Patriarchal Lineages in 21st-Century Christian Courtship: First Comes Marriage

187 Pages·2020·1.802 MB·English

by  Elizabeth L. Shively

Patriarchal Lineages
in 21st-Century
Christian Courtship
First Comes
Marriage
Elizabeth L. Shively
Patriarchal Lineages in 21st-Century Christian
Courtship
Elizabeth L. Shively
Patriarchal Lineages
in 21st-Century
Christian Courtship
First Comes Marriage
Elizabeth L. Shively
Sam Houston State University
Huntsville, TX, USA
ISBN 978-3-030-49621-0 ISBN 978-3-030-49622-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49622-7
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For Jack and Madeline
A
cknowledgments
Above all, I thank the research participants who opened their homes and
hearts to me to discuss matters of critical importance and consequence to
them and to me: their religious beliefs and experiences and their perspec-
tives on gender, family, romance, and intimacy. My field research was
funded, in part, by the Stella Hiltner Fund for Comparative Religious
Studies and the Arts & Humanities Graduate Research Small Grants
Program at The Ohio State University.
Whether we take her meaning to be literal or figurative, Virginia Woolf’s
observation that women writers need a room of their own was certainly
true for me as I wrote this book. For years, the Political Science Department
at Sam Houston State University has provided me with a luxury most
contingent faculty can only dream of—an office of my own. In the final
stages of this project, the Sociology Department at Sam Houston State
University generously funded two writing retreats that were critical in the
completion of this project. It was a privilege to write and revise in two
beautiful spaces: The Writer’s Refuge in Langley, Washington, and The
Writing Barn in Austin, Texas.
Earlier versions of this project were guided and made stronger by my
doctoral dissertation committee in the Department of Comparative
Studies at The Ohio State University: Tanya Erzen, Mary Thomas, and
Hugh Urban. Thank you to Mary Al-Sayed at Palgrave Macmillan for
your patience, wisdom, and support.
I appreciate the academic communities that have encouraged me
through the daunting processes of graduate training, contingent faculty
work, and my transition to secondary teaching, including my friends and
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
colleagues from The Ohio State University, Central Michigan University,
Sam Houston State University, and Esprit International School. There are
a few women, in particular, whose belief in me, my career, and my project
buoyed me at critical times: thank you Rosemary Brumbelow, Sara
Moslener, Rachel Stonebrook, and J. Cherie Strachan.
Finally, thank you to Jon Brown for the countless hours of solo parent-
ing that made this book possible, for reading drafts, listening to ideas, and
tracking down books, and for being my partner through it all.
c
ontents
1 I ntroduction 1
2 Kissing Dating Goodbye 21
3 Luminous Femininity 47
4 Proverbs 31 Women 75
5 “Guard Your Heart” 113
6 First Comes Marriage 147
7 Epilogue 173
Appendix: Interview Participants and Fieldwork Sites 179
Index 181
ix
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Even through grainy home video footage, the sense of anticipation is pal-
pable. The last strains of a processional hymn that accompanied the bridal
party down the long aisle fade out, and there is a moment of stillness in
the church before the sanctuary swells with the opening chords of Wagner’s
“Bridal Chorus.” The large crowd, filling row after row of crowded pews,
stands to greet the bride. The double doors open wide, and Lindsay, link-
ing arms with her father, begins her long-anticipated walk down the aisle
toward her fiancé, David. It had been two years since Lindsay, twenty-
three, watched David’s heroic on-screen role in a locally produced
Christian film, and her feelings for her longtime acquaintance deepened.1
When she saw the film, she says, “My heart turned toward David. And I
couldn’t bear the thought of him being with someone else.” But because
Lindsay was committed to the tenets of Christian courtship, she could not
make the first move.
Courtship is the practice of eschewing dating in favor of trusting God
to choose your mate. Young men initiate the courtship process, and fathers
grant final permission for a daughter to pursue a relationship. Before, and
in the early stages of courtship, couples attempt to “guard their hearts”
from emotional intimacy, which they believe should be saved for
1 I have changed the names and identifying details of the courtship participants I met and
interviewed to protect their anonymity. I refer to courtship authors and other public figures
by their actual names. Unless otherwise indicated, all quoted material is taken from fieldnotes
and interviewed transcripts I collected from 2010 to 2012.
© The Author(s) 2020 1
E. L. Shively, Patriarchal Lineages in 21st-Century Christian
Courtship, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49622-7_1
2 E. L. SHIVELY
engagement and marriage. Sexual abstinence before marriage is presumed.
Many couples refrain from sharing physical intimacy beyond hand-holding
during courtship and instead “save their first kiss” for the wedding day.
Family First
Much has been written in the past fifteen years about conservative
American Christians and sex: the role that ideas about sex have played in
defining Christianity and fracturing American politics (Griffith 2017), the
way sex and purity play a critical part in evangelical ideas about personal
salvation (Erzen 2006; DeRogatis 2014) and national identity (Moslener
2015), the significance of sexual abstinence in a “hookup” generation
(Freitas 2008), and even the way evangelicals have used sex to sell absti-
nence (Gardner 2011). We can expect work on these topics to continue to
emerge as adults raised in the Christian purity culture of the 1990s and
early 2000s reckon with their experiences of it (Finch 2019; Klein 2019)
and with the growth of the Exvangelical movement, which represents
believers who have left evangelicalism, in many cases because of its stance
on social justice issues and questions related to gender and sexuality. At
the same time, much has also been revealed about Christian
Reconstructionism, its effect on American religious conservatism (McVicar
2015) and the lived experiences of Christians (Ingersoll 2015) and its role
in the so-called Quiverfull (McGowin 2018) or Christian Patriarchy (Joyce
2009) movement and in Christian homeschooling.
Modern Christian courtship emerged in the 1990s at the intersection
of these dynamics: Christian purity culture and the overlapping worlds of
Christian Reconstructionism, Quiverfull, and homeschooling. Courtship
is the process through which the patriarchal nuclear family—the structure
at the heart of Reconstruction theology—reproduces itself. Proponents of
courtship are not simply advocating sexual abstinence; in fact, sexual iden-
tity and behavior are rarely explicitly addressed in courtship media. Instead,
advocates create a framework that is meant to give purpose to Christian
singles, guide courting couples safely through the risky territory of
romance and intimacy, and put them on the fast track to marriage, all
while keeping the focus squarely on the patriarchal nuclear family and a
believer’s role in this structure.