To each and every one who has responded with their story - My hats off to you all. I too fully understand the difficulties in being in that submissive role. I was smart enough to be aware of how ludicrous it was and that I could have done so much better than most of the men who were doing the leading. I was frequently counseled by my now ex-husband to be more submissive at home (although if I had followed his direction I probably would have been doing the "Woman Feet" thing too. The elders, my mother and other sisters all counseled me to keep my place. Guess submission just was never for me.
Before I became a JW I lived in an extremely abusive home and fear of men was instilled very early in life. Unfortunately for me - at the time - I was also instilled with a very healthy sense of right and wrong and justice and yes a brain that fully functioned when I let it.
After my mother became a JW (and single parent to 4 kids) we all struggled with the submission thing. She had to be in submission but could not be since she was a single parent. She would repeatedly ask for the elders to send someone to study with her sons who needed a male role model (guess on how to take the lead so they could grow up to be real men in the org). The elders would decide that since god had given her this position of leadership in her home (and he had not seen fit to give her another husband to be in subjection to) then she needed to be in subjection to the will of the elders who said it was her job to train her children in their respective roles.??? Confused??? So were we.
My mother and I found our positions difficult most of the time. For a while we had the book study in our home - a home where there was no adult male. So we had to rely on other men to come into our home to conduct the study and FS meetings. If no male showed up then we usually defered to the woman who had been a JW the longest and since I had brothers living at home the sisters would have to find something to put on their head - sometimes a dish-towel. How ridiculous is that. Sitting there taking the lead (and most often doing a great job of it) with a dish towel on your head because the males in the room are 6 and 7 years old.
MY mother later arranged a marriage for me with a really newly baptized brother - so new that he was baptized 1 week before the wedding. Being in submission to my mother - I obeyed and married this man - boy really. MUM I could definitely relate to you on this one. I knew 2 weeks after the wedding it was a terrible mistake. After 3 months I begged my mother to let me come home. Her response was "You made your bed - lie in it" Hmmm thought she was the one who had arranged this but oh well.
I was now trapped with this man I barely knew and who was learning how to be a "good husband taking the leadership role in the family". Well here I was after years of being away from my father (the tyrant) and now having to be submissive to a male again - who also turned out to be a tyrant. Interesting how she picks them.
I set out to be the perfect wife and mother. We eventually had two daughters. I pioneered a wee bit and I do mean a wee bit since I detested going door to door. I had everybody - absolutely everybody - husband children mother friends and the congregation convinced that we were the perfect JW family. People would tell me that when they goit married they wanted a family like ours. I always felt sick to my stomach when they told me that. I knew a very different story at home. Even there I never voiced my opinion on things always deferring to my husband. He was convinced that he was the epitome of a perfect husband and he had total control of his perfect little family.
As he progressed to MS and eventual elder his dominance increased. He used the Bible as a weapon to control us all. Lectures and sermonizing at home on how to behave in the proscribed manner were regular occurrances. At all times his image as an elder and our image as JWs both inside and outside the cong took precidence over what was in the best interests of the children or family. It always boiled down to appearances and what other people would think. We lived with this double standard of loving family outside the home but inside was screaming and yelling. He would go on tirades of yelling and more than once I had to drag him out of the girl's rooms when he became physically abusive to them. He insisted on silence when he was preparing a talk - which was most of the time. He was frequently out doing cong work or on service leaving the girls and I at home - thank goodness we were not dragged everywhere.
I had an especially hard time after I learned sign language and became an interpreter in the cong for the deaf group that was in our hall. One of my taks was to teach others how to sign. It was easy with the sisters but then some brothers decided that they wanted to learn. There was a huge discussion of wheather I would be allowed to teach sign language to the brothers in the cong. One of the elders decided this was most inappropriate and he went off to learn sign language from the deaf brothers. He then would teach the other brothers how to sign and I could still teach the sisters. Only problem was that he was a terrible signer - very awkward in his movements and not at all comfortable with it. Added to this was that he seemed to think that if he made enough facial expressions or leaned forward enough he would get what he was saying across better - very comical and annoying to watch. Well this is how he taught the other elders to sign. No small wonder the deaf group prefered when the sisters signed for them.
Now one of my biggest problems with this is that while a brother was signing I was not allowed to correct him if he was using the wrong sign for something. One person signed a whole talk using the sign for circumsion instead of circumstance - think about it - the whole thing became meaningless. To help out the deaf group I quietly signed to one of the sisters that the correct sign was circumstance and she was able to quietly get the message through to the rest of the group. It was situations like this that got me into the most difficulty as a JW.
So at home or in the hall I was often faced with the ridiculousness of this submission thing. At home my nose was rubbed in it daily
Now I am free.
After I left the JWs I went to school. After a lifetime of being told I was inferior and stupid, this high-school drop-out graduated with honors - most often one of the top 3 in the class. I had to get used to my voice in a classroom and took a course on speech-giving and found a strong and intelligent voice inside of me. Now I lecture wherever I am invited. I have been on radio and TV - in newspapers and magazines using my voice to talk about all forms of abuse including spiritual abuse.
And now I am on the net hehehe
