Fundie Widows

[kariberi]

I have not found much information on what fundies do about people who have lost their spouses. Young or old. Are they allowed to re-marry? If they do, do they have to repeat the courting process all over again? If the widow is a young woman with children, is she allowed to work to support her family or does she have to go back to her father if he is still alive?

I wonder too if other women find young widows a threat to their husbands or future husbands and maybe they keep them out of the spotlight? Im just curious to how they are treated. From watching the duggars, I know the grandmother lives with them. But I wonder if they would frown upon her finding companionship again? :)

[ladyamylynn]

You should read Heather's story at the lazy d ranch 8 blog. Super fundies, into the Pearls, etc. He died, she remarried fairly quickly.

[NotALoserLikeYou]

The Proverbs Mom remarried after her first husband was killed.

Hardcore fundies would say widows cannot work but should remarry quickly.

There was that woman whose husband died and she made her teenage son work his ass off to support her, cuz thats what she thought he was supposed to do. Who was that?

[Justme]

Shouldn't they do like the Bible says and marry their husband's brother??? :think:

Oh, yeah, that's right, they get to pick and choose what Bible passages they follow! :doh:

[Jana814]

Hate to change the subject but what about Fundie Widowers.

[GenerationCedarchip]

I get the impression that it varies depending on the type of fundie community. I'm most familiar with some of the reformed fundie world and what I saw was this: Older women (i.e. with at least some grown children) weren't necessarily expected to remarry but those grown children better be all about taking care of mama because the widows were generally not expected to work. Never mind if said grown children were making barely enough to make ends meet. Occasionally, you'd have an older widow whose kids couldn't or wouldn't care for her and she needed to work, so our church considered itself "enlightened" because it would offer such women positions in the church office or as a Sunday School coordinator, so that they wouldn't have to be exposed to the big bad world of capitalism.

If the widow is younger, or has many children still at home, the church would normally help care for her but there was the expectation she would marry again. Courtship was not necessarily expected but I do remember we would be asked to pray over "provision of a godly husband" for someone widowed and the pastor or elders would often vet likely candidates but on a very informal basis. Basically, if a single man started sitting with Widow X in church or at socials, some of the elders might take him aside for a friendly chat. ;)

Widows had a bit more freedom in picking husbands than the never-married, but widowers had the most. The only widowers I knew of in church didn't seem to face much pressure to remarry. However, it was hard to miss the fact that after a respectable amount of time passed, some families would be practically throwing their unmarried daughters at them. Occasionally, I'd hear someone commenting to a widowed man, "But don't you want your children to grow up with a mothering figure?" but not much more than that. The Session seemed to get much more concerned about widowed women finding new spouses because on the one hand, they didn't believe they should be out in the workforce, but then again, they didn't want them to sink into dire poverty either.

[BullyJBG]

I wonder about that too. We have Debbie Query, but I don't know what all she's done for work since her husband's death. But she does seem to have a lot of time to help the Duggars as they need. Probably they help her out, but yeah; there's never been talk of, what if she met a single/single-again man and there was interest; who would help with the courtship process?

Oh yeah, we have Josh Beasley who's from some kind of fundie-light home. He is re-married; been over a year now.(his wife's blog has been discontinued, though) She referred to their relationship as dating, but we'll never know what kind of "rules" they had; like did they kiss before their wedding and so on.

Kelly Bates lost her brother, and mentioned that his widow is working and taking courses. Says it's hard but she is managing.

[Jana814]

I think Debbie Query is a nurse. (I think I read that some where).

[JMarie]

gleaningtheharvest.com

[BrownieMomma]

gleaningtheharvest.com

Interesting website. I wonder how to know it's legit?

[ladyamylynn]

Interesting website. I wonder how to know it's legit?

Well, it was run by the Dixons, which means it gets an automatic side-eye from me.

[Seven Severn]

Would some fundie husbands have the foresight to buy decent life insurance? Or is life insurance not trusting god? A quarter of a million payout could buy a widow a little breathing room.

[susykt4]

An interesting phenomena at my parents' church was that widowers would sometimes marry old maids. That was always terribly, terribly exciting that so and so was marrying for the first time in her 50s. Young widows were allowed to remarry and usually did pretty quickly. I have one relative who lost her husband in her 30s and never remarried. She worked one of the acceptable (but still somewhat frowned-upon) careers for women- nurse or school teacher. I can't think of one widower under age 85 who didn't remarry pretty quickly and I can't think of one widow over 70 who remarried. This was a long-lived population and young (meaning younger than 75) widowers were rare.

My dad was a bit more liberal than most, but I don't recall distrust of insurance being a thing in their church. It was a pretty wealthy congregation overall, and I think most everyone had all the usual insurance.

[Toothfairy]

What happens if both parents die?

[Toothfairy]

You should read Heather's story at the lazy d ranch 8 blog. Super fundies, into the Pearls, etc. He died, she remarried fairly quickly.

But wouldn't she be used? She gave her heart and purity to her first husband. She has nothing to give to her second husband.

Again I just don't understand this Dave yourself for your spouse shit

[GenerationCedarchip]

Would some fundie husbands have the foresight to buy decent life insurance? Or is life insurance not trusting god? A quarter of a million payout could buy a widow a little breathing room.

Most fundies I've known see savings and insurance as part of "being the provider." Then again, I came from a church with plenty of educated professionals - and more than a few insurance agents.

[Jana814]

What happens if both parents die?

I wonder about that also!!

[ViolaSebastian]

I wonder about that also!!

I imagine that the kiddos would go to the nearest fundie relative. For example, if poor Dave N' Cil were to meet with an unfortunate pecan gleaning accident, Paul and Davia would probably go the Smuggars.

[Coconut Flan]

There was a poster on TWoP who had a family member fully immersed in quiverful and the kids lost both parents. In their case, they were divided up among various family members as no one could take such a large group. She ended up with several boys IIRC and they were all behind socially and academically even though their parents had kept telling everyone how advanced they were.

I would expect what happens is driven by how close the parents were to other relatives, how many children are involved, the financial resources of other family members, etc.

[nelliebelle1197]

Lydia of Purple died and her husband remarried a much younger bride. I think she was Fillipina or Thai??? It was pretty awful and the family has a rift now. The wife was mail order. The sons went off the rails, methinks.

lydiaofpurple.com

I can't find the weird pages her husband had up. They were findable through Colleen's page at one point.

Last thread:

viewtopic.php?f=119&t=17979

[Jana814]

There was a poster on TWoP who had a family member fully immersed in quiverful and the kids lost both parents. In their case, they were divided up among various family members as no one could take such a large group. She ended up with several boys IIRC and they were all behind socially and academically even though their parents had kept telling everyone how advanced they were.

I remember that person. Her story was soo interesting to me. The parents were her husband's brother & his wife. Their were like 10 plus kids she & her husband ended up w/ 4 of the kids all boys (including a set a twins).

I emailed her off line several times, those boys r getting the life they deserve!

[Coco]

Just being brutally honest, the possibility of taking on a big herd of under-educated children who've been raised to be racist and homophobic... not to mention spiritually smug and proud to be openly bigoted, would be incredibly difficult. On one hand, it would be wonderful to help them get free from the mental prison -- if that would even be possible :angry-banghead: and help them go through the grieving process. On the other hand, wow. So much damage and bigotry to be repaired, especially with older kids. It's one thing to take in an orphan who's had no opportunities and give them a better life, it's another to try to retrain a teen who has been raised to believe God supports awful things.

The thinking in many big families is that the children are "God's" so the loss of a parent, since all things work together for good (even shitty situations are "God's will") means that fundie parents believe the parent role will be filled in this life by God's chosen caregiver. Even while the parents are still here they pass off a lot of the responsibility: co-op out schooling and childcare to the church and friends because the kids are kind of a community effort to change the world.

It seems like quite a few fundies have this blind faith fixation - they think it's doubting in God to prepare ahead of time for bad things that happen. (except maybe having a ton of food and ammo) Especially the fact that they keep having kids with limited resources. They're just living by faith in the blessed moment and chugging that kool-aid -- pasting a scripture band-aid on every disaster that comes up. :shrug:

Taking in and raising kids who've lost their parents, and trying to help them see a better world out there than the fundie world they were trapped in, that is a major ministry.

[Palimpsest]

You should read Heather's story at the lazy d ranch 8 blog. Super fundies, into the Pearls, etc. He died, she remarried fairly quickly.

Just dropping by to post the link to Heather's blog: lazydranch8.blogspot.com/2005_09_01_archive.html

I used to follow her quite closely but she hasn't updated in a while. She placed herself under the headship of her church after Command Man Eric died circa 2008/9. They matched her up with Phil, a church member, who is younger than Heather. They married in 2010 and have since had a baby, "Sweet Pea." Look for her posts on grieving.

Also an old thread from yuku (I posted there as Nell) which summarizes some of the story if you don't have time to plough through all Heather's blog: http://freejinger.yuku.com/topic/1794/H ... H9dk8t0xjo

[ladyamylynn]

Just dropping by to post the link to Heather's blog: lazydranch8.blogspot.com/2005_09_01_archive.html

I used to follow her quite closely but she hasn't updated in a while. She placed herself under the headship of her church after Command Man Eric died circa 2008/9. They matched her up with Phil, a church member, who is younger than Heather. They married in 2010 and have since had a baby, "Sweet Pea." Look for her posts on grieving.

Also an old thread from yuku (I posted there as Nell) which summarizes some of the story if you don't have time to plough through all Heather's blog: http://freejinger.yuku.com/topic/1794/H ... H9dk8t0xjo

Did you know her 2nd daughter is engaged to Skylar Seargeant, of "Plymouth Rock Ranch?" Interesting VF tie-in.

[RosyDaisy]

In my family, fundies included, we take care of our own. However, the fundies in my family aren't quiverfull or follow fundie movements like that.