Jed and Katey 2: The Hidden Engagement?

[Coconut Flan]

Continued from here:

I left the house to get Dawg groomed and the car it's regular check and people took off talking.  I haven't looked at it and already loathe Discovery+.

[Smee]

This thread is probably not the place for it, but I'm having a bit of a crisis of faith too - well, not so much of faith as of church. My husband would no longer call himself Christian, which has been hard for me, but I understand too because I'm struggling to reconcile what I believe about God with what I believe about the world and humanity and the damage caused by the church. I tried to express to my pastor that I am finding it hard to disentangle Christianity from its history of colonialism, racism, heteronormativity etc, and he basically told me it isn't fair to hold people of the past to 21st Century standards, but the thing is it's NOT just in the past, it informs so much of church culture today that I don't really want to perpetuate. I do think I probably belong in a more liberal church than the one I'm attending, but the idea of leaving the ministries I'm involved in, pulling the kids out of the kids program they love, finding a new church (probably geographically further away) with covid restrictions still influencing things, and then forming connections with a whole lot of new people... it's exhausting. It would be easier to stay, and sometimes I think maybe I'm better off changing things from the inside, but I don't know if that's just me making excuses out of fear. All that to say, I'm not even in a super damaging, judgmental, critical branch of Christianity, I was raised by atheists who will always love me regardless of what I believe, and yet still I find the prospect of questioning beliefs and making a change overwhelming. So I can barely imagine how hard it would be for people to break free of fundamentalism.

Also, regarding biblical betrothal, every Christmas it comes up that engagement was different/more serious in the time of Jesus' birth, because there's the whole thing with Mary being betrothed to Joseph and when he finds out she's pregnant he "had in mind to divorce her quietly" until the angel visits. So even though they weren't married yet, they would have to get divorced, because being "betrothed" is a full-on formal commitment. I have no idea if that's what Katey's family means by it.

[Pleiades_06]

2 minutes ago, Smee said:

I tried to express to my pastor that I am finding it hard to disentangle Christianity from its history of colonialism, racism, heteronormativity etc, and he basically told me it isn't fair to hold people of the past to 21st Century standards, but the thing is it's NOT just in the past, it informs so much of church culture today that I don't really want to perpetuate.

Exactly. And it was debated in the past too, and people knew it was wrong. 

[AprilQuilt]

10 hours ago, Smee said:

Also, regarding biblical betrothal, every Christmas it comes up that engagement was different/more serious in the time of Jesus' birth, because there's the whole thing with Mary being betrothed to Joseph and when he finds out she's pregnant he "had in mind to divorce her quietly" until the angel visits. So even though they weren't married yet, they would have to get divorced, because being "betrothed" is a full-on formal commitment. I have no idea if that's what Katey's family means by it.

So, I know a good bit about attitudes to marriage in the Medieval era as that's at the heart of the project I'm currently working on for my job. At time marriage was regarded as a sacrament you were able to confer on yourself - you did not need a holy person or witnesses there to hear you make the vows, because you were of course doing it in God's presence.

Basically it was felt by many theologians that marriage vow itself was consensual and did not require consummation to further indicate that consent, whereas others maintained that sexual consummation was required to nail that vow down. However, broadly speaking it was felt that marriage vows might be interpreted in one of two ways:

sponsalia de futuro, essentially 'I will marry you', and particularly employed by children who would not be able to express their full consent to the marriage by consummating it for many years to come. This was regarded as a contract but it could be dissolvable.

sponsalia de praesenti, 'I marry you', which was binding at the moment it was uttered.

A good example of sponsalia de futuro would be the alleged promises exchanged by Anne Boleyn and Henry Percy, and the reason everybody was so anxious to establish whether they had slept together, because a promise followed by sex would have created a binding marriage, and rendered her subsequent relationship with Henry VIII bigamous. Another might be the alleged secret marriage between Edward IV and Lady Eleanor Talbot: if he had promised to marry her in order to get her into bed, their relationship would again be considered full marriage.

It's particularly interesting in regards to the de futuro vows made between Edward's 5-year-old son Richard of Shrewsbury and Eleanor's 4-year-old niece Anne Mowbray because the terms of that union stated that even if Anne died before maturity, ie did not live to consummate their marriage, Richard would still inherit all her goods. This was an obvious land grab but it does highlight the limits of a standard de futuro vow, ie that it would have to be officially dissolved before the parties moved on, and the children were regarded as having 'married', but it did not have the same benefit of marriage in terms of access to the spouse's property. Anne basically occupied a similar middle ground the S'Morton blog describes: she lived in the Royal household and yet her property was not accessible to her 'husband'. In fact she did predecease him, aged 8, but he then became the younger of the Princes in the Tower and didn't outlive her by much.

Hmm, anyway. So. The serious nature of what marriage and betrothal is may go back a lot longer than the Medieval era.

Edited March 19, 2021 by AprilQuilt

[CaptainFunderpants]

I have to admit, I reaaaaaaaally want to know why the latest relationships have been kept so on the down low. I get the fear of a broken courtship, kind of? But the other side of that is I feel like the Bates have gotten a shitton of publicity because of the broken courtships and then the redemption arcs.

Wonder if it's a TLC thing or a Boob thing because I highly doubt it's a Dugglett thing.

[Glasgowghirl]

I actually don't mind discovery +, I am a Social Science student so some of the documentaries on it are good on it. I probably use Netflix the least out of all of them now but can't bring myself to cancel it. 

[GuineaPigCourtship]

I like discovery plus for the food network and cooking channel content. My husband has done most of the cooking since I got pregnant last year and still is doing it with our newborn. We both enjoy cooking, luckily. He will go on his lunch break and see a bunch of recipes I've sent him from whatever show I have in the background during nap time.

There is a lot of crap on there, though.

[ToriAmos]

Their secretiveness must have something to do with TLC. Though if TLC were dropping them, you'd think the Duggars could and would put the weddings and engagements all over social media. It seems more like they're not allowed to, but then TLC aren't making hay from it with teasers for the new season, so it's weird.

I can get that People etc. wouldn't be interested in Jed and Justin, but the social media from the Duggars is another thing. Did they announce Justin's engagement? Or just his wedding? Maybe they'll do the same with Jed.

[Bluebirdbluebell]

38 minutes ago, ToriAmos said:

Their secretiveness must have something to do with TLC. Though if TLC were dropping them, you'd think the Duggars could and would put the weddings and engagements all over social media. It seems more like they're not allowed to, but then TLC aren't making hay from it with teasers for the new season, so it's weird.

I can get that People etc. wouldn't be interested in Jed and Justin, but the social media from the Duggars is another thing. Did they announce Justin's engagement? Or just his wedding? Maybe they'll do the same with Jed.

They announced Justin's courtship in the last minute of the last episode in September. They announced Justin's engagement the day after his 18th birthday. They didn't announce the real wedding date which is common for them, but they announced the wedding right afterwards.

This is the first courtship/engagement they've kept completely underwraps.  Her dad has a biblical bethrothal blog post that is password protected. This suggests he is hiding how crazy that post is. I have feeling that if it was normal courtship rules it wouldn't be password protected. Hopefully this relationship was based on more than JB and Kory Nakatsu deciding how many goats she's worth. I'm only half joking, because it seems like there is some precedent for biblical bethrothal meaning arranged marriage.

 

[OHFL2009]

12 hours ago, Glasgowghirl said:

I actually don't mind discovery +, I am a Social Science student so some of the documentaries on it are good on it. I probably use Netflix the least out of all of them now but can't bring myself to cancel it. 

I'm sure I would love the content on Discovery+. My issue is that I also want to watch things on Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Paramount+, Apple TV, ESPN+, Amazon Prime, and Peacock Premium. So while $4.99/month for Discovery+ (with ads) doesn't sound bad, $60+ per month for all the streaming services gets unreasonable. And I can't get all the live sports I watch on streaming, so I still have to pay for cable if I want those. Cord cutting was originally meant to save money, but now it's just as expensive as cable.

[Cheetah]

6 hours ago, Bluebirdbluebell said:

They announced Justin's courtship in the last minute of the last episode in September. They announced Justin's engagement the day after his 18th birthday. They didn't announce the real wedding date which is common for them, but they announced the wedding right afterwards.

This is the first courtship/engagement they've kept completely underwraps.  Her dad has a biblical bethrothal blog post that is password protected. This suggests he is hiding how crazy that post is. I have feeling that if it was normal courtship rules it wouldn't be password protected. Hopefully this relationship was based on more than JB and Kory Nakatsu deciding how many goats she's worth. I'm only half joking, because it seems like there is some precedent for biblical bethrothal meaning arranged marriage.

 

Pickles posted this link this morning https://www.nakatsus.com/?fbclid=IwAR2EFxwyJspHSqHOxtr6lFkeSjG_dZuDpD6-C2LSDMZ_sWtgWriYA9jXpCM - not sure if it's the same post you were referring to (it's the video of the Jed/ Katey proposal).  The visuals are lovely.  But then there's a voiceover of their pledges to each other than are definitely super religious/ conservative.  

[AprilQuilt]

6 hours ago, ToriAmos said:

Their secretiveness must have something to do with TLC. Though if TLC were dropping them, you'd think the Duggars could and would put the weddings and engagements all over social media. It seems more like they're not allowed to, but then TLC aren't making hay from it with teasers for the new season, so it's weird.

I wonder if the future of the show is in jeopardy but not yet actually decided. TLC may be particularly reticent to work with them due to the headache of squaring their behaviour with the reality of Covid guidelines. That would be an edit and a half. They may even have given JB certain ultimatums about the optics of his family carrying on as normal in a pandemic, which he is choosing not to engage with.

Anyway, just spitballing, but it appears to me that the Duggars are proceeding as if they still have a show, in the hope that something can be scrambled together, but TLC have not commissioned a new series, or haven't bought what the production company made, or want to skip this year and return when Covid is no longer an issue. The silence is weird.

[Smash!]

I’m wondering if there have been broken courtships we don’t know of and this is why they don’t announce anything until the couple is basically married?

[Italiangirl]

50 minutes ago, AprilQuilt said:

I wonder if the future of the show is in jeopardy but not yet actually decided. TLC may be particularly reticent to work with them due to the headache of squaring their behaviour with the reality of Covid guidelines. That would be an edit and a half. They may even have given JB certain ultimatums about the optics of his family carrying on as normal in a pandemic, which he is choosing not to engage with.

Anyway, just spitballing, but it appears to me that the Duggars are proceeding as if they still have a show, in the hope that something can be scrambled together, but TLC has not commissioned a new series, or haven't bought what the production company made, or want to skip this year and return when Covid is no longer an issue. The silence is weird.

It seems that there will be a new ep on the 30 that will at least cover Brooklyn's birth and something about Eastern that will probably be just celebrating early this year so that some of the kids could be with the inlaws or so given that easter will be on the 4. I haven't see if after this there is another episode schedule or not 

[SassyPants]

18 minutes ago, Italiangirl said:

It seems that there will be a new ep on the 30 that will at least cover Brooklyn's birth and something about Eastern that will probably be just celebrating early this year so that some of the kids could be with the inlaws or so given that easter will be on the 4. I haven't see if after this there is another episode schedule or not 

Did they ever air a show on Evelyn’s birth (not on TLC online)? And obviously EJ’s birth is being skipped if they are showing BP’s-

[artdecades]

1 hour ago, Cheetah said:

Pickles posted this link this morning https://www.nakatsus.com/?fbclid=IwAR2EFxwyJspHSqHOxtr6lFkeSjG_dZuDpD6-C2LSDMZ_sWtgWriYA9jXpCM - not sure if it's the same post you were referring to (it's the video of the Jed/ Katey proposal).  The visuals are lovely.  But then there's a voiceover of their pledges to each other than are definitely super religious/ conservative.  

So the Nakatsu’s have publicly acknowledged the engagement but none of the Duggars have. This is Maxwell level weird. 

[Italiangirl]

49 minutes ago, SassyPants said:

Did they ever air a show on Evelyn’s birth (not on TLC online)? And obviously EJ’s birth is being skipped if they are showing BP’s-

This is all that there is on the TLC site, is unclear if it just a special or the first ep of the new season. Will Jed marriage be feature on the show? Or will they just ignore it like it seems they have done with Justin's? 

Edited March 20, 2021 by Italiangirl

[artdecades]

Ok I watched the engagement video and it’s so creepy. All that stuff about no intimate contact preserving her virtue ?

[indianabones]

That was the weirdest engagement video I've ever seen. The hidden camera angle, the multiple side hugs, them feeding each other, the super creepy voice over... I guess they're giving up on trying to seem more accessible?

[Marionette]

I think that’s the Holland barn where the Duggars & Co have had several baby/wedding showers and other events. I guess a Valentine’s Day engagement is “sweet,” but it was hella cold in Arkansas that day when the snowstorm began (and you can see their breath)! 

Also, that was pretty awkward... I totally expected them to at least share a nice frontal hug after he proposed, but that side hug and then them putting their hands in their pockets seemed so strange. I always thought the no-hugging and no-holding-hands thing was excessive even when I was deep in the fundieness as a teenager. And they already basically wrote vows to each other to stay pure til their wedding day? I mean, I guess it’s kind of an “unspoken” thing with most fundie couples, but that must be part of the betrothal thing. 

[seraaa]

Can we assume that Katey is driving this presentation, since courtship rules are set by the girl (so they say?)

[CaptainFunderpants]

36 minutes ago, artdecades said:

Ok I watched the engagement video and it’s so creepy. All that stuff about no intimate contact preserving her virtue ?

These people are way more obsessed with sex than 16-year-old boys. Heck, they're more obsessed than single males that vacation in Thailand.

I wasn't thinking about Katey's vagina, but I sure am now. Thanks for that Papa Nakatsu! So modest!

[Cheetah]

11 minutes ago, CaptainFunderpants said:

These people are way more obsessed with sex than 16-year-old boys. Heck, they're more obsessed than single males that vacation in Thailand.

I wasn't thinking about Katey's vagina, but I sure am now. Thanks for that Papa Nakatsu! So modest!

IKR?  Like if they don't recite some weird pledge and have chaperones at all times there's nothing stopping them from ripping each other's clothes off this very minute.  

[Jinder Roles]

The actual proposal seems very romantic (winter wonderland, igloos & fireworks) 

The voiceovers with the vows irk me but that’s fundies for you. 
 

I love how he mentioned preserving Katey’s “purity” but hers were all about being a godly (read submissive) wife. 

[bal maiden]

Yeah I’m filing this one in the Old Skool Fundie box. That voice over has soooooo many tells and red flags. 
 

What do we know about the Nakatsus already? Apologies if I’ve missed this discussion somewhere else, here’s what I know. We have Kory and Kim, married July 5 1997. Jamie, Reed, Katelyn, and another younger daughter, Lauren. Kory used to work for Cisco, not sure if he still does? Are the older brothers married and fundie? When did they get super conservative? 

Edited March 20, 2021 by bal maiden