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Take Your Wife. Even Sicker Than Usual


debrand

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As Bible-believing Baptists who hold to reformed theology, X and I believe that God is sovereign in choosing who will or will not believe in him, having chosen his people before the foundation of the world (see Ephesians 1), and that his selection is unbreakable and irresistible. If marriage is to mirror this principle, we believe that a woman has no right to select a husband for herself, but that she is to be chosen by a man and marriage is to be an unbreakable arrangement between the man and her father. Based on this reasoning, we have shunned a standard proposal and wedding ceremony, because if I had asked her to marry me (which I did not) then I would have given her the decision to marry me rather than selecting her and taking her myself. Furthermore, if we had exchanged conventional marriage vows, our union would have been based on X’s will and consent, which are not Biblical factors for marriage or salvation. Instead, I asked X’s father for his blessing in taking her hand in marriage. When he gave his blessing, X and I considered ourselves to be unbreakably betrothed in the sight of God. While we had initially intended to consummate our marriage after today’s symbolic ceremony, we instead did so secretly after private scripture reading, prayer, and mutual foot-washing.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... kin-crawl/

I don't even know how to comment on this. It is sick

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Mutual foot washing. Well since she gets no say, I guess that is his kink.

Women really are nothing but objects to these people.

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Mutual foot washing. Well since she gets no say, I guess that is his kink.

Women really are nothing but objects to these people.

Some of the radical right Christians are becoming very similar to radical right Muslims. Will they start kidnapping brides next? It skeeves me out to think that as a young woman I might have been forcibly married to some of the fundie males we discuss. :ew:

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If God is sovereign how come the man gets to choose who to marry? Neither the bride or groom should choose, it should be an arrangement between the bride's and the groom's family according to this logic.

It is so skeevy when these fundies talk about this being an arrangement between the groom and the future father-in-law. Sounds like the groom is marrying the older man, though I suppose in a way, he is.

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You know, I've heard of "good Christian boys" convinced their fiances that since they are as good as married, they need to practice all parts of marriage to coerce them into having sex. I've never quite seen one talk a girl into her own rape so eloquently. By his own words, she has no right to consent or deny him, therefore every encouter is a rape. Somehow I am going to speculate that it probably feels like rape too and she thinks the problem is that she's not submitting her heart sufficiently to his whims.

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If God is sovereign how come the man gets to choose who to marry? Neither the bride or groom should choose, it should be an arrangement between the bride's and the groom's family according to this logic.

It is so skeevy when these fundies talk about this being an arrangement between the groom and the future father-in-law. Sounds like the groom is marrying the older man, though I suppose in a way, he is.

The man gets to choose because God (who is/was a man) chose his people. Conservative Christians believe God is a man, since according to Genesis 1:27 "God created man in his own image."

Remember it's all about the mennz!

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You know, I've heard of "good Christian boys" convinced their fiances that since they are as good as married, they need to practice all parts of marriage to coerce them into having sex.

Oh yes. At the very Christian college I went to, this was a common thing. In fact my very Bible-toting, everything about Jesus, very Christian boyfriend tried this after we got engaged.

It was one of the reasons, we got "unengaged".

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FFS. I suppose these guys love long hair because they plan to drag the woman into their cave by grabbing it.

Maybe we need a caveman smiley.

ETA -- I take it as a sign of my mental health that, as serious as this subject is, and as sick as that quote was, the subject of the thread still made my inner reference-lover think of Henny Youngman, and automatically finish "Take your wife" with "please."

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I don't understand how this would work out. If he believes that asking for the woman's permission is a no-no, then how did he know that this woman would subject to the procedure without sueing his ass the next day? He must have talked to her or her Dad, who must have talked to her about it. So she DID consent to the procedure, which in turn nullifies his argument that "he took his wife".

and

"While we had initially intended to consummate our marriage after today’s symbolic ceremony, we instead did so secretly after private scripture reading, prayer, and mutual foot-washing."

So... she either consented (which he does not want) or he raped her? Which one?

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The part of reformed theology I don't understand (and I grew up as a Presbyterian) is if you are already chosen, why do you then have to conform to all these rules and regulations? Why, if you are predestined, do you even need any of the "instructions" in the bible?

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I can't imagine what it was like for this woman when she was a child growing up in her father's house. Clearly, he has absolutely no regard for her as a human being so any sort of rebellion (in the form of her attempting to be seen as a PERSON and not a prize cow) would most likely have been beaten out of her in the name of training her up until she was nothing more than a submissive THING. By this point I wouldn't doubt if she views rape and foot washing as all she's good for.

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This story is truly and incredibly awful. I'm no theological expert, but something strikes me as odd in comparing Christians (who have elected to believe in God and become part of the church), to a bride who has no choice in choosing her husband. Even if you are Calvinist and believe that Christians are chosen by God, the experience of the believer won't be one of coercion. They will believe they are saved in their "hearts" because God ordained it so and will have the experience of faith for themselves, no matter how they describe their salvation. However, the situation described here seems to have nothing elective about it. In theory one could decide, "I will marry X without her consent" even if she hates the groom and is not Christian. She could be coerced into giving her consent for the marriage.

But to look at the situation a bit more closely, I think the way it's described shows it to be a bizzaro BDSM lie about a relationship that was probably more consensual than what we are led to believe here. (At least, I hope it is). What would attract the groom to the bride in the first place? Her godliness/religious brainwashing/normative femininity, etc, which is probably elective. (I know it may be coerced entirely, but I'm not sure it is in this particular case). The groom says he asked her dad to NOT ask her to approve him as a suitor, but to give his permission for the marriage. Then he says they "considered themselves" bound in marriage from that point onwards. He speaks of his wife here as having her own agency insofar as she can electively consider herself married. He also speaks of their mutual agreement (not his own wishes alone) about when to consummate the marriage. Granted, it's a poor kind of freedom, but it seems to me that this is simply kink packaged in a religious box, with deluded fundies thinking it should be a gift given to every so-called godly couple. We've seen it before in Christian domestic discipline circles. It's disgusting, it's wrong, it makes me sick, but I can see the possibility that for some couples, the guy would be all, "I'm gonna ask your dad to give you to me in marriage and you don't get to tell me no," and the girl being all, "oooh, sexy." Essentially a consensual BDSM type relationship. Of course, there is also the possibility for the marriage to turn into a scenario of rape and imprisonment, so don't take this as a defense for the arrangement in the least. It could also be that the bride is indulging in her groom's kink for domination because she cares for him, and trusts him to care for her like Christ cares for the church, and so doesn't consider abuse likely. Of course, that doesn't mean it won't happen. There is certainly the danger that other women who want to be "godly" will risk allowing themselves to be nearly completely disenfranchised in the name of god because of bullshit like this story.

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Some of the radical right Christians are becoming very similar to radical right Muslims. Will they start kidnapping brides next? It skeeves me out to think that as a young woman I might have been forcibly married to some of the fundie males we discuss. :ew:

That's what we're trying to tell the world: Extremism under any identity is evil.

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FFS. I suppose these guys love long hair because they plan to drag the woman into their cave by grabbing it.

Maybe we need a caveman smiley.

ETA -- I take it as a sign of my mental health that, as serious as this subject is, and as sick as that quote was, the subject of the thread still made my inner reference-lover think of Henny Youngman, and automatically finish "Take your wife" with "please."

Oh, boy, me too! I sadly wonder how many of these people (extremists) have never heard of Henny, or if they have, totally misconstrue his humor. (Jewish. Worldly. Not-talking-about-shoulds-and-oughts, so, useless.)

Long hair. It can be fun, it can be pretty, it can make a statement - but it takes some work to keep it looking nice. Much like skirts, of any length, restrict the wearer's freedom of movement and even dictate posture, for heavenssakes.

It's all part of the same extremist m.o.

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I don't understand how this would work out. If he believes that asking for the woman's permission is a no-no, then how did he know that this woman would subject to the procedure without sueing his ass the next day? He must have talked to her or her Dad, who must have talked to her about it. So she DID consent to the procedure, which in turn nullifies his argument that "he took his wife".

and

"While we had initially intended to consummate our marriage after today’s symbolic ceremony, we instead did so secretly after private scripture reading, prayer, and mutual foot-washing."

So... she either consented (which he does not want) or he raped her? Which one?

Her dad had agreed so they were married (after all the ceremony was just symbolic) and if they are married, well, obviously, he can't rape his wife.

There is a reason women learned which herbs healed and which ones killed, back inthe day.

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It's not like I have ever done an informal poll of my friends and family to see what kink and how much of it they like in their lives, but my perception is a lot of these superfundies can't keep the BDSM in the bedroom where it belongs. They feel so guilty about it they have to use scripture to justify it and once they do, they release the beast into places it doesn't belong.

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I will say it again this is not 2000 years ago. Buying a bride is far older then Christianity and so in doing so you are doing a pagan thing. Just because it is in the bible does not mean you should do it.

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The part of reformed theology I don't understand (and I grew up as a Presbyterian) is if you are already chosen, why do you then have to conform to all these rules and regulations? Why, if you are predestined, do you even need any of the "instructions" in the bible?

QTF

This is one of the arguements I use when my husband goes off on one of his Calvinism rants to me (which completely ruined our Christmas this past year). It really pisses him off which makes me giggle.

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Because if you're not conforming to the rules and regulations, it means you not actually saved!! But if God elects those who are saved anyway, how can anything you do make a difference? But who, if they really believe that hardcore calvinist line, would want to admit that they're not one of the elect? Nobody says, "I believe that only those chosen by God go to heaven, and unfortunately I'm not one of the chosen."

Don't try to look for logic in it. There is none.

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Don't try to look for logic in it. There is none.

This is so true. There is no reasoning with them. Trust me, I've spent the last 3.5 years of my life trying and all it does is make the husband pout at me for anywhere from a few hours to a few days. People like that cannot be reasoned with.

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