The Duggar family and the Quiverfull Movement.

Now a lot of you have probably heard quite a bit about the Duggar family, and I’m sure a lot of you may have some strong opinions about the scandal surrounding them. Now this post will basically just be my own opinions/rant about what happened and the Quiverfull Movement in general.

For those of you who don’t know, the Duggar family have their own TV show named ’19 Kids and Counting, and if you hadn’t guessed already it’s because they have 19 children. This family are also devout Christians and belong to a specific movement of Christianity known as the Quiverfull Movement. Recently it was discovered the eldest child, Josh Duggar who is married with three children, sexually assaulted 5 young girls when he was a young teenager. At least two of these girls were known to be his sisters, but it is suspected that the majority of the girls were related to him. His parents made sure he was given a “stern talking to” and that was that. No thought was given to the girls who now had to see their attacker every day of their lives, the girls who had to sit across from him at the dinner table knowing that he molested them, and what about his own daughter? Well no thought was given to her either as his wife knew full well what he did before she married him. Now I know people can change, and all that shit, but he didn’t get punished at all! All he had to do was “Welcome God back into his life” and that magically made everything okay!

I have extensively researched the Quiverfull Movement and I am disgusted. Here is the gist: if you are male you are the leader of the house and you must be obeyed at all times, you may have sex with your wife at any time you wish (even if she doesn’t want to) and you must produce as many children as your wife can possibly carry (or not, as many women have died during complications because they have given birth against medical advice). However, if you’re a female you must cook, clean, and of course your vagina must be available at all times, and it doesn’t matter if your life is at risk because you’re carrying that baby anyway.

So let’s just get this straight. Here is a movement that states if you are anything but heterosexual you are disgusting, that children should be home schooled to protect them from the horrors that are other teenagers, that those who follow Islam are trying to “take over the country” and yet here they are treating women like dirt and allowing pedophilia? Well, I think somebody needs to reevaluate their morals here. You might have noticed that throughout this I never once referred to Quiverfull as a religion, and that’s because I don’t think it deserves to be recognised as one. Religion should be used to unite people, to encourage ethical and moral behaviour, and to give people hope and faith. This movement just encourages hate.

Thanks for listening (reading?) my rant and I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts on this.