Josh Duggar caught again..... now with an Ashley Madison account (America, church)
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It's unknown if Duggar thought his hook-ups were to be subservient. Perhaps he switched roles to spice things up.
I came of age in the era of Marabel Morgan's The Total Woman, which was the first big push for Good Christian Women to be more "Biblically submissive". That book created quite a stir in among fundamentalists of the early 1970s. Norman Lear even did a short-lived gender-reversal parody sitcom in which the house-husband was trying to spice up his marriage by reading The Manly Man. Wish I could remember the name.
At any rate, from what I could tell, most fundamentalists don't choose to see themselves as overtly patriarchal. Such men would protest that their women are priceless jewels, not mere chattel. They will say this without an ounce of irony, not realizing that they are objectifying their wives -- just not in a grody, overtly sexual way, but every bit as demeaning ultimately. The wife's "place" or role is seen as making the husband comfortable, stroking his ego, more or less the Leave it to Beaver, "Honey, I'm home!" vibe. I grew up in such a household and I remember my mother complaining to my father that "all I have are these four walls". That was partly her own passivity but it was a learned passivity. My Dad did not forbid her to get out and have friends, but neither was it his concern and he certainly expected the house clean and dinner cooked after a long, hard day at work.
Somehow in the years after I left home they hammered out a more equal relationship in which my mother was more of a full partner. They even went into business together. But it required a painful renegotiation of the relationship to get there. I am glad my mother got the self actualization she was missing as a housewife at least. And my Dad did not feel emasculated in giving it to her.
I assume this little scene played out in many homes. A good, decent and loving man like my father would listen and adapt. Others doubtless did not.
But as you point out, Gothardism is a more extreme form that tries to be truer to the Bible and thus to the Bible's patriarchal worldview. In its perceived obedience to god's word, it ends up promoting a retrograde lifestyle that even my 1950's style parents would have found grotesque and "off". Many fundamentalists, to be fair, have distanced themselves at least partially from this, and I'm sure that they are just as subject to the same economic pressures / near necessity of a two-income family as everyone else and therefore they have had to adapt to something less doctrinaire.
The problem is Christianity. You never have to accept any responsibility. Just say your sorry and move on. And those who you apologize to have no recourse after excepting. You're off the hook to offend another day
The problem is Christianity. You never have to accept any responsibility. Just say your sorry and move on. And those who you apologize to have no recourse after excepting. You're off the hook to offend another day
Yes and no.
There are not enough Gothardites / Quiverfull people to feed the Duggar money machine, so they have to answer to a broader audience. I don't think they're going to get their new reality show, particularly after this latest revelation, and I don't think Josh is going to find forgiveness, and not even the contrived / forced forgiveness that his wife will doubtless afford him is going to make him feel absolved. Things will never be the same again between them, his life will never recover its former status.
Yes I realize some pull it off ... Jimmy Swaggert and many others have survived huge scandals. But even they never reached their former glory either.
The Duggars needed lots of dough to finance their gargantuan family and I suspect the TV show was pretty central to that. Between the collapse of the show and the undoubtedly deleterious effects on Jim-Bob's real estate business, the end of whatever political ambitions he might have, and the end of a great deal of his influence, it may be that he's forced to face the reality of how impractical, much less just plain wrong, his profligate baby-factory ways are.
The Duggars probably don't face excommunication, and even if they do, some other congregation will take them in. But they have definitely peaked as a cultural phenomenon, and that as well as their loss of the ability to have more money than sense, are good things.
I just ran across this; apparently, the Duggars are attempting to make lemonade out of lemons by creating a documentary on sexual abuse and pitching a related new reality show where they would counsel victims of sexual abuse.
As Patheos termed it: "A cluster-bomb of irony, chutzpah, and malpractice."
Rumor has it Josh will be counseling the girl's division (ages 13 and younger)
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