'Are Jim Bob & Michelle Duggar “Quiverfull”?' - from No Longer Quivering

Shallah Kali

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Mon Mar-08-10 08:35 PM
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'Are Jim Bob & Michelle Duggar “Quiverfull”?' - from No Longer Quivering

http://nolongerquivering.com/2010/03/08/nlq-faq-are-jim-bob-michelle-duggar-quiverfull/
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The Duggars frequently speak out about “causing” Michelle’s miscarriage by the use of birth control pills. They also adhere to Biblically-based abstinence for a set number of days following the birth of a boy or girl. This also supposedly ties in to the teaching of the Institute for Basic Life Principles, the pseudo-Christian organization founded by Bill Gothard. Gothard teaches couples to only have intercourse when the woman is at her “fertile” time each month.

Even breast feeding, which can be a barrier to conception is not to be prolonged for this reason. Back when the couple had a mere 13 children, Jim-Bob was quoted in the New York Times as saying he had “14 , really, since my wife is pregnant and life begins at conception’.” (New York Times, para. 11). An admission of such beliefs by a politician in a paper with worldwide circulation can only mean one thing: He believes it.

The Quiverfull idea began in the backlash against feminism. Mary Pride’s book The Way Home and a book A Full Quiver by Rick and Jan Hess are most frequently cited as giving birth to the Quiverfull lifestyle. Both reject birth control. These books, with the Bible, and often the teachings of Bill Gothard’s Institute of Basic Life Principles and materials from the dominionist Patriarch group, Vision Forum, constitute the “How-To” manuals for prospective Quiverfull couples. (Joyce, Nation, p. 11).

The Duggars have been eager and thorough students.

On their TV show, Michelle has always said “children are like flowers, you can’t have too many flowers.” Jim-Bob frequently has said that he leaves the decision of having another child up to Michelle…..but is that true? In Gothardite families the husband is the undisputed leader of the family. “omen live within stringently enforced doctrines of wifely submission and male headship,” (Kathryn Joyce - Quiverfull Book, para. 1). If he wants to have sexual relations the wife says “yes.” Since the wife is not able to use birth control or to refuse her husband is the decision to have another child really hers? Would he really forgo his pleasure if she said she couldn’t handle having another child? Maybe. Certainly in other times men have made such a decision.

Today, with birth control the norm, we find it hard to believe. Many a Catholic couple of years gone by have lived out a platonic marriage– at least until the wife’s child bearing years have ended. Given the frequent, enthusiastic kissing and other shows of affection on their TV show though, it is doubtful that he would agree to a platonic life. Given their fervent belief in the rightness of allowing God to control their fertility and that they clearly see “that a woman’s constant sexual availability to her husband is not only her wifely “duty,” but also at the heart of her “ministry” as a believing Christian” (Byrnes, T A (Summer 2009). Patriarchy: the glue that holds the culture war together. Conscience, 30, 2. p.52(2).

I doubt that a platonic marriage will ever exist between Mr. and Mrs. Duggar.

““Our bodies are meant to be a living sacrifice,” write the Hesses. Or, as Mary Pride, in another of the movement’s founding texts, The Way Home: Beyond Feminism, Back to Reality, puts it, “My body is not my own.” This rebuttal of the feminist health text Our Bodies, Ourselves is deliberate.” (Joyce, Nation, p. 11).

Much more at the link: http://nolongerquivering.com/2010/03/08/nlq-faq-are-jim-bob-michelle-duggar-quiverfull

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