through the looking glass
It sometimes seems as if society has become so warped that we have stepped into a sick fantasy world of upside-down. Conservative Christian women simply long for the good old days when everything made sense, and we knew children were getting the most of traditional values.
Traditional father-daughter values
In the good old days, people followed the traditional value rules that had been beamed directly from the god God. For example, the rules for fathers for dealing with their daughters:
When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her. If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. (Exodus 21:7-9)
Isn’t that nice and so progressive of the god God? Once your father sells you as a slave, you are protected from being sold on to foreigners, and if your new slave-master decides you’re to marry his son, you even get to be treated like a daughter (who can be sold into slavery yet again?)
Traditional sex within marriage values
In the good old days, people followed the traditional value rules of keeping sex within marriage. When people failed to follow these rules, we didn’t have to see the ugly results, because women were spirited away to imaginary relatives for several months and returned in virtually their original condition. Or, better still, they were banished to workhouses for up to the rest of their lives:
The laundries were … operated by four orders of Catholic nuns in Ireland from 1922 to 1996. Over 10,000 young women, considered a burden by family, school and the state, spent an average of six months to a year locked up in these workhouses doing unpaid, manual work. Some were kept there against their will for years. Their numbers were made up by unmarried mothers and their daughters, women and girls who had been sexually abused, women with mental or physical disabilities who were unable to live independently, and young girls who had grown up under the care of the church and the state. (Time)
Isn’t that so nice of our conservative societies in the good old days? When we pretended things we didn’t like didn’t exist, children were much happier (as long as they weren’t in the workhouse).
Traditional male-female marriage values
In the good old days, only heterosexual couples were allowed to marry; only heterosexual couples were allowed to express their love for each other in open society. When people failed to follow these rules, they were put to death:
In 1835, John Smith and James Pratt were hanged outside Newgate Prison for (in the exhausting fulminations of the Old Bailey trial records) “feloniously, wickedly, diabolically, and against the order of nature, carnally … commit and perpetrate[d] the detestable, horrid, and abominable crime (among Christians not to be named) called buggery.” (ExecutedToday.com)
Isn’t that such a beautiful image of the good old days? We could walk in the park without having to avert our eyes from perversion or answer terribly awkward questions from our children.
Traditional breeding values
In the good old days, before the advent of sinful (and not in any way useful) contraception, girls were deprioritised for education, they got married as soon as their sex organs were developed and spent their whole short lives giving to birth to and raising children. No wonder good Christian women are longing for a return to these values!
In the 19th and first half of the 20th century, everybody knew about death in childbirth, particularly those women who were about to go through the process. Although death rates from many other conditions were high, they at least were among people who had been ill beforehand. Death in relation to childbirth was mostly in fit young women who had been quite well before becoming pregnant. They died, often leaving the baby, and other children in the family from previous births, with a widowed husband. (Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine)
Isn’t that a comforting thought? Women died in their millions giving birth because they had no options, no control and no hope.
Conclusion
I can totally understand why today’s world of conservative Christian women is longing for a return to the good old days of traditional values. In the good old days when women were treated as property and disposable breeding stock, we didn’t have to look at illegitimate children or same sex couples, which we all know is virtually the same as ‘sin’ not having existed. As we step through the looking glass into today’s perverse society full of untraditional values that are grounded in equality and evidence-based research (which is subject to close scrutiny and re-evaluation when required), good Christian women around the world are shuddering at the utopia we’ve carelessly left behind.
My thanks to Caroline Farrow for inspiring this post.
As I said elsewhere, we were the good guys! We still are, of course, it is just that you lot are questioning God’s natural order. Bastards.
LikeLike
😳 Did you just swear? This must be a reflection on the company you’ve been keeping.
LikeLike
Ooh, that’s a lovely emoticon. How do you do that one?
LikeLike
I found it on your site! When you were playing with the new ones. Hover the mouse over it and it tells you. I taught it to John last night too. 🙄
LikeLike
Ahhh yes, the good old days.
Conservative Christian Women —> Stockholm Syndrome
Excellent post as usual.
LikeLike
Ha ha. Thank you! I thought it was one of my finer pieces of work but it’s been a bit of a tumbleweed post. How are you feeling post steam valve release?
LikeLike
I’m just getting cranked up.
Hell hath no fury… 😉
LikeLike
Violet, you’ll be happy to know that when it comes to selling your daughters into slavery, we now have a new and improved, completely secular version of slavery available to girls. Isn’t that awesome? In the modern secular version, you can be sold to foreigners and sexually exploited with no rules at all.
In all seriousness, slavery has existed all through civilization. Muslims have had quite a flourishing slave trade. Jews have been slaves, Africans, the Irish and the Chinese might as well have been what with all the indentured servitude they were sold into.
And now, here in modern times, we have perhaps more slaves then at any other time in history. Sadly many of them are children being sold into sex slavery, but you’ll be happy to know at least it’s being done free of all those silly Christian standards that have been so harmful.
LikeLike
“Sadly many of them are children being sold into sex slavery,”
No Insanity — it IS the result of Christianity —> devaluing women.
LikeLike
Slavery is the result of Christianity devaluing women? That’s a bit of self absorbed Western view, wouldn’t you say? I’m pretty sure that most of the ME is not Christian, but rather Muslim. We have sex slavery in Western world, but the vast majority of it happens in countries that do not practice Christianity.
Believe it or not, most of the world does not get it’s perception of women and their alleged value from Christianity, nor is anybody in the modern world engaging in the slave trade because they believe the bible has instructed them to do so. In fact, quite the opposite, the majority of those trying to end modern slavery are Christians.
LikeLike
“but you’ll be happy to know at least it’s being done free of all those silly Christian standards that have been so harmful.”
@ Insanity — Please tell me what Christian standards you are referring to?
How ’bout we start with these from your ‘holy’ book?
http://www.nobeliefs.com/DarkBible/darkbible7.htm
And keep in mind — Muslims plagiarized, just like the Christians did — allowing for highly stratified, male dominate cultures to flourish —- as is quite evident in your bible.
Btw, do you submit to your husband? If not, why? You are a Christian woman. Isn’t your bible your guide?
“A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.” 1 Timothy 2:13, 14
You evil (Eve) woman, you. You sinner. 😉
“For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; 9 neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” 1 Corinthians 11:8-9
But you are right — this devaluing of women is across most cultures. Christianity adopted these traditions.
“Greek philosophy, adopted by Christians, held women to be inferior to men. Roman law gave women a low status in society, and became the basis for the Church’s laws.”
http://www.womenpriests.org/traditio/inferior.asp
LikeLike
Actually, I’ve found Christianity to be one of the most respectful and kindest of religions towards women. Of course I submit to my husband. Submit simply means to yield. I yield to traffic signals, seat belt laws, and unfortunately, ever more oppressive government. Why does my mandatory submission to secular government not concern you more than my voluntary and consensual submission to my husband?
LikeLike
Definition of submit: “accept or yield to a superior force or to the authority or will of another person.”
Insanity, what about your will? Does your partner get the final say in all matters of your life? Is he your boss rather than an equal partner?
Do you think African Americans should submit or yield to whites? Do you think that whites are a superior force and authority?
There really isn’t that much kindness towards women in the Bible, sadly. They don’t even have a voice. That is a travesty. As far as the government goes, who put these people in power? You did. You have a voice at the voting booth. And you can vote them out. If you say you don’t/can’t, then you are giving your power away.
“Actually, I’ve found Christianity to be one of the most respectful and kindest of religions towards women.”
Perhaps in your little corner of reality. Human rights activists like former president Jimmy Carter is touring the world campaigning on behalf of women’s rights — and showing substantial evidence that Christianity is not good for women and neither are most of the mainstream religions.
If you chose to submit to your partner, that’s your choice, but no religion should make that mandatory just because your partner or any other has a penis.
LikeLike
But you didn’t answer my question, why does a woman’s voluntary, consensual submission to a husband offend you more than mandated, involuntary, non consensual, forced submission to the state?
LikeLike
I did answer your question. I don’t submit to my government like you do to your husband. We have the power to put them in and take them out.
Now please answer my questions.
LikeLike
I’d also like to bring your attention to this scripture again.
“A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.” 1 Timothy 2:13, 14
That is mandated — forced submission to your husband. I can’t believe you don’t see how dehumanizing that is. Let me do this:
A an African American should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit an African American to teach or assume authority over a whites. African Americans must be quiet. For Whites were formed first, then African Americans. And Whites were not the ones deceived. It was the African Americans who were deceived and became a sinner.
And this:
“For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; 9 neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” 1 Corinthians 11:8-9
For whites did not come from African Americans, but African Americans from whites, neither were whites created for African Americans, but African Americans for whites.
LikeLike
“That is mandated — forced submission to your husband.”
Really? Because I see no force. Anybody currently paying fines, in prison for failing to submit to their husbands? Anybody had a drone dropped on them for failing to submit to their husbands? How about an FBI raid? Anybody ever had the IRS after them because they failed to submit?
What is a bit dehumanizing is having somebody believe that my voluntary, consensual, private relationship with my husband, is somehow oppressive and dehumanizing and yet that same person cannot even see how powerful and oppressive state authority can be.
LikeLike
“What is a bit dehumanizing is having somebody believe that my voluntary, consensual, private relationship with my husband, is somehow oppressive and dehumanizing and yet that same person cannot even see how powerful and oppressive state authority can be.”
Again — you put these people in power, right? You voted for George W. Bush who sent us to war for filthy lucre’s sake, right? Ultimately, who’s fault is that?
Your religion mandates that you submit. If religion had never told you to submit, would you be submitting to your husband? Who ultimately told you to submit? Your religion? A religion where men are at the top — only because they have a penis. It’s a narcissistic religion — where men use religion as a way to gain alpha male status.
And for the record — I don’t recall Jesus ever telling women they submit to their husbands. But Paul did. Now who do you worship, Jesus or Paul?
LikeLike
Tell you what, I don’t want to mess up Violet’s blog by veering so far away from her topic. I’ll blog about submission and answer all of your questions, though.
LikeLike
Fair enough. 🙂
LikeLike
Thanks Insanity, as ever you provide a unique perspective on it all. I am relieved I live in times when slavery is against international laws, but you’re right that it is disturbing how many people are still suffering slavery. It still doesn’t make me yearn for the good old days when my father could sell me into slavery, or banish me to the workhouse with my bastard offspring if I didn’t behave. 🙂
LikeLike