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My Escape from Christian Patriarchy
by Tia Levings
Book Reviewed by:"Today it hit me when he hit me, blood shaking in my brain. Maybe there wasn't a savior coming. Maybe it was up to me to save me."
Recruited into the fundamentalist Quiverfull movement as a young wife, Tia Levings learned that being a good Christian meant following a list of additional life principles––a series of secret, special rules to obey. Being a godly and submissive wife in Christian Patriarchy included strict discipline, isolation, and an alternative lifestyle that appeared wholesome to outsiders. Women were to be silent, "keepers of the home."
Tia knew that to their neighbors her family was strange, but she also couldn't risk exposing their secret lifestyle to police, doctors, teachers, or anyone outside of their church. Christians were called in scripture to be "in the world, not of it." So, she hid in plain sight as years of abuse and pain followed. When Tia realized she was the only one who could protect her children from becoming the next generation of patriarchal men and submissive women, she began to resist and question how they lived. But in the patriarchy, a woman with opinions is in danger, and eventually, Tia faced an urgent and extreme choice: stay and face dire consequences, or flee with her children.
Told in a beautiful, honest, and sometimes harrowing voice, A Well-Trained Wife is an unforgettable and timely memoir about a woman's race to save herself and her family and details the ways that extreme views can manifest in a marriage.
Belong
One thousand, three hundred eighty-four and a half miles. Three days. Two parents in their mid-twenties, two daughters, one elderly calico cat named Piddles. A Dodge sedan and an old UPS truck painted gold and Kelly green. A hand-painted sign that read SHERWOOD FOREST BUILDERS. Jackson's "Thriller" on the radio. Both vehicles packed tight and out of gas on this April day in 1984. This was how we arrived in Jacksonville, Florida, sweaty and bewildered. I was sure I'd just landed in hell.
Before the move from Michigan, the dominoes of our lives began to fall. The domino of my parents buying eighty acres more than they could afford. The domino of my falling in love with that farm and those trees. The domino of meeting God in the woods. The blizzard dominoes, so close together and cutting the power, the roads, the food supply. The Michigan economy and union strike dominoes. The domino of bankruptcy. The domino of the job offers in Florida. The domino of two months to sell everything ...
PART 1: GROOM
The idea that it's a woman's job to fix her marriage, while men have no apparent responsibility in this task, is a recurring theme in Levings' fundamentalist circles. Men are told to lead their households, but it's women who bear the brunt of the emotional and physical labor. Levings is exhausted running after four children, single-handedly maintaining a tidy home and nice garden, cooking every meal, and following each of her mercurial husband's whims. This story feels particularly resonant in an era when "tradwives"—women who embrace this kind of role in their marriage—are trending on social media. Levings writes that to the rest of the world her family looked like they were thriving. But their happy life was built on the back of her extreme stress: "Like the slip of a hand beneath the ocean's waves, nobody saw me vanish as they focused on what I did instead of who I was."..continued
Full Review
(859 words)
(Reviewed by Jillian Bell).
Ashleigh Renard, author of Swing
I've never given a book a standing ovation until this one. A Well-Trained Wife is a prayer, for all of us. The world is lucky Tia Levings found her freedom and her voice. A reckoning for those who sanction abuse in the name of salvation. Cait West, author of Rift
In this brave memoir on domestic violence within Christian patriarchy, Tia Levings vulnerably shares her story of survival. With devastating detail, she reveals the many shades of abuse that happen within the world of evangelicalism, a world that was supposed to protect her. The many women who have walked this path from oppression to freedom will find solidarity in these pages. Julie Bogart, author of The Brave Learner and Raising Critical Thinkers
With unflinching honesty and relentless self-reflection, Levings' debut memoir is a portrait in courage.In the memoir A Well-Trained Wife, the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) serves as author Tia Levings' gateway from mainstream conservative Christianity into patriarchal Christian fundamentalism. Readers may already be aware of the IBLP thanks to the popular Amazon Prime documentary Shiny Happy People, which focuses on the abuses this ministry has enabled.
The Institute began as a series of seminars given by evangelical minister Bill Gothard in 1961. While Gothard was unmarried and childless (and has remained so), he spoke with authoritative confidence about how to be a good spouse and parent. At the core of the IBLP's teachings is the idea of a strict hierarchy: God is on top, below are pastors and church elders, then ...
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