The Patriarchy Movement

When I first discovered the patriarchy movement (via Vision Forum and blogs), I was in awe. They seemed to have created this "Leave it to Beaver" type family where the father worked, came home, made the rules and was in total charge. The mother had the children and well took care of everything else.

And I loved it. I'm a rules person. I like to have a list of things to do. And the information I saw gave me clear instructions: higher education is not important/detrimental to a young woman, marry as soon as possible, do not hinder pregnancy in any way, wear dresses only, submit to your father and then your husband.

I saw pictures of women dressed in beautiful Victorian garb. Of young families with their children and I wanted that. It looked so pretty. So happy.

Then I started to actually read the blogs (not just look at the pictures!) and read the books they sold. And it didn't seem so pretty anymore. I was sad for the women in that "movement", I was angry that they would raise daughters in such an environment.

Why is this movement growing? Do people not have the same criticisms I do?

Criticism #1: Women should not be discouraged from higher education.

I'm not saying everyone should go to college or needs to in order to have a fulfilling career. But, the job market is extremely competitive and if a women needs to support herself (and doesn't want to barely scrape by on minimum wage), she will need to earn some type of degree (or learn a trade at a community college).

The most frequent arguments I hear against women attending college are:
A woman's role is to keep the home. A degree isn't needed for that.

Let's face it. The man who was a perfect fiance could turn out to be a cheater/loser/abuser and you need to support yourself. Also, people are laid off, accidents happen and it's not easy (or often a possibility) to live off of savings indefinitely or depend on receiving worker's comp/disability.

I frankly would want to know that should a crisis arise I can care for my family. If my husband becomes hurts or walks out, I want to know that I have a career/trade that I can fall back on and feed my children and pay all of my necessary bills.

And this has nothing to do with submission. Is submission important? Yes, there can only be one person as the "head" of the family (and biblically it's the man). But that doesn't mean that the woman has to be an idiot blindly following her man wherever he goes and risking the welfare of her children.

Part 2 coming soon.