It was interesting for me reading this because I have felt very very sad these past few years that Jehangeer and I never got to have a wedding before he died, but it also made me think of something Oprah once said, that she never got married because she didn't want to play the role of wife. It is really profoundly amazing to me what a huge gift you gave me in taking us out of this world as children. Thanks to your courage, I got to know what it was like to have a loving partner who saw me as an equal who preferred to choose each other every day instead of participating in a tradition based on the subjugation of women as men's property. I would have loved to have had a party to bring together our loved ones and celebrate that we found each other, but I am so profoundly grateful you set me free enough in life that I was able to find an equal partnership with someone I genuinely loved instead of feeling like I had to become a wife to someone who felt entitled to me in any way.
I continue to be stunned by the impact of your clear, honest writing and how it captures something I had never quite considered so fully before, the deadly impact of fostering naïveté. On the surface it seems harmless, perhaps even protective. But taken fully into account, as your unfolding narrative makes possible, this withholding of basic sex education and essential information for navigating adult life is functionally exposing you to the potentially devastating danger of entering adult life uninformed and lacking in a sense of agency and authority over your own body, mind, and choices. This is not a well-intentioned accident. It is a conditioned tool of patriarchal control. Damn!
Constance, your writing is so clear and so emotionally complex at the same time. There’s so much here to think about, and your inclusion of Diana really brings it home. I’ve read this twice now and I see more in it every time. (I chose to live with a professor at my college who was 25 years my senior - people got away with this in olden days - and then married him on my 21st birthday, to my parents’ dismay. I didn’t realize how much I was being controlled for many years. The patriarchy is as bad as any form of supremacy. ) Anyway, there is so much to admire here. I always finish your posts wishing I could sit down with you and talk about how you developed each one.
Thank you for sharing your story with such integrity. I imagine this writing is healing for you, as it is for us who can relate. I am not from the evangelical side, but was raised by strict Catholic parents. I was not quite naive as you, but in the dark about a lot from being such a nerd. I look forward to reading more of your story. I just subscribed :)
So interesting, Constance! How you viewed Princess Diana's wedding is how I viewed it...a fairy tale that I wish I could have had for myself. I once wrote a manuscript for a book I thought I wanted to put out there. I called it, "Bad Boys in the Church Pews." It was about the way we were taught about marriage and relationships within the church as if once a man (or woman) begins to go to church they are now a "new" person (old things pass away!) and we are safe with that person. We can count on God to change them. I grew up wanting to have a family like on "The Donna Reed Show," or "Leave it to Beaver." I pictured myself greeting my husband at the door wearing a dress, heels, pearls, and a little apron. That was my BIG DREAM! Instead, I married at sixteen to a twenty-one year old felon who left me as soon as I got pregnant. I never tried to get the book published. By that time, I had quit going to evangelical churches and it felt weird to do that. There were so many other things about that I could write about!
Beautiful writing, as always. The mono and strep before the wedding struck me - our bodies seem to have subtle ways of trying to get us to connect with our intuition. In our society (not just the evangelical one you write about) we’ve become so disconnected from that intuition!
This push-pull ambivalent tension with Drew continues to build once you suspect him of infidelity which takes you back to your wedding ceremony. The association to the royal wedding and Diana is an interesting one. Didn't every little girl grow up to want to be married to a prince and live in a castle? And that which is wished for turns out to be a kind of imprisonment with shackles we mistake for jewelry. The finality of his statement "we're not getting a divorce" even while agreeing to rent an apartment/bachelor pad for himself shows his dominance as head of household.
It was interesting for me reading this because I have felt very very sad these past few years that Jehangeer and I never got to have a wedding before he died, but it also made me think of something Oprah once said, that she never got married because she didn't want to play the role of wife. It is really profoundly amazing to me what a huge gift you gave me in taking us out of this world as children. Thanks to your courage, I got to know what it was like to have a loving partner who saw me as an equal who preferred to choose each other every day instead of participating in a tradition based on the subjugation of women as men's property. I would have loved to have had a party to bring together our loved ones and celebrate that we found each other, but I am so profoundly grateful you set me free enough in life that I was able to find an equal partnership with someone I genuinely loved instead of feeling like I had to become a wife to someone who felt entitled to me in any way.
I continue to be stunned by the impact of your clear, honest writing and how it captures something I had never quite considered so fully before, the deadly impact of fostering naïveté. On the surface it seems harmless, perhaps even protective. But taken fully into account, as your unfolding narrative makes possible, this withholding of basic sex education and essential information for navigating adult life is functionally exposing you to the potentially devastating danger of entering adult life uninformed and lacking in a sense of agency and authority over your own body, mind, and choices. This is not a well-intentioned accident. It is a conditioned tool of patriarchal control. Damn!
Constance, your writing is so clear and so emotionally complex at the same time. There’s so much here to think about, and your inclusion of Diana really brings it home. I’ve read this twice now and I see more in it every time. (I chose to live with a professor at my college who was 25 years my senior - people got away with this in olden days - and then married him on my 21st birthday, to my parents’ dismay. I didn’t realize how much I was being controlled for many years. The patriarchy is as bad as any form of supremacy. ) Anyway, there is so much to admire here. I always finish your posts wishing I could sit down with you and talk about how you developed each one.
Thank you for sharing your story with such integrity. I imagine this writing is healing for you, as it is for us who can relate. I am not from the evangelical side, but was raised by strict Catholic parents. I was not quite naive as you, but in the dark about a lot from being such a nerd. I look forward to reading more of your story. I just subscribed :)
So interesting, Constance! How you viewed Princess Diana's wedding is how I viewed it...a fairy tale that I wish I could have had for myself. I once wrote a manuscript for a book I thought I wanted to put out there. I called it, "Bad Boys in the Church Pews." It was about the way we were taught about marriage and relationships within the church as if once a man (or woman) begins to go to church they are now a "new" person (old things pass away!) and we are safe with that person. We can count on God to change them. I grew up wanting to have a family like on "The Donna Reed Show," or "Leave it to Beaver." I pictured myself greeting my husband at the door wearing a dress, heels, pearls, and a little apron. That was my BIG DREAM! Instead, I married at sixteen to a twenty-one year old felon who left me as soon as I got pregnant. I never tried to get the book published. By that time, I had quit going to evangelical churches and it felt weird to do that. There were so many other things about that I could write about!
Beautiful writing, as always. The mono and strep before the wedding struck me - our bodies seem to have subtle ways of trying to get us to connect with our intuition. In our society (not just the evangelical one you write about) we’ve become so disconnected from that intuition!
This push-pull ambivalent tension with Drew continues to build once you suspect him of infidelity which takes you back to your wedding ceremony. The association to the royal wedding and Diana is an interesting one. Didn't every little girl grow up to want to be married to a prince and live in a castle? And that which is wished for turns out to be a kind of imprisonment with shackles we mistake for jewelry. The finality of his statement "we're not getting a divorce" even while agreeing to rent an apartment/bachelor pad for himself shows his dominance as head of household.