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An interview Sarah Jones conducted with Vyckie Garrison, a courageous woman who left the biblical patriarchal Quiverfull movement.Sarah Jones: Can you define "Quiverfull movement" and what you've identified as the patriarchal beliefs behind it?
Vyckie Garrison: I like to define Quiverfull as a very powerful head trip. It's an all-encompassing vision of a big, happy family which infects the mind and affects every aspect of a Believer's life. The term "Quiverfull" comes from a reference in Psalm 127 which likens children to "arrows" in the hands of a mighty man, "blessed is the man who has his quiver full of them."
Quiverfull Believers eschew all forms of birth control in favor of "trusting the Lord" with their family planning. The Quiverfull ideal embraces a "biblical" model (read, fundamentalist) of the traditional family which insists that the husband is the head of the household and the wife is the submissive "helpmeet."
Sarah Jones: How do those beliefs manifest for wives and female children? Can you give us some examples of expectations of wives and daughters that might surprise our readers?
Vyckie Garrison: In practice, the Quiverfull ideals often result in larger-than-average families (think, Jim Bob & Michelle Duggar of TLCs
19 & Counting fame) in which the woman stays at home having babies, homeschooling, homesteading, dressing "modestly," and most importantly, serving and submitting to her "lord," i.e., her patriarchal husband.
The Quiverfull lifestyle is extremely demanding and the only way a woman can hope to succeed is to rely heavily on her older daughters. It is expected that a Quiverfull daughter will be fully capable of running the household, including all meal-preparation, laundry duties, child care and homeschooling of younger siblings by the age of twelve. Many girls are doing all this by the time they're eight or ten because their mothers are so consumed with birthing more and more "arrows" to fill the quivers of their husbands.
A Quiverfull daughter is taught from a young age that her purpose in life is to serve the man whom God has placed in authority over her. She serves her father while she lives at home (she does this primarily by assisting her mother in domestic duties and child care). She absolutely must remain a virgin and is taught to expect to meet and marry her future husband through a father-led match-making process called "courtship." Her education is geared toward developing domestic skills--college is generally considered unnecessary and even dangerous for her spiritual well-being.
Comment: For more background information on the insidious threat of the Dominionism movement see:
Hijacking The Holy - C Street, Dominionism and Sarah Palin
Behold a Palin Horse: The Pathocrats' New Agenda
Is Warped Christianity Threatening Our Democracy?
America's Dirty Secret: How a Psycho-Sexual Cult Holds America Prisoner