The World Beyond BetterMost > Women Today
Christian Domestic Discipline
delalluvia:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on September 15, 2011, 08:10:44 am ---Good point.
Also, I have to wonder how many Western women are raised in THAT extreme of an environment these days. Fifty years ago, sure. Nowadays, for an American woman to have grown up with no exposure to other, more secular, viewpoints would mean really unusual isolation -- not just homeschooling but no TV, no computer, etc. Even if their parents hold those views, most women would be familiar with the idea that other people hold other views and as adults they can make their own choices. Many children of religiously conservative parents DO, in fact, go on to make different choices. Even the children of immigrants whose parents hold strict traditionalist views and expect their children to follow them go in different directions once they're old enough to do so.
Among fundamentalist Christians, this sort of cultural isolation would be extremely unusual (outside of, say, the Amish community). Most of the people in those huge evangelistic churches, for example, are reasonably sophisticated about the culture around them. Look at Michele Bachmann, for example.
--- End quote ---
You would think, but then why are there so many women who stay in abusive relationships? They see other options, they have other options, they know there are other options, yet they stay with abusive men. Why is that?
Mental conditioning.
Same with the strict Christian marriage thing.
If these women were raised with the attitude I suggested, then they don't think they have other choices that agree with their belief system. They'll burn in hell you see, if they get it wrong. They've been raised that they should put everyone else's well-being ahead of their own. So they're the first to cave should everyone else's desires go against her own.
I had a friend in college - 10 years ago now - and she wasn't raised in a very Christian household, but she was raised with a dominating father and submissive mother and raised to be completely dependent. Then she turned 18 and her father cut her loose. What do you think happened? She couldn't function very well on her own. She didn't know anything about finances, about getting a higher education, having healthy relationships with boyfriends (her mother having told her she was nothing without a man), so she kept having abusive boyfriends, bouncing checks, having to move back home where her father could tell her how useless and worthless she was.
It still happens, even in this day and age in our society and in this particular case, in a very liberal college town when she was in no way isolated from others.
Mental conditioning is very hard to break.
--- Quote from: milomorris on September 14, 2011, 10:26:15 pm ---"Sound" and "healthy" are highly subjective, and not ours to determine for others.
--- End quote ---
No, incorrect. There is a standard and society determines it all the time, hence the justice system, Social Services, homes for abused wives and domestic violence counseling and powers of attorney.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on September 16, 2011, 08:08:20 am ---You would think, but then why are there so many women who stay in abusive relationships? They see other options, they have other options, they know there are other options, yet they stay with abusive men. Why is that?
Mental conditioning.
Same with the strict Christian marriage thing.
If these women were raised with the attitude I suggested, then they don't think they have other choices that agree with their belief system. They'll burn in hell you see, if they get it wrong. They've been raised that they should put everyone else's well-being ahead of their own. So they're the first to cave should everyone else's desires go against her own.
I had a friend in college - 10 years ago now - and she wasn't raised in a very Christian household, but she was raised with a dominating father and submissive mother and raised to be completely dependent. Then she turned 18 and her father cut her loose. What do you think happened? She couldn't function very well on her own. She didn't know anything about finances, about getting a higher education, having healthy relationships with boyfriends (her mother having told her she was nothing without a man), so she kept having abusive boyfriends, bouncing checks, having to move back home where her father could tell her how useless and worthless she was.
--- End quote ---
Sure, of course there are women like that. There's everything under the sun out there. And yes, I'm sure there are women in Christian domestic discipline marriages who resemble women in non-Christian abusive relationships. That is, they develop a combination of fear of their husbands, learned helplessness and actual inability to support themselves and/or their children and are convinced they have no other options.
But the fact that your example from college is someone who was NOT raised in a very Christian household is telling.
What I'm saying is that I think the number of American families who are such strict conservative Christians that they raise their daughters to be totally convinced that they have to submit to their husbands' physical punishment ... I think that population is infinitesimal, at this point. Does it ever, ever happen? Sure, probably. But the average American conservative Christian is a long way from that. Many of them didn't even grow up in particularly strictly religious families; they were born again as adults.
I think we liberals tend to demonize conservative Christians to the point that many of us would believe just about any kind of 19th-century-style behavior is still prevalent. It's not. I think Michele Bachmann is a good example of what modern conservative Christians are like: their political views are very different from mine on issues like religion in schools, health care, marriage equality, etc. But as far as women go they're reasonably modern. That's why conservative Christians readily support figures like Bachmann or Sarah Palin; they are OK with women being successful and authoritative as long as they share their other political views.
If Michele and her husband practice Christian domestic discipline -- and obviously I have no idea whether they do or not -- I'm sure it's for their own amusement.
FYI, Bachmann has said she follows the Bible's teachings to be "submissive" to her husband. It's not totally clear what that entails, but it supposedly involves mutual respect, not a domestic discipline type of relationship. Here's an article that explores the topic of Bachmann's marriage, if anyone is interested:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/michele-bachmann-submissive-wife-belief-matter-interpretation/story?id=14292494
milomorris:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on September 16, 2011, 08:08:20 am ---No, incorrect. There is a standard and society determines it all the time, hence the justice system, Social Services, homes for abused wives and domestic violence counseling and powers of attorney.
--- End quote ---
But you're assuming that what goes on in these households meets those standards. If a husband punches his wife in the eye and kicks her in the ribs after she hits the floor, then that is clearly within the standards set by the State. If he gives her a smack on the hand, or spanks her bottom, you and I might find it distasteful, but the State isn't likely to find any wrong-doing.
delalluvia:
--- Quote from: milomorris on September 16, 2011, 10:57:00 am ---But you're assuming that what goes on in these households meets those standards. If a husband punches his wife in the eye and kicks her in the ribs after she hits the floor, then that is clearly within the standards set by the State. If he gives her a smack on the hand, or spanks her bottom, you and I might find it distasteful, but the State isn't likely to find any wrong-doing.
--- End quote ---
Someone liking a light smack on the bottom or hand doesn't equate to someone wanting a spouse to dominate their entire lives.
--- Quote ---What I'm saying is that I think the number of American families who are such strict conservative Christians that they raise their daughters to be totally convinced that they have to submit to their husbands' physical punishment ... I think that population is infinitesimal, at this point.
--- End quote ---
Perhaps, but most abuse situations don't start like that. Ask many women how violence started in their domestic situation and many will tell you that he "wasn't like that" when they met. He was just insecure and jealous to begin with (few men aren't), then it started getting worse in degrees. All women brought up in these radical Christian families have to be taught is that the man is their entire lives. So they will happily marry a man who is automatically dominant...and it all goes downhill from there.
milomorris:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on September 16, 2011, 06:28:36 pm ---Someone liking a light smack on the bottom or hand doesn't equate to someone wanting a spouse to dominate their entire lives.
--- End quote ---
I didn't say that it did. The point I was trying to make is that neither the smack on the ass, nor the dominant husband is un-sound, or unhealthy in and of themselves. Especially from the POV of the Christian.
--- Quote from: delalluvia on September 16, 2011, 06:28:36 pm ---All women brought up in these radical Christian families have to be taught is that the man is their entire lives. So they will happily marry a man who is automatically dominant...and it all goes downhill from there.
--- End quote ---
It doesn't go downhill from there in most of the Fundamentalist families that we've been discussing. You're saying that this Christian dominance/submissiveness leads to actual abuse, and that is not what I've seen. I have seen plenty of it among secular couples.
And let's not forget that there is a HUGE difference between a man who abuses because of some internal, violent pathology; and a man who uses physical discipline on his wife because he's been taught that's what a Christian man is supposed to do. The former comes from a place of anger and dysfunction. The latter comes from a sense of duty and doing the right thing.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version