An INTJ cannot live under a strict headship situation with any kind of happiness or peace. We would beat our heads against anything that didn't make sense to us. But as you noted yourself, this knowledge doesn't make patriarchy itself either a good system or necessarily a true biblical system. Absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely, and when you give that kind of unchecked power to someone the potential for the bad is very great. Especially when the leaders and writers of patriarchy encourage all the worst excesses of patriarchy and offer no checks for actual abuse within it and just blame the woman for all problems that may arise.
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Post by pollypinks on Oct 14, 2010 15:02:25 GMT -5
It isn't necessarily that all QV or patriarchal families are bad. It's that they are set up that way using a biblical pretext that doesn't exist. Do the leaders of any of these movements speak fluent Greek? Because that's the language Paul and others used during Christ's ministry, and when you look at the several meanings of Greek words as opposed to what the English version means, you often get something entirely different. Paul preaching in Galatia, for example, tells women not to cut their hair, so all these rabid fundamentalist women now days are not cutting their hair. Do they know that in Galatia at that time, the only women to cut their hair were known prostitutes? That differentiated them from married women. So, obviously his reasoning had to do with that time, that place, and those attitudes. So it becomes offensive to me that so many women don't bother to do any research before becoming affiliated with cult groups that claim to please God. Same thing with submission. Do these women know the names of women who served with Christ, actually travelled to other towns to spread the good news, and were treated as equals? Having left mormonism, I still felt somewhat of a religious type person, and found myself in a Baptist congregation. But the stuff they preach and the stuff they read in preparation to preaching was not intellectually sound, as I studied further. Especially when they asked me to leave because I'm a democrat. Judgementalism as far as deciding my Christianity or not, or my ability to please God or not, or my decision to be on equal footing with my mate or not, in man made form is just plain dangerous. I cannot imagine training my daughter to think in such a simplistic way. If you want to do a quiverful thing with your mate, and not respect your body because of what you are putting it through, at least don't use scripture to back it up as a necessity in pleasing God, or in part of your salvation.
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Post by liltwinstar on Oct 19, 2010 12:33:37 GMT -5
I know I'm coming to this discussion late in the game.
As I see it, the problem with patriarchy is that it sets up the marriage relationship as being one of a power play, and by doing that, it sets people up for conflict. To me, anyway, marriage is not about "who has the power/who wears the pants" - it's about saying, "ok, we're a family, what works best for us, meets all our (collective and individual) needs, etc."
Before I met my husband, I was in a very emotionally and verbally abusive relationship. That relationship was *all about* power - he was always trying to assert it, I was resisting it, and my resistance resulted in the abuse. I have no doubt that if the relationship continued, the abuse would have escalated into physical abuse as well. During that time, I was very devout (as was the man I was dating), and I also had a mental list of what I would need to do if/when the abuse continued. So I recognized the "sin" he was committing by abusing me, and I did go to the "elders" who told him he was wrong, etc. But that didn't stop the abuse - and also, he would just twist what they were saying to fit his own agenda anyway. I worried that if he hit me, I would have to go the police and that would get ugly.
When I later met and fell in love with the man who is now my husband, that power dynamic was not there. He does not have or assert power over me, and I don't over him. We do have our conflicts, but we (try) to work them out from a place of love and mutual respect, rather than fighting over power dynamics, who's right/wrong, who needs to submit, etc. Granted, I've only been married for two weeks, but we've been a couple for seven years, so there is some history there.
I guess my point is that the patriarchal system sets couples up for failure, because it pits them against each other from the beginning. I'm not a believer anymore, but I'm pretty sure that the message of Jesus is not one of "hate your spouse," yet the patriarchial system sets the stage for people to do just that.
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