Now Lady Lydia is a matchmaker!!

[darkplumaged]

Hi, Taryn! Didn't know you commented at "Lady" Lydia's, too!

[thoughtful]

If he is trusting Lydia to find him a wife, I know his favorite song:

[onlyorganic]

What is the salary? Do you get paid maternity leave?? How creepy.

Well, here's my thing... I'm sure if the dude wasn't so damn picky he'd probably have a wife already. For YEARS a man in my town placed an ad in our local paper looking for a wife who had to have ALL of these redonkulous qualifications: slender, a virgin, red hair, had to love ponies and could make a mean apple crisp from scratch (Okay, I'm making this up but it was pretty stupid)... I mean, this ad ran for YEARS. I remember reading it and laughing and thinking that if he was just looking for a nice person and not some qualified, custom June-Cleaver he'd probably be happily married to a great person. But no... has to have an intact hymen and provide references. This sounds more like a job posting than a longing to have someone to share happy moments with. And at 50? Well, i don't mean to be rude but at this point the pickins' are a little slim.

[fundiefan]

I was too busy being snarky at first to get to where you're all at. But, really, he's 50 and unmarried. Why? In the real world, unmarried at 50 is no big deal, you either don't want to or haven't met the right person and life goes on and you take it as it comes. In fundie land, there is something wrong - with him.

The whole 'references from the girls family' thing really, really squigs me out. Which, ultimately makes the entire situation squig me out.

[OnceModestTwiceShy]

I think that the weirdly stiff wording of the "ad" definitely comes down to the age of the perspective bride. The guy may be stupid and/or creepy, but not enough so to try and land a fresh-faced 22-y/o SAHD straight from her dad's house. What I see between the lines is: "I know I'm too old and weird to be able to pass through an intense screening process required in courting a young fundie girl, so I'm going to find an older woman whose prospects have dwindled and who no longer expects Prince Charming, but rather is willing to settle as long as she gets to finally have a husband and maybe kids." That's why the "requirements" are just fundie basics - modest dress, cooking and cleaning, homeschooling. In a way it's actually more honest than many of the courtship stories we hear - it's not about "God laid it my heart to marry this person, whom he had in store for me", but rather "we have similar values, this is a logical arrangement." The woman who answers this ad will probably be a woman in her mid-thirties, someone who has been raised to want nothing but SAHM-hood, has watched her 20s come and go with no prospect in sight, who has no more younger siblings to care for and is fearing for her future, knowing that she will be unable to make it in the real world once her parents can no longer support her, but who remains a true believer and thus cannot imagine leaving the fold. The truly depressing thing is how completely unnecessary it is for a woman to be in this situation - these people really are stuck in the past to an extent I would have have imagined possible if I wasn't obsessed with the fundie subculture.

[GenerationCedarchip]

I think that the weirdly stiff wording of the "ad" definitely comes down to the age of the perspective bride. The guy may be stupid and/or creepy, but not enough so to try and land a fresh-faced 22-y/o SAHD straight from her dad's house. What I see between the lines is: "I know I'm too old and weird to be able to pass through an intense screening process required in courting a young fundie girl, so I'm going to find an older woman whose prospects have dwindled and who no longer expects Prince Charming, but rather is willing to settle as long as she gets to finally have a husband and maybe kids." That's why the "requirements" are just fundie basics - modest dress, cooking and cleaning, homeschooling. In a way it's actually more honest than many of the courtship stories we hear - it's not about "God laid it my heart to marry this person, whom he had in store for me", but rather "we have similar values, this is a logical arrangement." The woman who answers this ad will probably be a woman in her mid-thirties, someone who has been raised to want nothing but SAHM-hood, has watched her 20s come and go with no prospect in sight, who has no more younger siblings to care for and is fearing for her future, knowing that she will be unable to make it in the real world once her parents can no longer support her, but who remains a true believer and thus cannot imagine leaving the fold. The truly depressing thing is how completely unnecessary it is for a woman to be in this situation - these people really are stuck in the past to an extent I would have have imagined possible if I wasn't obsessed with the fundie subculture.

In other words, I should circulate this ad around my childhood church because there are more than 1 or 2 women who would probably jump at the chance.

[browngrl]

sounds like this guy wants the same thing Arnold Schwartzenager did: a maid he can sleep with.

[ChunkyBarbie]

How truly sad that for some woman out there this is her chance to escape or fulfill her fundie destiny.