Arranged marriages fundie style.

[Lillybee]

This is the first time I have heard of something like this.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... lists.html

[Cleopatra7]

I'm surprised that there aren't more fundie arranged marriages seeing as how it's "biblical " and all. Maybe it will become the newest fundie fad since the SAHD thing seems to have collapsed and so has "I Kissed Dating Goodbye."

[Delilah]

So much to say on this.

First of all, she was a bargain deal because she came as "damaged goods". For heaven's sake, she's a person, not an item on the clearance rack.

Second, this is human trafficking, and the involved parties should have been prosecuted in my opinion.

Thirdly, this happened in San Jose?! That is not a fundy area as far as I can tell. This family must have stood out like a sore thumb. I know her mom kept her isolated and all, but it's not as if they lived on a farm somewhere. San Jose is a busy city.

Fourth, I'm happy she has a happy marriage now. She deserves happiness.

[ghost]

Next thing Purity.com dating site for the fundy set.

[DGayle]

However, an informal survey taken by the group Homeschool Alumni Reaching Out in the wake of the Pennington case found an alarming 29 percent of respondents said they found they had no access their own birth certificate by the time they turned 18 and 25 percent said they could not get to their social security card.

There needs to be something in place to break the catch-22 of this. It took me 4 years to get mine. When I was a baby, I was adopted by my dad, and at that time, it closed my original birth certificate (with birth last name), which had the name on my social security card, and a new card wasn't ordered then because it was 1981, and things were as they ended up becoming. When I got to be 18, I needed by social security card, but it didn't match the name on my ID, which I got as a minor with my new birth certificate and my mom signing off that my SSN was mine.

Suddenly I was in a spot where I couldn't get an updated social security card since I didn't have my original birth certificate, which I couldn't get a copy of without my ID having the same name. It took trips to the state capital thousands of miles away, affidavits from my parents, and then what did it was a clerk in the little podunk town I was born in deciding fuck the rules, printed me a copy of my original birth certificate, and then I could get things cleared up and then get a fucking job. The kicker is after that, my dad's sister found an original copy of my original birth certificate from back when they were white and had a pressure stamp.

I don't even want to think about how much worse it would be not even having an ID with a current name on it that doesn't match social security.

[Georgiana]

Next thing Purity.com dating site for the fundy set.

Purity.com: Where eligible young women post profiles. Only the men are allowed to browse for potential suitors, and if they have an interest in a young lady, an email is first sent off to the young lady's parents (presumably father), who vet all suitors.

If the father approves the suitor and marks his profile as approved, the young lady can then see his profile and choose whether or not to accept a communication from him. If she declines, he may not proposition again for 30 days. If she declines 3 times, he may not ask again or see her profile any longer. If she accepts, then they can begin to talk, and all of their conversations are automatically sent to both sets of parents.

Parents can also set limits on communication, and the site will only allow suitors to communicate within their parents' limits. This can be time limits on conversations, no conversations past a certain time or on certain days, or restriction of conversations to text only (no photos or video). If a suitor is allowed to send photos, they must first be approved by the parents before the recipient can see them. The site also scans for inappropriate or defrauding language. Use of swear words or discussion of impure topics will cause a user's profile to be locked down immediately until the situation is reviewed by an administrator.

Actually....this isn't a bad idea.

[EmiGirl]

Isn't christianmigle.com essentially a fundie dating site?

[Cleopatra7]

Isn't christianmigle.com essentially a fundie dating site?

To my knowledge, Christian Mingle is for conservative but mainstream Christians. Almost all of the people we snark on here don't believe in dating because it's perceived to be flighty and promiscuous and doesn't involve parental involvement.

[LongDogMom]

This article was on Addicted Info: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/02/23 ... s-damaged/

Christian Homeschoolers Sell Daughter Into Arranged Marriage, Offer Discount Because She’s ‘Damaged’ by JAMESON PARKER FEBRUARY 23, 2015 7:38 PM

The gist of the article is that Jennyfer Austin was adopted into a fundamentalist Christian home that sounds an awful lot like the Duggars...very isolated from the rest of the world, homeschool, strict rules about courtship and clothing,

"Austin’s description of life in her home sounds like something out of Saudi Arabia, not California:

‘Dating was a complete no-no. I might be able to have a parent-approved courtship and go places in public, but I couldn’t possibly do something like hold hands with a boy.’

She was forced to wear long skirts and blouses with high necklines and long sleeves. If she chose a skirt which went to mid-calf, she would have to put on knee-length boots so no leg was shown.

‘Even my swimsuit went down to my knees and had sleeves,’ she recalled. ‘I wasn’t allowed to shave. My grandfather felt that any part such as my legs that needed to be shaved should not be shown off in public.’

Most appallingly, at the age of 20, Austin was told by her parents that she had been “sold†to a man twice her age, a situation that Austin and others like her say is disturbingly commonplace. She says her parents’ asking price for her was $25,000, a fee that was much smaller than the average (around $50,000), because due to her being molested as a child she was considered within her Christian community to be “damaged goods.â€

Thankfully, Austin managed to escape from her appalling life, which was, to be frank, little more than an imprisonment. Escaping was nonetheless difficult. After refusing to marry the man her parents were paid to deliver her to, her mother said Austin owed the would-be husband a refund of his $25,000 down payment. Instead, she fled."

Now married (to a man of her choosing), she no longer identifies as a Christian Apparently forced marriages, like the above, are quite common ...

"According to a report by the AHA Foundation, a group which focuses on protecting the rights of women, America is home to a large number of forced marriages. Concrete numbers are hard to come by given the secretive nature in which they take place, but the group identified as many as 3,000 cases in just the last two years. Many of the cases involve immigrants who maintain the customs from their home country, however there is anecdotal evidence to suggest the fundamentalist Christian movement is also implicated"

Has anyone heard of such forced marriages happening before in the Fundy community? Or a man paying a family for their daughter?

[lilith]

This family seems to be outside the IFB/Calvinist fundie mainstream. It seems the mother and grandfather just made up their rules as they went along, all aimed at controlling this poor girl. Most fundies, for example, wouldn't be at all cool with a single woman adopting.

[SPHASH]

I could see Steve Maxwell doing something like this. He has to know having a 33 year old SAHD isn't good for his brand. He sells one of the girls then claims the husband asked for permission to court her.

[Grimalkin]

Purity.com: Where eligible young women post profiles. Only the men are allowed to browse for potential suitors, and if they have an interest in a young lady, an email is first sent off to the young lady's parents (presumably father), who vet all suitors.

If the father approves the suitor and marks his profile as approved, the young lady can then see his profile and choose whether or not to accept a communication from him. If she declines, he may not proposition again for 30 days. If she declines 3 times, he may not ask again or see her profile any longer. If she accepts, then they can begin to talk, and all of their conversations are automatically sent to both sets of parents.

Parents can also set limits on communication, and the site will only allow suitors to communicate within their parents' limits. This can be time limits on conversations, no conversations past a certain time or on certain days, or restriction of conversations to text only (no photos or video). If a suitor is allowed to send photos, they must first be approved by the parents before the recipient can see them. The site also scans for inappropriate or defrauding language. Use of swear words or discussion of impure topics will cause a user's profile to be locked down immediately until the situation is reviewed by an administrator.

Actually....this isn't a bad idea.

Have you ever seen a commercial for farmersonly.com ?

[salex]

This guy posts frequently on the Theonomist Reconstructionist site on facebook

truelovedoesntwait.com/announcements/the-story-of-the-betrothal-of-joshua-and-laura-ohlman/

His blog is

True Love Doesn't Wait.

the link above takes you to the story of the betrothal of his son and his daughter in law that went like this

Dads email, never having known one another.

Dads talk and think mostly ok, but problems with credo-baptist vs paedo-baptists. Over time this was discussed with the Dads and eventually with the son. Letters were written, with the son not being told who he was writing to, on his beliefs. Rings were bought, and a trip made to meet the families, give the rings and become betrothed Up til then, the daughter was not involved in any conversation with the other family... but then she met her husband to be and was betrothed, which is, as far as these people are concerned, the same as married just no sex yet, all within the same hour.

Yay dads. Happily ever after... because God.

Meanwhile, even after the son marries, this guy thinks his son should obey him... the father.

here are many Christians today who believe that the authority of the father over his children ends at some point in their lives, either at some age of maturity (called “adulthoodâ€) or when they move out of the house or when they marry. Proponents of this notion tend center their argumentation around Genesis 2:24. In fact, that is where the entire line of reasoning begins and ends. There are no other Biblical passages that support this modern belief that the father’s authority ends at some point in the child’s life.

truelovedoesntwait.com/authority-of-the-father-historical-commentaries/

I will say, he hasn't got a ton of traction, however, I can see this happening more than we hear(didn't that girl in Oklahoma who married the much older guy have something similar?)

Anyway, it is creepy as hell and appears to leave the bride out of the process and the groom out of most of it.

[nelliebelle1197]

I could see Steve Maxwell doing something like this. He has to know having a 33 year old SAHD isn't good for his brand. He sells one of the girls then claims the husband asked for permission to court her.

No way. Steve is too uptight and "correct" for this sort of thing. Sarah had several men approach her father, apparently, and all were found lacking. Steve is more likely to keeps his girls single than give them to someone unworthy or sell them.

[Dovenoir]

I know the family. They're church of Christ.

Different ball of wax because they think they write the rules.

[Georgiana]

Have you ever seen a commercial for farmersonly.com ?

I was visiting my friend in Colorado and EVERY.OTHER.COMMERCIAL was for farmersonly.com!

[NachosFlandersStyle]

Does anyone know the name of the mom's church? That's incredibly disturbing (if true-- it is the Daily Mail, though).

But I'm not especially surprised by the location. You will find a few wackos just about anywhere that people congregate, and unfortunately abusers exist in all income brackets.

[Jana814]

I could see Steve Maxwell doing something like this. He has to know having a 33 year old SAHD isn't good for his brand. He sells one of the girls then claims the husband asked for permission to court her.

I totally can see Steve doing this also.

[Benk]

Thinking about many of the courtship and betrothal stories we've followed among our favourite fundies, I'd say fundies routinely have arranged marriages for their children. What's odd in this case is that there was a brideprice.

Not meaning to imply anything about the personal qualities of any of the unfortunate young women in fundie-world, but given how many aging SAHD there are on the market, I would have thought the advantage would be on side of the would-be groom. That is, why did the betrothed man in this story not just approach some father of a SAHD and start the courtship routine?

[Lissa1481]

I was visiting my friend in Colorado and EVERY.OTHER.COMMERCIAL was for farmersonly.com!

I live in Colorado and that commercial is on all the time, even during kids shows. I thought it was a fake and looked it up thinking it would be some joke website. Nope. We just moved from a farming community, there are plenty of people. Getting a date shouldn't be that hard. The high school has 1000 kids, so that's 1000 almost grownups who can get together.

[Dovenoir]

I responded to another post about this. They're church of Christ.

And apparently they were obsessed with her being ready to be a marriageable adult due to her special needs. They certainly flip flopped her all over the country trying to break her and her now husband up.

[Four is Enough]

One glaring reason why fundies don't do more of the arranged marriages for money: MONEY. Most fundies don't have much, right? Besides, payin' for a wummin jest won' do. Wimmin should be fer free.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Purity.com: Where eligible young women post profiles. Only the men are allowed to browse for potential suitors, and if they have an interest in a young lady, an email is first sent off to the young lady's parents (presumably father), who vet all suitors.

If the father approves the suitor and marks his profile as approved, the young lady can then see his profile and choose whether or not to accept a communication from him. If she declines, he may not proposition again for 30 days. If she declines 3 times, he may not ask again or see her profile any longer. If she accepts, then they can begin to talk, and all of their conversations are automatically sent to both sets of parents.

Parents can also set limits on communication, and the site will only allow suitors to communicate within their parents' limits. This can be time limits on conversations, no conversations past a certain time or on certain days, or restriction of conversations to text only (no photos or video). If a suitor is allowed to send photos, they must first be approved by the parents before the recipient can see them. The site also scans for inappropriate or defrauding language. Use of swear words or discussion of impure topics will cause a user's profile to be locked down immediately until the situation is reviewed by an administrator.

Actually....this isn't a bad idea.

It's only a matter of time.

Maybe the Jewish community is different because there is a history of arranged marriages and matchmakers (and a whole musical about it!), but there is a website that combines matchmakers and the power of the internet: /www.sawyouatsinai.com/Help.aspx You don't get the view the profiles yourself - instead, a matchmaker interviews you and then sends you selected matches.

[Delilah]

I know the family. They're church of Christ.

Different ball of wax because they think they write the rules.

What are they like? Are they crazy?

Are the other members of their church in agreement with them about arranged marriage? You mention that they think they write the rules, so maybe the rest of the church disagrees. Has anyone at the church spoken to them about all of this?

Do they understand that selling a person is human trafficking which is a crime? Do they understand that discounting a person for being damaged is horribly demeaning?

Do they have any relationship with their daughter now?

Is the negative publicity making them regret their actions? My guess is probably not - they must live in their own little world to have done this in the first place.

How do they show their faces in public after all of this?

Maybe you can't answer all of these questions because you know the family. Any insight at all would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[Dovenoir]

She lives in AR, they're still in Cali. Grandfather is the leader/minister of the church. I don't know the elder structure of that particular congregation. Each chooses their own. There is no central body or denomination to answer to so individual churches that go fundy can go way off the path.

My connection is through her husband and trying to help her navigate when they were dating.