Josiah Duggar Part 6: Now Officially Engaged!

[BabyBottlePop]

12 minutes ago, Glasgowghirl said:

Well he did court Marjorie before Lauren, he is practically experienced in fundie circles.

Oh, you're right. Thanks! I forgot that. I don't follow the Duggar sons as much as the daughters.

[ophelia]

7 hours ago, llg1234 said:

Meh

Lauren could be a biological Duggar daughter in this picture!

[byzant]

On 05/03/2018 at 9:24 PM, Meggo said:

I know - and I really don't care about that - I just can't get over the "no unchaperoned emails, phone calls, texts, meetings etc" Like - is someone walking RIGHT with them? Or hanging back 10 feet? 

 

Nope, there is plenty of evidence from parish registers that more than 50%  of brides were pregnant in the late middle ages/ American early colonial times. And until the late middle ages marriage  wasn,t legally defined by a religious ceremony,  it was ex plus an agreement to marry !

[MargaretElliott]

@byzant Yup! I think it was close to 70% in some areas of colonial America (I want to say Jamestown...?) And while it wasn't exactly respectable, it wasn't a scandal, if you got married before the baby was born. There were a lot of full-sized babies born five months after the wedding. However, if you didn't marry at all and had a child out of wedlock, that was a bigger deal.

This whole purity before marriage might have been an ideal for much of history, but it certainly wasn't the reality for the vast majority of people. A lot of fundies (maybe not the Duggars, what with the SOTDRT) idealize the past as a time when men were men, women were women, and no one touched each other until they were married. There were elaborate courtship rituals, and girls were passed off from dad to husband like the property they were.

I'd like to take this moment to add that many Victorians were not prudes, and in fact there was a fairly uncommon (but not unheard of) fad among French (and occasionally English) women to get their nipples pierced. I've posted instructions for nipple piercing (from an 1889 book) under the spoiler. So they weren't uniformly the buttoned-up bastions of purity fundies think of them as. I also read that Winston Churchill's mother had a tattoo of a snake around her wrist, but I couldn't find a source for that one. I know most women of that era didn't have piercings/tattoos, but... it happened. And it makes me smile.

Source:

Spoiler

https://books.google.com/books?id=NHcAAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA118&dq=68191&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjXuOPMoafJAhWIQyYKHUyECtAQuwUIKDAA#v=onepage&q=68191&f=false

 

[singsingsing]

@byzant @MargaretElliott I've seen the number at more like 1/3, but obviously that only takes into account those who were pregnant when they got married, not those who were having sex before marriage and managed to not get pregnant (or those who were pregnant when they married but miscarried after the wedding). Premarital sex was a lot more common and (often) a lot less of a big deal than most people believe. And certainly courting couples spent time alone, touched and kissed each other, even if they didn't actually have sex until they were married. The fundie courtship ideal was never the norm for most of society.

[Ivycoveredtower]

11 minutes ago, singsingsing said:

@byzant @MargaretElliott I've seen the number at more like 1/3, but obviously that only takes into account those who were pregnant when they got married, not those who were having sex before marriage and managed to not get pregnant (or those who were pregnant when they married but miscarried after the wedding). Premarital sex was a lot more common and (often) a lot less of a big deal than most people believe. And certainly courting couples spent time alone, touched and kissed each other, even if they didn't actually have sex until they were married. The fundie courtship ideal was never the norm for most of society.

well what can be expected when many courtships used a Bundling Board as part of them or just shared a bed  without the board for a night so they could talk all night long. 

[Palimpsest]

34 minutes ago, MargaretElliott said:

@byzant Yup! I think it was close to 70% in some areas of colonial America (I want to say Jamestown...?) And while it wasn't exactly respectable, it wasn't a scandal, if you got married before the baby was born. There were a lot of full-sized babies born five months after the wedding. However, if you didn't marry at all and had a child out of wedlock, that was a bigger deal.

Martha Ballard is interesting on this subject.  She practiced as a midwife in NE during the late 1700s and early 1800s.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Ballard

I can't remember the exact statistics but there were many unwed mothers and pregnant brides in her practice.  It wasn't thought of as a big deal in the community.  The women weren't shamed or thought of as spoiled marital goods, according to Martha.  Young couples often had one or more children before they could afford to "set up housekeeping" for themselves.  Setting up housekeeping seemed to be the marker for marriage, not pregnancy.

One of Martha's official duties as a Colonial midwife was to question the single mother as to the identity of the child's father during labor, so that he could be made responsible for child support.  The belief was that "in labor veritas" so the mother couldn't lie about it. 

One of Martha's unwed patients named Martha's son as the dad.  Martha took it well in her stride, welcomed the young woman and child into the family, and the couple later married.

Fundies like revisionist history.

[Ivycoveredtower]

2 minutes ago, Palimpsest said:

Martha Ballard is interesting on this subject.  She practiced as a midwife in NE during the late 1700s and early 1800s.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Ballard

I can't remember the exact statistics but there were many unwed mothers and pregnant brides in her practice.  It wasn't thought of as a big deal in the community.  The women weren't shamed or thought of as spoiled marital goods, according to Martha.  Young couples often had one or more children before they could afford to "set up housekeeping" for themselves.  Setting up housekeeping seemed to be the marker for marriage, not pregnancy.

One of Martha's official duties as a Colonial midwife was to question the single mother as to the identity of the child's father during labor, so that he could be made responsible for child support.  The belief was that "in labor veritas" so the mother couldn't lie about it. 

One of Martha's unwed patients named Martha's son as the dad.  Martha took it well in her stride, welcomed the young woman and child into the family, and the couple later married.

Fundies like revisionist history.

well that must have been a shock learning you were going to be a grandma well delivering said child.  

[MargaretElliott]

@Palimpsest I absolutely LOVE Martha Ballard! A Midwife's Tale is one of my favorite books, and there's a pretty good PBS series that came out in the 90s based on it. She was a really incredible person, in my opinion. She inspired me to start keeping a diary. Mine probably won't cause any historic breakthroughs, though.

I do wish some of these fundie girls would read through it when considering home births. So many people (including some people I know... don't worry, this was just theoretical, they're not actually pregnant) have wanted home births and weren't concerned in the least about an emergency. Why? Because "women have been giving birth for thousands of years, your body knows what it's doing!" Sure, women have been having babies since the origin of the species, but it didn't always end well for mother or baby... I'm not usually afraid of the "scared straight" approach, but I'd rather them read about a tragedy and reconsider their approach, rather than have to experience it themselves. I don't know what Lauren will choose in the inevitable occasion she gets pregnant (assuming her fertility is similar to that of the other Duggars and in-laws), but I hope she at the very least has an educated, qualified midwife and proper prenatal care.

[Palimpsest]

34 minutes ago, MargaretElliott said:

I absolutely LOVE Martha Ballard! A Midwife's Tale is one of my favorite books, and there's a pretty good PBS series that came out in the 90s based on it. She was a really incredible person, in my opinion. She inspired me to start keeping a diary. Mine probably won't cause any historic breakthroughs, though.

Hey!  Someone else who has read A Midwife's Tale.   

I Know quite a few people who are familiar with the PBS series but not many who have read the book.  I loved it too and should read it again.  Martha is courageous, pragmatic, generous, a very skilled midwife, and one of my personal heroes.  

As far as your diary goes, you never know - but remember "Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History."  I haven't read Thatcher's book on plural marriage in early Mormonism yet, but I recommend her Age of Homespun and Good Wives for women's history in early colonial America.

Yes, the home birthing trend isn't just limited to Duggars and Fundies.  A lot of people think it sounds nice but re-think after they have researched properly.  I wish more women would understand the risks and have emergency plans in place.  Women have indeed given birth for thousands of years.  All too many women have lost their lives or their babies' lives in child-birth too.

[tabitha2]

Regarding Martha Ballard and Colonial Pregnancy : At least  at the beginning of the period Women were very scarce(There was no Prostitution for a while because every women was taken) and every child was important as a labor source so they being pragmatic and trying to survive weren’t about to quibble about legitimacy. And a girl who was a proven birther  was more useful to them than an untried Virgin. But they expected the parents to marry just the same.  

[Palimpsest]

1 hour ago, tabitha2 said:

At least  at the beginning of the period Women were very scarce

Absolutely true.  I remember a book (the title escapes me now) detailing how very unusual it was for a woman like Anne Hutchinson to be banished from the early settlements.  Now Anne was a very badly behaved woman, she dared to preach, and really put a burr under those patriarchal saddles.  Good for her!

Wait - I came over here from the Activity stream because I saw interesting history posts.  What thread am I in?  Josiah is engaged? 

 < that's me running back to the beginning of the thread!

[Meggo]

2 hours ago, Palimpsest said:

 

Yes, the home birthing trend isn't just limited to Duggars and Fundies.  A lot of people think it sounds nice but re-think after they have researched properly.  I wish more women would understand the risks and have emergency plans in place.  Women have indeed given birth for thousands of years.  All too many women have lost their lives or their babies' lives in child-birth too.

I had a friend who decided WEEKS before she was set to deliver her second child that not only did she want to do a VBAC, she wanted to switch away from her doctor and to a midwife she'd never been seen by before. And recently they've now licensed CPM but I don't think there was anything like that when she wanted to do this. We all thought she was insane. 

Turned out fine- her doctor basically said "you can do what you'd like - but you will not be my patient if you do" - she ended up sticking with the doc and baby was fine. Now she IS whackadoodle nutso pants - and I've cut her out of my life because of The Crazy (not the homebirth thing but other insanity...) so I'm not entirely sure how her other two came into the world.

 

[tabitha2]

2 hours ago, Palimpsest said:

Absolutely true.  I remember a book (the title escapes me now) detailing how very unusual it was for a woman like Anne Hutchinson to be banished from the early settlements.  Now Anne was a very badly behaved woman, she dared to preach, and really put a burr under those patriarchal saddles.  Good for her!

Wait - I came over here from the Activity stream because I saw interesting history posts.  What thread am I in?  Josiah is engaged? 

 < that's me running back to the beginning of the thread!

 And you know those oh so pious  and Christian churchmen were high fiving  and gloating  about her and her almost entire family getting scalped. Mealy mouth shit head hypocrites.

[Bethella]

6 hours ago, Ivycoveredtower said:

well that must have been a shock learning you were going to be a grandma well delivering said child.  

IIRC she knew about the baby several months in advance because that was when the woman (Sally) began the paternity suit.

4 hours ago, Palimpsest said:

Hey!  Someone else who has read A Midwife's Tale.   

I Know quite a few people who are familiar with the PBS series but not many who have read the book.  I loved it too and should read it again.  Martha is courageous, pragmatic, generous, a very skilled midwife, and one of my personal heroes.  

As far as your diary goes, you never know - but remember "Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History."  I haven't read Thatcher's book on plural marriage in early Mormonism yet, but I recommend her Age of Homespun and Good Wives for women's history in early colonial America.

Yes, the home birthing trend isn't just limited to Duggars and Fundies.  A lot of people think it sounds nice but re-think after they have researched properly.  I wish more women would understand the risks and have emergency plans in place.  Women have indeed given birth for thousands of years.  All too many women have lost their lives or their babies' lives in child-birth too.

I love A Midwife's Tale, it's one of my favorite books. I also liked her book A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women's Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835-1870, particularly the women's religious and political activism.

[VBOY9977]

source: https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/pictures/duggar-family-photos-couples-babies-and-more/

I really like the setup and the fact that this was where Lauren’s parents got engaged. Wayyy better proposal than turn and Joe imo. Good job Josiah!

[singsingsing]

1 minute ago, VBOY9977 said:

source: https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/pictures/duggar-family-photos-couples-babies-and-more/

I really like the setup and the fact that this was where Lauren’s parents got engaged. Wayyy better proposal than turn and Joe imo. Good job Josiah!

Aside from the fact that it was at someone else's wedding reception and in front of hundreds of people, I actually liked Joe's proposal the best. I'm a fan of a simple, no-nonsense proposal. These marathon things the rest of them do are like my ultimate nightmare!

[Ivycoveredtower]

11 minutes ago, singsingsing said:

Aside from the fact that it was at someone else's wedding reception and in front of hundreds of people, I actually liked Joe's proposal the best. I'm a fan of a simple, no-nonsense proposal. These marathon things the rest of them do are like my ultimate nightmare!

I think Kendra was also probably the most surprised. I mean how could the other girls not know what was coming with all the over the top preparations. 

[VBOY9977]

I think Joy was surprised too since she said on the After show thing that she didn’t notice the camera men were there. I think that once the camera men show up they’re bound to know something’s up (with the exception of a proposal on someone else’s wedding)

[Ivycoveredtower]

2 minutes ago, VBOY9977 said:

I think Joy was surprised too since she said on the After show thing that she didn’t notice the camera men were there. I think that once the camera men show up they’re bound to know something’s up (with the exception of a proposal on someone else’s wedding)

totally forgot about Joy opps. but I mean Jessa was handed a present and told it was for the next step to the rest of her life or so such. Jill was met by a man singing a song about her courtship with Derick. JInger was led through New York (It was New york right?) For a random photo shoot on a roof top.  oh I guess yeah would have been surprised since she wouldn't have even known Josh was in the state. 

[HarleyQuinn]

I'm not crazy about the hay but I'm allergic to all things country.  

[Four is Enough]

I like an engagement setting to be meaningful to the couple. I guess borrowing from Lauren's parents' proposal counts???

Mr.Four proposed in my living room. As I was putting on my coat to go out with him.. Worked for us!

[Carm_88]

12 hours ago, VBOY9977 said:

source: https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/pictures/duggar-family-photos-couples-babies-and-more/

I really like the setup and the fact that this was where Lauren’s parents got engaged. Wayyy better proposal than turn and Joe imo. Good job Josiah!

My mind just went to "What a waste of roses." 

[nastyhobbitses]

12 hours ago, singsingsing said:

Aside from the fact that it was at someone else's wedding reception and in front of hundreds of people, I actually liked Joe's proposal the best. I'm a fan of a simple, no-nonsense proposal. These marathon things the rest of them do are like my ultimate nightmare!

Yeah, Ben's proposal would have driven me up the wall. Get on your knee, hand me the rock, and get it over with. It's hard enough going through a ridiculous formal process to be allowed to fuck without you adding a scavenger hunt to the proceedings. 

[Nargus]

8 minutes ago, nastyhobbitses said:

Yeah, Ben's proposal would have driven me up the wall. Get on your knee, hand me the rock, and get it over with. It's hard enough going through a ridiculous formal process to be allowed to fuck without you adding a scavenger hunt to the proceedings. 

I found the way he got her there ridiculous and drawn out but I thought it was sweet that he wanted to include the chapel she loved because it would be too small for them to actually get married in.