Warning. This is slightly off topic rant, but it jumps off from the posts which have discussed the fertility cult to which the Duggars belong.
Please feel free to scroll on by.
Similar restrictions on sexual conduct and gender specific roles within a closed community of true believers is, obviously, not restricted to the Christian relgion. That wives are considered incubators and unpaid servants seems to be an accepted part of many conservative, orthodox, and ultra-orthodox organizations. As the discussions on these threads have revealed, the potential for domestic abuse is staggering. Sadly, such behaviour has been ongoing long enough to be considered "normal" within those communities.
Until recently, I had not realized how these deeply ingrained beliefs truly impact the day to day decisions that people make in caring for their families. However, in light of these discussions, I re-read the coverage of the tragic fire in NYC this past March that claimed the lives of seven of eight children in a family who belonged to such a community. It was illuminating. When I first read brief news reports on the day following the fire, I had felt very sympathetic to the mother and daughter who, though badly injured, escaped the blaze, and the father who was attending a religious seminar and was away from the home at the time of the incident. The grief, I thought, must have been overwhelming. I wanted to read more follow ups to see how that poor woman was coping all the pain from her ordeal and her loss, and seeing if there was a fund for her to which I could contribute. And that's when I found the reports from the NYFD.
I had just finished reading an interview with Deborah Feldman (who wrote Unorthodox), in which she describes what her life was like growing up and it gave me a different perspective. ["I remember always being in the front seat of a car when I was a kid, without a seat belt. It comes from this idea that you have so much faith that you don’t really have to do anything because God will protect you. It’s a very lackadaisical attitude toward health and safety. No one ever took me to a doctor." Later in her life, she lived with the same attitude as it was held by her husband when it came to the family car. "And then I got into this really bad car accident on NJ 80. My tires were thin, and I was driving fast. My car flipped over three times. I was convinced I was going to die. And there was no way I was going to waste another minute of life. My husband rushed to see me in the hospital. I’d been talking to him about changing those tires for six months, and he wouldn’t. I said, “Our son could have been in that car.”] "http://nypost.com/2012/02/07/i-was-a-hasidic-jew-but-i-broke-free/
There were several articles about the fire, the tragedy for the family, and the aftermath within the larger community as well. Firefighters, LEOs, community members were deeply affected by their participation in fighting the fire and being unable to do anything to save the children. The NYFD investigated the blaze and had found no working smoke alarms in the kitchen, or living room, or stairwell, or bedrooms. The only working smoke alarm was in the basement. No plan for escape. No ladders from windows to the ground were in place. No automatic sprinklers installed. A faulty kitchen appliance, used in order to follow religious edicts, had started the blaze. And there was nothing to warn the sleeping family. NYFD went through the neighbourhood explaining to members of the community the steps they should take to prevent a recurrence of the deaths.
When I first read the articles, I found the total lack of attention to basic safety to be incomprehensible. Fire alarms don't always work. The tragedy could still have happened, but the mechanical failure would have been at fault. But, there were eight children in that home! How could an intelligent parent not put safety guards in place? After reading Feldman's article, I at least had a hint that this wasn't so much a lazy shirking of responsibility or lack of care (as in if it was God's will that they were created, it was God's will that they died) but a test of faith that God would protect those whose faith was strong enough. So, I wondered if the quivering communities, and those like them, also left such things to God's will.
Then I read that just hours after the burial of his children, as his one surviving daughter was in intensive care and his wife was continued to be kept in a medically induced coma, the grief stricken patriarch was reported to have gone to his house of worship where he asked his spiritual leader something of extreme importance to him. Not about divine intervention in restoring the health of his wife and badly injured daughter. Not about forgiveness, for he believed he had already been forgiven by his seven children who had died in the fire. He asked for assurance that he would have more children.
That shocked me. I probably shouldn't have been surprised. However, even making allowances for the fact that he was undoubtedly in shock and suffering from some form of PTSD, I find the idea disturbing that he could even think of trying to force his wife's body to give him babies number nine, ten--whatever. And I'm sure that despite, the extensive damage to her physical, emotional, and mental health, she might agree. This extreme circumstance, IMO, starkly displays the repercussions, the unintended consequences of religious philosophies and practices even beyond the physical and financial stresses of continued reproduction.
I wonder if in their so-called hit series, MD and JBD demonstrated concern about the safety of their children. Were they shown telling the children what to do in an emergency? Were they shown rehearsing an evacuation? (There are a lot of little guys to be accounted for, and home fire drills are recommended safety practice.) Were they shown the family meeting place so if something happened and they were split up, the children would know where to find the rest of their family? Anyway, that's rhetorical.
