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What happens to Quiverfull family if the father dies?


mrs

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Just curious if this has happened in their community and the way it was handled. I can't image they would have life insurance on the father since they don't believe in medical insurance. Or even worse, what happens if the father is ill terminal ill for a great length of time?(pretty sure they do not own Long Term Care Policies)? It would be hard for normal family, but especially hard for a large one. Any thoughts?

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Just curious if this has happened in their community and the way it was handled. I can't image they would have life insurance on the father since they don't believe in medical insurance. Or even worse, what happens if the father is ill terminal ill for a great length of time?(pretty sure they do not own Long Term Care Policies)? It would be hard for normal family, but especially hard for a large one. Any thoughts?

I think the church is expected to look after them for a few months and the mother is supposed to find another 'headship' asap. The oldest sons would be expected to work and provide for the women in their father's place.

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I think the church is expected to look after them for a few months and the mother is supposed to find another 'headship' asap. The oldest sons would be expected to work and provide for the women in their father's place.

Alternatively she could move her family in with her own father or brother.

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Alternatively she could move her family in with her own father or brother.

Because, you know, everybody is just waiting for the chance to take in their impoverished widow sister and her dozen kids. Their own impoverished wife and dozen kids don't matter!

Actually, I guess with a big enough family the kids could all be split up among various aunts and uncles, with each of Mom and Dad's siblings taking one child, but then the burden just shifts from being all on one family to being all on those poor kids, growing up without their siblings.

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I have seen fundies claim that the community would support them, but just look at the Anasts and all the other poor fundie families. They are barely keeping body with soul, they cannot support another household.

If Anna Sophia and Elizabeth cannot find husbands, there is no hope for a widow with children in the fundie marriage market. She would probably end up like that blogger (Joanna?) who lives in the church basement and eats handouts.

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Joclyn of a Pondering Heart's family has acharity group called Gleaning the Harvest and it was set up for fundie women whose husbands have died or have left them or are in jail. You can go to gleaningtheharvest.com/ and read all the sob stories. It sounds like most of them are living off handouts or have home-buisnesses that are not financially sucessful. The whole website is depressing as its all about how to maintain the fundie gold standard life style (homeschooling, etc) with no income. Also it pitches all these dubious get rich quick jobs like selling amyway type products.

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I think the church is expected to look after them for a few months and the mother is supposed to find another 'headship' asap. The oldest sons would be expected to work and provide for the women in their father's place.

This sounds like 16th century ward system, were if a wealthy landowner died without any adult heirs, a man would be appointed to become a ward and look after the estate until the eldest male heir became adult. The widow usually married the ward. It's so strange that nearly 4 centuries have past, women have the vote, the ward system still has the potential to exist but in a newer and updated version.

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Joclyn of a Pondering Heart's family has acharity group called Gleaning the Harvest and it was set up for fundie women whose husbands have died or have left them or are in jail. You can go to gleaningtheharvest.com/ and read all the sob stories. It sounds like most of them are living off handouts or have home-buisnesses that are not financially sucessful. The whole website is depressing as its all about how to maintain the fundie gold standard life style (homeschooling, etc) with no income. Also it pitches all these dubious get rich quick jobs like selling amyway type products.

I have been there and it is a sad place because fundies think it is working. The women might get a few hundred dollars every 6 months, you cannot raise a family on that!

It is expensive to support a household. The mother will need money for a home, electricity, utilities, transportation, food, clothing, education, incidental things, the list goes on and on. This is my biggest argument against private charity. The needs are just too high. It won't be long before the church finds some excuse not to give her money--they heard she went out with a man one night, the harlot! Or they will begin nickel-and-diming the poor to the point that they have to justify every piece of bread they buy.

The answer, of course, is to have both parents trained to be providers and homemakers, so if one dies or becomes ill or loses their job, the other can take over their spouse's duties. And also, to have a vast and comprehensive government safety net that ensures every citizen gets their minimal needs met.

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I don't think they take welfare or any "aid" besides the child tax credit? I remember seeing that on one of the fundy specials on 20/20. It might have been the Bates family one. :)

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It depends. At least one FLDS group will happily register the extra wives and their children as single-parent families and get all the benefits they can get. They call it "Bleeding the Beast."

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This did actually happen to someone who posted on TWOP (AuntieTigger was her SN). Her husband's brother and wife were Quiverful, the wife died while pregnant with #15 and 16 (twins who also didn't survive....I think she went into premature labor). The rest of the 14 children ranged from about 3 to 15 years old, and she and her huband were allowed to take the youngest 4 (due to the size of their house, they could not take more), and the rest were split up amongst their other relatives, including 2 grandmothers. She told the story of how difficult it was for the 4 boys to adjust to the real world, even though it was just her and her husband and they lived on a farm. It took about 3 years of counseling and tutors just to get them up to a normal level of education in school; the two youngest, 5 and 7, could not read and didn't even know all of their letters. It's an incredibly sad story, but in this case, the boys and other children were lucky to have good homes to go to...it's just that no one else were Gothardites or Quiverful, so adjusting to a "normal" way of life was very hard.

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Makes me wonder what will happen to the Lee family when the money runs out. The lees were the ones whose father died in the tornadoes, same time as Kelly lost her house. I think around $100,000 was raised for them but that is going ot be a drop in the ocean as a couple of the kids were seriously injured so there would have been medical bills, plus there was the loss of the house. They had something like a dozen kids at least.

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The community gets to show how good and charitable and Christian they are. Which I suspect is not very, usually.

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I agree with others, if a QF family lost their headship they would probably expect a church, relatives, and community to support them. There have been incidents in which the women try to remarry as soon possible. I have looked at the Gleaning the Harvest site a few times and that site is a bit sad to look at, because the widows aren't learning a lot of skills that could help them support their families. Home based businesses sometimes don't do well. One current family is a woman with one child. That woman probably doesn't struggle as much as the other families do.

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Regarding the Lee family, I suspect that even now our Cherished Leader Dougie is brokering a match between Widow Lee and the New Widower

R.C. Sproul Jr. That would wrap up a dilemna all nice and tidy...

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I not only wonder about the $$$...but in some families the man decides everything. Now the woman must decide what to make for dinner, what to wear, where to shop etc.

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What happens? Welfare.
Are we assuming Daddy never had any jobs that paid into Soc. Sec? If so, the family is eligible for survivors' benefits.
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I think the church is expected to look after them for a few months and the mother is supposed to find another 'headship' asap. The oldest sons would be expected to work and provide for the women in their father's place.

Isn't this what happened with that family, Lazy8ranch or something, who used to take their adopted African American kids to the Confederate side of Civil War reenactments?

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I always thought the mother would have to remarry again, or at least when her son is of legal age (which kinda sucks to have your son being the boss of you).

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