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Scott Brown, the Christian Patriarchy Movement, Muslims, Women and Birth Control
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Since the fall of Doug Phillips and Bill Gothard, voices in the Homeschool Movement have been quiet about some of their pet topics, perhaps trying to let the dust settle on the aftermath of the Christian Patriarchy Movement and the alleged sex abuse cases from those who promoted similar destructive ideologies.
Yesterday, Scott Brown, Director of The National Center for Family-Integrated Churches (Doug Phillips’ old pet project) posted an interesting comment on his blog. Remember, Scott Brown is part of the Homeschool Movement which includes ideologies such as:
- full-quiver – let God plan the size of your family (they frown upon the use of birth control)
- stay-at-home daughters – daughters stay at home until their marriage and serve their fathers in preparation for when they will serve their own husbands
- modesty and purity rules (the father’s role is to protect his daughter’s purity)
- courtship – father gets to decide who his daughter will court and eventually marry.
Men are the ones who have a voice in all of the above, but where are womens’ voices? Why do they not have a say in what happens to their bodies, their daughters, their futures, their schooling?
All of the above screams: father rule which means father is in control. The daughter has no choice. What if the daughter wants to go away to college? There are some adult daughters who are forbidden from going to college. They are under their father’s rule until they are under their husband’s rule (approved by father).
So, here is what Brown had to say on his blog yesterday. Notice, he’s feeling sorry for Muslims.
Muslims are having the same problem we are – Turkish President, Erdogan says, Birth control is ‘treason.’ He described efforts to promote birth control as “treason”, saying contraception risked causing a whole generation to dry up, reports said on Monday.
Birth control is taboo with Homeschool Movement purists. Remember Kevin Swanson is a friend of Scott Brown. They are both against birth control. You may remember that Kevin Swanson is the pastor who shared on his radio program that women who have been on the birth control pill have embedded fetuses in their wombs (which he has since taken down from his Generations Radio website, but you can hear it on this David Pakman show YouTube which is quite hilarious). Here is the transcription from Swanson’s baseless and ridiculous claims:
I’m beginning to get some evidence from certain doctors and certain scientists that have done research on women’s wombs after they’ve gone through the surgery, and they’ve compared the wombs of women who were on the birth control pill to those who were not on the birth control pill. And they have found that with women who are on the birth control pill, there are these little tiny fetuses, these little babies, that are embedded into the womb. They’re just like dead babies. They’re on the inside of the womb. And these wombs of women who have been on the birth control pill effectively have become graveyards for lots and lots of little babies.
Here’s a bit more from the article that Scott Brown quoted:
“In this country, they (opponents) have been engaged in the treason of birth control for years and sought to dry up our generation,” Erdogan said.
What does treason mean? Google defines treason as “the quality of not being loyal to a person, country, or organization; unfaithfulness.” Wow! Birth control equals treason?
Erdogan went on to praise marriage and said: “Marriage is a long journey. There are good days and bad days. Good days become more frequent as we share them and bad days finally bring happiness if we are patient.”
“One (child) means loneliness, two means rivalry, three means balance and four means abundance. And God takes care of the rest,” he added, in comments reported by the Dogan news agency, which also posted a video of his speech.
The Islamist-rooted government of Erdogan has long been accused by critics of seeking to impose strict Islamic values on the private lives of Turks as well as limiting the civil liberties of women.
Erdogan — who has two sons and two daughters — has drawn the ire of feminist groups for declaring that every woman should have three children and declaring in a speech in November that women are not equal to men.
Hmm, have Erdogan and men in the Christian Patriarchy Movement been exchanging notes?
I get that the Bible says to be fruitful and multiply. I get that the Bible says that children are a blessing from the Lord. I believe it. I have seven of my own. But when pastors use their platform to promote ideologies such as full quiver and paint birth control as “treason,” I have concerns. I have said it before and will say it again:
The control and ruling of wives and adult daughters by their husbands/fathers in the Homeschool Movement/Christian Patriarchy Movement sure looks an awful lot like what we see in the Muslim culture.
Both Muslim and Christian women have similar plights: some are being held in physical, spiritual, and emotional prison in their own homes.
related links:
- Kevin Swanson Spews Nonsense from His Mouth to Further His Birth Control Agenda
- Patriarchy: Doug Phillips, Bill Gothard, Doug Wilson and Damage Control
- How Influential Was Doug Phillips and His Teachings?
- Christian Patriarchy is Alive and Well: NCFIC Director Scott Brown Moves into Position to Fill the Void Left by Doug Phillips/Vision Forum
- Christian Patriarchy Movement Pressures Stay-at-Home Daughters to Choose Whom She Will Serve First: Daddy or God
- Does the Doug Phillips et al Brand of “Biblical Patriarchy” Groom Stay-at-Home Daughters to be Victims of Abuse?
- Doug Phillips Resigns from Office of President at Vision Forum, Discontinues Speaking Engagements
photo credit: luiscerezo.org via photopin cc
Spiritual Sounding Board 
My words in parentheses. “Marriage is a long journey. (You can say that again. In my case way too long.) There are good days and bad days (Mostly bad, in my case). Good days become more frequent as we share them and bad days finally bring happiness if we are patient.” (I am a very patient person. Bad days did not bring happiness, only more grief, eggshell walking, throwing objects at me and then more grief.) This statement is hogwash.
God gave women as well as men free will. Why is it that men keep trying to take away our God given right. What about those women who eventually die in child birth? Is this know-it-all who claims that women using birth control have tiny dead babies in their wombs a doctor? Has he examined a woman’s womb under microscope? Women need to use their voice and tell their men either I take birth control or hand their husbands a box of condoms. God said to replenish the Earth, he didn’t say that one person had to do it all.
It certainly is not treason to not want more babies than you can handle or be a forced baby machine. I suppose next these morons are going to start stoning women who want to stop having children.
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Brenda, when I heard Kevin Swanson talk about the embedded fetuses nonsense, I had a fit. I remember when my friend had lost her baby in utero and how difficult it was emotionally for her knowing she was carrying a dead baby. I started imagining what it was like for women who might have been on birth control for medical reasons (or birth control reasons) and thinking about the unnecessary guilt they might face because of this man’s unfounded words. Some women could actually harm themselves because of the guilt.
The reality is that Swanson either lied or was misinformed. On his own Facebook page, I read comments from medical professionals who said it was impossible to have embedded fetuses in wombs and that he should retract his statement. He refused to do so. I tried to contact him by e-mail, on his website, his Facebook page, to no avail. He has an agenda to push and will use whatever rhetoric he wants to push it, regardless if it hurts women or not.
Scott Brown is usually much more balanced, but this blog post he sure seems to be aligning himself and his agenda with Muslims. It’s important to make note of that.
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Julie Anne,
Women could get hurt. It is easy to become depressed when you loose a child or think you may have done something to cause a death. I have had 2 miscarriages between my 3 kids. I grieved for the loss of my children even though they were not considered viable by many. I can’t even imagine the pain of a woman knowing that the child she is carrying is no longer living. Thinking that you may have many dead inside you because of birth control would be a nightmare.
It is very important to realize SB is siding with the Muslim cause. He is siding with people who do not believe in Christ to promote his personal cause. This is so wrong. As our president has announced, we are not a Christian nation. Eventually, the Muslim way of life could become the law of the land if we’re not careful. Women could be imprisoned or stoned for treason here too folks. We don’t know what tomorrow holds.
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This is hilarious. The most intense sibling rivalries I’ve ever seen have ALL been in 3-child households. And I’m an only child and only rarely wanted a sibling, and even then never real seriously.
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Amen, yes we have our own “Christian Brotherhood” which is using our Holy Book in the same way to hit the rewind button on women’s equality. I appreciate the brave way you are holding a mirror up to the regressions In our own tradition.
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How convenient that Scott Brown will agree with a Muslim president when it aligns with his beliefs. Of course, Muslims are in need of evangelizing, as seen by NCFIC’s 28-point “How to Evangelize to a Muslim.”
https://ncfic.org/blog/posts/how_to_evangelize_to_a_muslim_fikret_bocek
Although, I have to somewhat agree with #18 – “Muslims will respect the text you quote, but not your personal opinion, so trust in the power of God the Holy Spirit working through the Word!” I would change the wording to say that “Christians will respect the text you quote, but not your personal opinion…”
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I have noticed the last few years that some aspects of Christianity either sound like Islam or like Mormonism, depending on what we are talking about – whether it’s fatalism or marriage or child bearing rates.
And this is not a good thing if Christians start sounding like Muslims or Mormons.
If these Christian guys pushing the extreme natalism, marriage, and “family values” stuff find that Muslims are taking issue with some subject or another too (such as marriage or natalism), instead of saying,
“By george, we have so much in common, isn’t that great,” they need to be re-examining their beliefs and asking themselves,
“Uh-oh. Maybe our views on this topic are NOT biblical, since another world religion – one which denies that Jesus is God – is also teaching this stuff.”
Christianity is not supposed to be spread by biological reproduction, so what do these crack pots care if more women, especially Christian women, are not having children?
Christians, in the New Testament, are not commanded to marry and multiply. Here is a page with some more on that,
–“Who is my mother and who are my brothers?”–
Where are the praises and support for singleness with these people? If you are a Christian single, by extension, you will be childless, because you are not to fornicate (have sex outside of marriage), and no sex generally means no pregnancies.
Do these guys not have 1 Corinthians 7 in the their Bibles?
1 Cor 7 reads in part,
Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. … But if you do marry, you have not sinned …. But those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this.
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Hester said,
This is hilarious. The most intense sibling rivalries I’ve ever seen have ALL been in 3-child households. And I’m an only child and only rarely wanted a sibling, and even then never real seriously. You also have to consider ages. I am the youngest of three. My two older siblings are only a year or so apart from each other, but they are both older than me by several years.
Growing up, with that big age gap – I was in grade school playing with teddy bears, while they were in high school, going on dates, sneaking out to parties and getting drunk – meant they wanted nothing to do with me.
The age gap among us also made it difficult to have relationships with them in adulthood because I’ve always been several years behind in life stages.
Add to that one sibling lives in the south east and the other lives on the west coast. They don’t even see each other anymore. Growing up, as kids and teens, my two older sibs fought with each other like cats and dogs. They continue to spar every so often in adult hood.
So having three kids is not some kind of instant recipe for an idyllic childhood.
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Hester wrote~
Could not agree with you more. It has been my experience with the families I know that have two kids that they are close and get along. It’s the ones with 3 or more that can, not always of course, but can cause rivalry and not only that, but ganging up on one sibling and causing so much pain for that sibling.
One child does not mean loneliness except in his opinion and who cares.
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Julie Anne from now on I want a choking warning before a post like this. I’m sitting here grabbing a late dinner at Outback (trying to behave myself in a room full of drunks) and reading Sir Scotty’s posting about allowing God to determine your family was just a bit much. My waitress thought I was having a medical emergency as I was laughing so hard that my face turned red. Spare me the Heimlich maneuver from the drunks over at the bar.
Here is what I find hilariously hypocritical to the point of delusional : Sir Scotty is lecturing the world again (as the self appointed Pontiff to Home school weirdos everywhere) on our marital relations needing to lead to completion in the form of another child. Claiming we should let the Lord decide our family’s size.
Well there is one big issue there Sir Scotty, ALL YOUR CHILDREN ARE ADOPTED! It seems to me pretty hypocritical for a guy that is shooting blanks or married to an infertile wife to be lecturing the Christian community on why we shouldn’t use birth control. More to the point, you didn’t exactly “allow God to decide your family’s size”. If we are to be congruent to your warped line of reasoning:
Then GOD DECIDED YOUR FAMILY SIZE and you and your wife decided to OVERRULE GOD by going outside of the natural & Godly family planning ordained by God, starting with little baby Abel & Cain.
Sir Scotty, I realize you are desperate to be the second string back up to Little Lord Fauntlery Roy, after he lost the respect of his front line upon getting caught attempting to family plan all over a young woman’s clothing (without her consent) but you just don’t make the cut pal. Need I remind you that you were cut (disfellowshipped ) by your former church and unqualified scripturally to be an elder. Don’t you think someone elder qualified should be talking to us about our mating choices and family sizing instead of a SELF APPOINTED PONTIFF like yourself.
Then again, Little Lord FauntleryRoy was recently disfellowshipped from “his “church too so maybe you do make the cut. It seems that the crap you idiots preach doesn’t exactly apply to you self-appointed Pontiffs. Everyone but you and that evil, perverted midget MUST be under the authority of the local church but you clowns exit stage left like a couple of carnival boobs done fleecing the flock for the night. Time to go costume shopping Sir Scotty if you really expect us to take you as serious as your sexually perverted buddy.
Then again, if you two clowns can’t figure out what the next homeschool scam will be, maybe you can take Little Lord FauntleryRoy on the road and he can be the next Bill Cosby. He will definitely need a scheming sidekick that is a gifted liar.
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Just to clarify one thing, I don’t believe every home school family is the typical home school weirdo family. I do business with tons of home school families that are just wonderful people.
That being said: if you attend Scott Brown’s marriage “seminars” in his living room, make your daughters dress Botkin, or spank your wife ( without her getting a chance to be the school marm from the 1800’s and spank you) than you are the typical weirdo home school family.
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I think the Scott Brown mentioned by Julie Anne may be the same guy interviewed on Janet Mefferd’s show.
He was just on her show a few days ago (I haven’t listened to this particular show). I think he’s been interviewed by her maybe once or twice before.
–Janet Mefferd-12/22/2014- Hour 2- Janet Mefferd Radio Show, Mefferd interviews Brown–
Headlines over the last two years include,
“Single Adults Are Greater In Number than Married Couples for First Time in the USA”
and (this is from just last week or two),
“Less than 50% of American kids live in “traditional” families now”
But by all means, churches, let’s keep ignoring the singles who live alone, the divorced/single parents, the widows to keep giving interviews about, and to keep writing books about, and doing web pages, about “The Family.” 🙄
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He is the very same Scott Brown, Daisy.
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Scott,
Your comment had me in stitches!
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Scott said,
This is a most excellent point.
If he or his wife are infertile, then (according to their own theology, as you said, this is not my view personally), then God planned for them to have no (biological) children. But they went against God’s plan by adopting. They’re not living by the advice they dish out to other people.
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Wow I see the crazy runs strong with young skywalker.
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All kidding aside people do agree these people are crazy? I mean I have dealt with “crazy” people who cut themselves, bit themselves, tore their scalp out I mean right to the bone and even bit a finger off another person. This kind of stuff really does happen I know we are a fallen race and all these people had it coming. We all have it coming. I dont fault God His pound of flesh. But these people are crazy on steroids they actually believe the utter nonsense they spew as real? I never got that.
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Am I the only one who thinks that some of these “Christian leaders” are about to declare for the Muslims or the FLDS any day now?
I seriously have begun to wonder what side these loons are actually on.
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Scott said: “It seems to me pretty hypocritical for a guy that is shooting blanks or married to an infertile wife to be lecturing the Christian community on why we shouldn’t use birth control”.
Yes, indeed. Unless he’s planning on taking a couple more wives in the near future. (As in, see my last comment, above).
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Brian, they truly believe that birth control is evil because it’s preventing you from God’s bleasings of a child. I have all kinds if stories of moms told that having another pregnancy would be detrimental to her health and then it becomes an issue of “not trusting God.”
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Julie Anne,
If these people are going to say that birth control is evil, are they going to go all out and say that immunizations and other preventative care is also evil? Is it “not trusting God” to seek a physician for any reason? Or, do they pick and choose?
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Well, I think it does cross over into the Faith Movement in putting one’s life in jeopardy and not using common sense, but the primary issue in the full quiver movement is to not let anything interfere with God blessing a family with children (fruitful and multiply).
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I think that making a woman who could have her life in jeopardy by having another child, the blessing probably eludes her. There are sects out there that do not go to a dr. for any reason and there is no common sense. One of the things that I would tell my children is to watch who they made as friends because common sense isn’t really all that common.
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I think the fact that Scott Brown is looking to the Islamic faith to support his quiverfull beliefs might show just how biblically untenable those beliefs really are.
The bible also speaks of being good stewards. It speaks of a man being able to provide for his family. It speaks of a husband loving his wife as his own body. If a couple wants many children and can responsibly care for them, then by all means . . . But it should be a private decision for the couple alone. Nobody should be shamed either way.
I don’t know much about Turkey, but in some parts of the Middle East child brides (not uncommon in Islamic countries) give birth without even the most basic prenatal care or birth attendance. They are five times more likely to die in childbirth and 18 times more likely to suffer domestic violence. Here’s just one such story out of Yemen:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/09/14/yemen.childbirth.death/index.html?_s=PM:HEALTH
Is that the kind of “love” that Christians should be promoting between husbands and wives? It sounds eerily similar to the kind of society that Patriarchy seems bent on presenting as “Christian” in this country, especially combined with the stay-at-home-daughter teachings.
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Here is info pertinent to Turkey about child brides:
http://www.girlsnotbrides.org/child-marriage/turkey/
“According to UNICEF, Turkey has one of the highest rates of child marriage in Europe, but the figures vary depending on the amount of data available and the region surveyed[i]. For example, according to a national study, the average national rate of child marriage is 28%, but this can reach as high as 41% in the Eastern and South Eastern regions[ii].”
Why is Scott Brown holding up Turkey as an example?
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Why is Scott Brown holding up Turkey as an example?
I think he drank a bad batch of koolaid. This is not a good example if he is trying to keep the huge family idea going. This is child molestation in the form of marriage. These girls are mostly being sold into bondage. There are countries that sell their daughters into prostitution. Girls/Women have no value in these places. Forcing women into being baby factories in this country is not extending their value here.
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“Girls/Women have no value in these places.”
That’s exactly it. And Scott Brown identifies with them. Scary.
Turkey also has a problem with honor killings. Men are sometimes victims, but it is usually women. In an interview with IBTimes, Bingul Durbas, “a doctoral researcher in Sociology/ Gender Studies at the University of Sussex in England,” had this to say about Erdogan: “According to Erdogan, men and women are not equal. A couple of years ago, in fact, at conference in Istanbul he stated that he “did not believe” in gender equality. In September 2004, he proposed to recriminalize adultery and he called on Turkish women to have at least three children. For him and his party, women are defined as wives and mothers and their role is to produce healthy generations.
The AK party has been in power since 2002. Since that time, violence against women in Turkey has been on the increase.”
Her interview concludes with this statement: “In order to eliminate violence against women in general and so called honour crimes in particular we first need to recognize the issue and frame honour crimes as a particular manifestation of an universal patriarchal gender regime without “essentializing” the culture and “stigmatizing” any specific ethnic group.
And we need to directly confront patriarchy in all its forms.”
http://www.aina.org/news/20110710160625.htm
I love that last line. “And we need to directly confront patriarchy in all its forms.”
So, when Scott Brown says “Muslims are having the same problem we are” I assume that he is either 1) ignorant of what he is identifying with, or 2) approves of what he is identifying with. Given that mothers and daughters right here in the USA are being held captive in their own families by Patriarchal beliefs, I’m inclined to go with the latter.
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@Brenda
Here’s an article that will hit close to home for you and other women in your situation: “A new kind of honor violence against women has emerged in Turkey: the murdering of women seeking divorce from their husbands.”
http://www.clarionproject.org/news/turkey-epidemic-murders-women-seeking-divorce
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This talk of Scott Brown and birth control jogged my memory.
There is an IFB preacher (Steven L. Anderson) who has a page on his web site where he says Christian women should not see gynecologists, or at least not male ones.
As far as I can recall, the IFB guy does not get this idea from Muslims, but it’s somewhat tied in with the conversation here. I think this is the page I am thinking of:
–What’s Wrong with Male Gynecologists?–
IFB guy thinks any and all nudity is a sin, he conflates a male doctor seeing a woman nude with porn, etc.
I don’t know about this particular guy, but I know a lot of IFBs or ultra conservative Christians tend to discourage women from getting college degrees, going to med school, and things like that.
I am assuming this guy is OK with women seeing women doctors, but given that women are discouraged from going to college and getting careers, how are women supposed to become doctors?
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What’s next, female circumcision? And, I’m wondering what punishment the male gets into for spilling his seed…by himself. Isn’t that treason, too? I’m sure that Scott Brown could be guilty of that one a thousand and one times. What’s to say that he doesn’t have a stash of nudie magazines hidden somewhere out in the garage? Treason!
Ed
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You know, it always confounds me how, whenever this type of person displays any type of sympathy with Muslims, it’s always with the most horrible individuals. Like, of all the madhabs, of all the sects, of all the schools of thought, all the scholars in disagreement, and the person they decide they have something in common with is the guy who thinks birth control is a conspiracy!
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BTDT,
I cannot get the 2nd article out of my mind:
http://www.clarionproject.org/news/turkey-epidemic-murders-women-seeking-divorce
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JA said:
“Well, I think it does cross over into the Faith Movement in putting one’s life in jeopardy and not using common sense, but the primary issue in the full quiver movement is to not let anything interfere with God blessing a family with children (fruitful and multiply).”
I don’t know if Scott Brown agreed with Doug Phillips’ stance on ectopic pregnancy being no excuse for an abortion, although it wouldn’t surprise me any. God is supposed to come through for you, and if He doesn’t and the mom dies while leaving behind a family, oh well—it must have been God’s will.
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Julie Anne it is not just the anti ________ it is the apocalyptic worldview and the them vs us syndrome. I dont mean to be offensive and I have been the last few months. It is extremely frustrating to have one’s “faith” hijacked by the true believers be it right or left.
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BTDT,
These customs remind me of the Scarlet Letter. If you did not behave in a certain way, or perhaps even may have sinned the people decided your fate rather than God being their judge. A lynch mob mentality. You can’t have that sort of thing in your community, it might be contagious. So to keep that type of behavior that may be unseemly in some folks eyes they kill them off to keep the rest in line.
The idea of a woman being raped being her fault or even committing adultery being the woman’s sin alone is ridiculous. Where is the man? He has no portion of guilt in these acts? This way of thinking is evil. I think Jesus expressed this very well when he drew the line and indicated that those without sin should cast the first stone. Where was the man? Why did they not bring him into account.
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“Now we are facing modern murder. Women want a divorce, and the families aren’t adjusted to it.”
If that is the case: a woman who is held hostage, thrown down stairs causing a miscarriage and her husband that did it goes free. I would now be dead and the X would be finding himself another woman to abuse. Seriously, “the families aren’t adjusted to it”, but they are ok with murder. Well that all makes sense–NOT.
These people are misogynist abusers. Women are property just as their ox, sheep or whatever other animal they have in their country. There are so many minor things that the men their consider a mark on the family name. A woman can’t call in to request a song at a radio station–ridiculous, any reason to bring out the kitchen knife and stab her to death. It is complete evil.
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Quoting Brenda R who was quoting someone else,
“Now we are facing modern murder. Women want a divorce, and the families aren’t adjusted to it.”
There was a lawmaker in Utah who was trying to make divorce more difficult (for women) so that their husbands wouldn’t “be surprised” by it. If memory serves, some other state also went the same route, or was thinking about it.
–Women Get Divorces Because They Don’t Know Any Better, Claims Utah Lawmaker–
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What the idiot that wants this $55 class, that will probably be a money maker for Utah, doesn’t understand or perhaps he knows too well is that more women file for divorce because their abusive husbands are too comfortable in their master’s position to do so themselves. Men who are enabled to live as king of the household and behave in any manner they become accustomed to aren’t likely to file for anything. They already have it the way they choose. It comes as no shock to them when their wives file for divorce, they are at that point playing the victim and trying to gain support. Poor me, I gave her everything including that black eye.
Women often spend decades beating their heads against the wall and “doing more” as a lot of clergy would say before they ever come out of the fog and figure out that their covenant is broken in so many pieces that no amount of glue is going to put it together. There are some that will divorce because they’re bored or would rather see someone else across the dining room table, but that is not the majority. Most women marry because they think they are going to have a good relationship. They don’t say “I do” thinking this guy is going to manipulate, lie, have their honey’s on the side, gaslight, hit you or the children and plain out and out make you crazy. They go into it thinking they will be protected, loved and have someone they can walk and work with. That is often not the reality of the situation at all. If this man thinks it is easy to file for divorce and walk away, he lives in a different universe than I do.
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@madhabmatics
“You know, it always confounds me how, whenever this type of person displays any type of sympathy with Muslims, it’s always with the most horrible individuals.”
Yes. I wonder how the Muslims serving abused women in Turkey would feel about Brown’s comments. Does Scott Brown also feel like the Taliban in Pakistan “are having the same problem we are” because girls want an education? Many Muslims, including Malala Yousafzai and her father, want girls and women to have a better future.
It’s like lumping all Christians in the US as Patriarchists.
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Brenda R said,
I agreed with your post.
It crossed my mind as I read the original news articles about it that husbands who are abusive have no desire to end a marriage and divorce because they treat their wives like slaves. They are getting all their needs met, and they don’t even attempt to meet the needs of the woman.
Another thing I wanted to add though, and I realize this is not true of all men. This is yes a generalization. I have noticed a pattern with some types of men that no matter how often the girlfriend or wife tells the husband (or boyfriend) their relationship is in trouble, that she is unhappy, it often goes on deaf ears.
A woman can spent two, three years (or months) reminding her SO (significant other) that she is unhappy and is thinking of leaving unless dynamic “X” changes.
Maybe she tells the SO that he spends every free moment watching the NFL on TV and she is feeling neglected, and she cannot bear to stay in the relationship if that continues.
So the guy either
1. doesn’t really hear her and just mutters “Uh huh babe, whatever you say babe,” but keeps watching the tube or
2. makes false promises like, “I hear you. Starting tomorrow, I am limiting NFL and taking you out on romantic dinners.” But he never to rarely keeps that promise.
A woman can tell a man repeatedly that when he does X, she cannot tolerate it any longer and will leave, but so often guys do not take these comments seriously.
When the woman finally cannot stand another minute of it and walks into the den with both suitcases in her hands to move out, the guy’s mouth falls open in shock.
Then he has the nerve to cry over beers to all his male buddies, “I never saw it coming. Took me by surprise, I thought our relationship was mostly okay.”
I have seen this dynamic happen to other women (friends and family), it happened to me with my ex fiance to an extent, and I’ve read so many magazine articles about it, the ones with titles like, “Ten Reasons My Marriage Fell Apart.”
It’s like when women complain to their SO about relationship problems, it normally falls on deaf or unsympathetic ears; men seem tone deaf to this.
There was a news headline from about a week ago, from a study that said most women are more empathetic to men in relationships than vice versa, maybe that has something to do wit it, I don’t know.
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Hey, I had a (Christian) guy come on my blog and call me a legalist because I said 13yos shouldn’t be getting married. Apparently child marriage isn’t explicitly forbidden in the Bible, so it must be wrong to call it wrong. We went round for two days until finally he seriously claimed that he never said 13yos should be having sex. That’s when I ended it. Apparently even the basic definition of marriage as a sexual union can be tossed out in the all-important human rights quest to make sure 12yos can get married. ?????????
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Hester,
I have to wonder what he thinks the men marrying these girls are expecting of them. I don’t think they are marrying them with the intent of being a father figure. As far as I am concerned it is legalizing baby rape.
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@ Brenda:
I’m not convinced he completely knew what he thought. He was very fixated on the fact that Mary was probably only about 14yo (even though the entire point of that story is that Mary hasn’t actually had sex…?). He kept saying “you would need a lot of wisdom in that situation” when I pressed for specifics, which I took as a nondescript copout. He also made no meaningful attempt to deal with the topic when I asked him why he wasn’t pro-slavery, and got REALLY uncomfortable when I mentioned Warren Jeffs.
Frighteningly, his actual blog was a site where he claimed to debate with atheists. Because being all for child marriage is soooooo the face I want the Christian faith to have. Yay.
Someone you’ll get to know very well, very quickly if you ever get in an argument about child marriage and/or the age of consent, is a mythical figure I’ve decided to refer to as Fantasy Mature Middle Schooler. She’s that legendary 14yo who is mature enough to weigh all the options and make a completely informed and consensual adult decision about who she wants to marry, all on her own. Now, NO ONE has ever actually met this person. But she MUST exist, SOMEWHERE, and she MUST NOT be robbed of her ability to exercise her Super Mega Mature Adult Decision-making Powers by your stupid age of consent laws. Even though, if she really had such Super Mega Mature Adult Decision-making Powers, I would think she’d be able to a) read and comprehend the age of consent statute, b) reason through why said statute was enacted in the first place, and c) wait.
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Addendum @ Brenda:
Fantasy Mature Middle Schooler can obviously also be male, though in practice it only seems to be girls that are the younger party in this sort of thing.
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BTDT said: “So, when Scott Brown says “Muslims are having the same problem we are” I assume that he is either 1) ignorant of what he is identifying with, or 2) approves of what he is identifying with. Given that mothers and daughters right here in the USA are being held captive in their own families by Patriarchal beliefs, I’m inclined to go with the latter”.
As am I.
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Madhabmatics, may I just take a moment to thank you for your contribution to this subject? It never fails to strike me, that I never hear of a case where time/space is given to those sensible, sane Muslims (like yourslef) who are as horrified by all the mistreatment of women and children as the rest of the world?
Of course, that would mean that these Patriarchy head cases would no longer be able to terrify people with threats that “The Muslims are coming!”, just as their forebears shrieked that “The Russians are coming”!
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If you read the http://www.largefamilymothering.com blog you will find that this woman who was married at the ‘child marriage’ age of 19 understands completely that the patriarchy movement is not about ‘Scott brown’ or ‘Turkish president’ it is about a woman’s ability to CHOOSE LIFE over death. Her ability to obey ‘HOLY BIBLE’ over the worldly construction political and religious forces. Remind you she DID fight over
In those middle eastern countries and could have been killed because of ‘their’ Muslim religion. it is a RARE occasion that I hear her speak of the ‘patriarch’ of the large family which she raises every day. Women who mock and scorn the ‘patriarchy’ movement will end up kicking themselves one day. the greatest of these is LOVE. no LOVE equals no GOD.
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The Patriarchy Movement is not based on love, but on control. I think those who are caught up in the Patriarchy Movement will thank God when they are able to be free from evil men who think they get to lord over their wives, own their faith, and treat them like objects for their satisfaction.
Welcome to the blog 🙂
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