Father-daughter balls, coverture, and the double standard

I'm fascinated to read (thanks to Jessica at Feministing) about the new trend of Father-Daughter Purity Balls.

The Father Daughter Purity Ball is a memorable ceremony for daughters to pledge commitments to purity and their fathers to pledge commitments to protect their girls. Because we cherish our daughters as regal princesses—for 1 Peter 3:4 says they are “precious in the sight of God”—we want to treat them as royalty.

Now mind you, I'm all for dads spending lots and lots of time with their children.  I do believe that fathers have a vital role to play in shaping their daughters' world view and self-concept.  I'm all for father-daughter events of many varieties.  But this disturbs me.

I'm particularly troubled by the language of the pledge that fathers sign:

I, [daughter's name]'s father, choose before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity. I will be pure in my own life as a man, husband and father. I will be a man of integrity and accountability as I lead, guide and pray over my daughter and as the high priest in my home. This covering will be used by God to influence generations to come.

Jessica is also troubled by this.  The language of "covering" is especially problematic. It's not particularly congruent with the New Testament, but it is very much the language of the old English legal principle of "coverture", in which the rights of a wife or a daughter would be hidden or "covered" by those of her husband or father.  Coverture, in one form or another, thrived in English common law from the middle ages until the advent of feminism.  It may be traditional, but it isn't rooted in Scripture.

It is impossible to imagine a father signing a contract in which he promises to provide a "covering" for his adolescent son!  I know of no father-son ritual that is comparable in our culture.  Of course, from a Scriptural standpoint, male virginity is just as valuable as female virginity.  What sets authentic Christianity at odds with most other traditional cultures is that sexual purity was, from the earliest church, seen as equally important for both sexes.   A wise and prayerful father, therefore, should be as concerned with his son's purity as with his daughter's.  The prospect of pre-marital sex for his son should trouble him as much as for his daughter.  Though his son has no hymen, his spiritual well-being is as threatened by pre-marital sex as a daughter's.  To say otherwise is to step outside of the radically egalitarian understanding of purity we see in Paul.

Look, I'm no fan of mindless abstinence campaigns.  Though I'm sympathetic -- for religious and psychological reasons -- to the notion that most adolescents should postpone sexual activity until they are older, I dislike the often frantic tone of much of the "True Love Waits" message.  But I have absolutely no patience with those elements within conservative Christian culture that suggest that female virginity is somehow more important than male purity.   It is traditional non-Christian culture that establishes the pernicious double standard; at every turn, authentic Christian teaching rejects that inconsistency and calls both men and women to holiness.  And wise fathers and mothers will not hold their children to different standards based upon their sex.

I will say, of course, that I like the bit in the pledge about holding oneself accountable.  I'm all for purity, integrity, accountability.  What I'm not prepared to do is to suggest that a father's personal fidelity gives him a special license to protect his daughter in a way that he does not also protect his son.

Comments

[evil_fizz]

Of course, I hear the word "covering" and think of breeding horses, which just makes it all the more disconcerting.

Frankly, the real problem for me is that this seems to turn the daughter into a commodity to be passed from father to husband. (Amanda has some thoughts on the subject. As does Digby, where I saw the topic first discussed.)

[ewigweibliche]

Perhaps it's just the use of the word "covering" that reminds me of fundamentalist Muslims and the burkas. Does this mean retributive action is an option should her virginity be compromised?

I also like language of responsibility and parental involvement, but what makes sense when a girl (or boy) is 14 may not make as much sense when they are 16 or 18, and heaven forbid she's not married before she's 22. If this just about keeping a girl's hymen intact, then are other elements of sexual activity dictated by the agreement? Does a father or daughter really want to draw up a contract detailing just how much leeway hands and mouths have? And, as you've mentioned, what about boys? This one-sided emphasis puts more pressure on women to remain "pure" and implies that their sexuality will be scrutinized.

The whole thing is distasteful.

[Hugo]

Thanks for the links, evil -- I was in Colombia when this came out, so I'm late to the party.

[evil_fizz]

Ah, the difficult decisions in life: international travel versus blog reading... =)

[The Gonzman]

Well, I trust then, that when it is brought up by us from the house opposite that "X issue affects men as well" we won't get the pious boilerplate answer of, "Well, of course nobody is for that, but this isn't about men here..."

If not, then I guess the same answer applies here: "Of course they're about male virginity too, but this isn't about the boys here."

Hey - either the pat answer fits - or it doesn't. For the record, I say it doesn't, but it does serve the purpose here to illustrate how absurd it sounds when it is invoked.

[evil_fizz]

Gonz, I'd like to respond, but I genuinely have no idea what you're saying.

[glendenb]

As someone who teaches sexuality education (Our Whole Lives) in my congregation, I find purity balls disturbing for many reasons and at many levels. The idea of time with a parent is good – but purity balls and purity pledges to and from your father are creepy.

The conservative view of human sexuality is seriously messed up. Over at Frameshop, Jeffrey Feldman deconstructed it and found these basic ideas:
1. Humans are born with a predisposition to perversity and sexual experimentation, especially perverse sexual experimentation (and a predisposition to homosexuality).
2. Sexual behaviors are inherently addictive – the more you engage in them the more you want to engage in them
3. Sexual morality is all about self control – the above are about the natural inclination away from self control
4. It requires early and strict parenting to instill self control so children do not give into their natural and perverse inclinations; it is never too early to start
5. Resisting one’s predisposition to perversity and experimentation requires constant vigilance but grows easier the longer one engages only in “approved” sexuality (straight and married).
6. Finally, choice is involved – but the choice is not to be straight or gay but whether or not to give in to one’s perverse nature.

If this is your understanding of human sexuality, then a purity ball makes perfect sense. The implicit concept is that sexualization is happening and cannot be prevented so much be steered into safe paths. By mimicking prom night, the apparent desire is to inoculate girls against the supposedly rampant sex that happens on prom nights. Of course, the disturbing incestuous overtones of the purity ball actually more disturbing to many people than is the awkward teenage sex that takes place in many a car and motel room on prom night.

[Hugo]

Glen, I agree completely on the creepiness, even as I don't share your antipathy to conservative Christian understanding of faith.

I'm enough of a conservative Christian to believe in the reality of original sin, and indeed, the notion that depravity and selfishness are part and parcel of the human condition. (Notice I said part -- not the sum total. I'm not a five point Calvinist!)

Self-control and restriction are virtues, undeniably so in the light of Scripture (See 1 Corinthians 7, for example). It's possible to be affirming of gays and lesbians on the one hand, and at the same time advocate a sexual ethic that sees accountability, obedience, and restriction as virtues. Just as I acknowledge the importance of mutuality, pleasure, and honesty in sexual relationship, I also believe I am called to do more than honor my desires and those of my partner: I am also called to honor a God who calls us all to the cross.

Too much liberal preaching I hear talks about nailing our economic desires to the cross, but not our sexual ones. (In other words, I should feel more guilt about driving an SUV than adulterous fantasies. I sure get more sermons on the former sin than the latter in my liberal Episcopal parish! Mind you, I drive a Solara and I only fantasize about my wife, but you get the point.)

So I share with you the yuck factor about the purity ball -- but for different reasons indeed.

"Our Whole Lives", btw, is a great curriculum. I like Kara Powell's "Good Sex" better.

[glendenb]

Hugo - please forgive my antipathy to conservative theology. I was born in Utah and raised in a very small town in Utah and have large store of anger toward religious conservatives as a result of my experiences. I grew up in a community where sex and teenage parenthood was wrong and horrible unless it was your kid doing it; literally people who would never hesitate to condemn teenage mothers would magically approve when it was their own daughter. And somehow they never managed to remember the teenage fathers (and their sons) in their jeremiads against moral collapse. In a community where drinking a beer would get you condemned to hell it was okay to beat your kids and your wife. So please, forgive my antipathy - it is based in some deep anger towards religious conservatives which gets in the way of my Christian better nature.

I know it's off topic but - can you tell me more about Kara Powell's Good Sex? What's the structure? How many sessions? What ages? In my congregation, we use Our Whole Lives and I think it's amazing, especially with the Sexuality and Our Faith Component, but it can be a scheduling nightmare. I'm sorry but grades 7-9 is 27 90 minute sessions. Have you worked with Created In God's Image or Our Whole Lives for adults? It's not an easy curriculum to make happen. So any insight would be much appreciated.

[The Gonzman]

Then let me be clear, Fizz- when MRA's object that feminists are focusing on the impact of a problem on females, ignoring the fact that it impacts males equally - OR MORE - and advocating sex-exclusive remedies, we get the same weak, lame excuses listed above "Oh. Yeah. Well we're against any sexism. Really. Honestly, why do you guys always have to bring in males? We're just not talking about men at this specific time. We'll get to it. Really. Eventually. Honest."

Well, if that answer is good enough - it's good enough for everyone. Apply those same excuses to the above, and it turns the discussion in the feminist blogoshpere into a whinge-fest, Q.E.D.

If it's NOT good enough to apply here - well, that pat little boiler-plate answer needs to be removed from the rhetoric.

It's the lack of consistancy which makes me snort in - exasperation? On the one hand, it's "Men and women are interchangeable, stop focusing on sex" when it suits ya'll, and a reversal of it when it suits ya'll. Percieve a problem and seek a sex specific remedy is fine for your side of the aisle, but let the other side of the aisle do it, and it's horrible! Just .. Horrible!

Pick one. Be consistant.

[evil_fizz]

Okay...and this concern plays into this post how exactly?

[Noumena]

Gonz, that's usually understood as trying to redress (what we see as, at least) a historical imbalance -- the conversation's been about men for so long, it's in the interest of pursuing genuine gender neutrality to talk about just women for a while. This includes both talking about how women are different from men (present very different symptomatologies for heart disease, for example) and how they're the same (have sexual agency and their own libidos and orgasms). And it can certainly lead to a conversation about both men and women, or even back to a conversation about men, as Hugo's numerous (and excellent) posts on homosociality demonstrate.

So "we're going to focus on women for a while" is an oversimplification. It's more like "men have been the topic of conversation for the past five thousand years, we're going to focus on women for a while".

(Bracketing, of course, the whole issue of who was doing the conversing and who, so to speak, was out serving the cake and coffee and making sure the kids had fallen asleep during dinner. And what exactly this has to do with the post at the top of the thread.)

[elizabeth]

The part that disturbs me more in the ceremony is when she pledges her sexuality/virginity until it is presented as "a gift" to her husband. This continuum of the Father as the "rational head" of the daughter, until entrusting her and her "virginal flower" to another man - the implication that is it "Daddy" not the woman who is making the evaluation and co-joining with another person. There certainly is no idea of "equality" unless you think gifts you get are equal to you - or that you need "Daddy's" permission to have relationship with someone. Yuk!

[The Gonzman]

This has to do with the "Well, what about the boy's purity" aspect of the post.

[evil_fizz]

Well, I think one point of the post is that these purity balls highlight a particularly pernicious double standard, i.e. virginity is only important in daughters, not sons. Hugo's point is that from a Christian perspective, you can't just focus on one. Hence, why aren't boys being talked about?

I'm still pretty confused as to how this raises your ire.

[Lynn Gazis-Sax]

I know it's off topic but - can you tell me more about Kara Powell's Good Sex? What's the structure? How many sessions? What ages? In my congregation, we use Our Whole Lives ...

I'd love to see a thread on all of these curricula. As far as I know, there isn't a Quaker sex education curriculum (but this could be my own ignorance - I have to admit I haven't done any kind of search for one).

[Allison]

As someone who still has remnants of antipathy toward my hyper-conservative upbringing, I feel your pain, glendenb! The worst of the conservative attitude is, IMO, teaching that sex is bad or evil.

evil fizz wrote: Frankly, the real problem for me is that this seems to turn the daughter into a commodity to be passed from father to husband.

This pretty much sums it up for me. I very clearly remember my father at one point (high school? college?) telling me that it was his Biblical responsibility to act as my coverin until I married, when that responsibility would become my husband's. Keep in mind -- this wasn't a conversation about sex; it was likely about finances or the like, and I'd probably told him I was JUST FINE without his jumping in to save me. While that removes some of the creepiness factor, the fact remains that to this day, I still have to remind him to back off from my life from time to time. For the love of God, I'm nearly 35.

As I told him this past weekend, I may *never* marry, and I certainly do not expect or want him to see himself as the "head of my household" for the rest of my life. I'm an adult, and I can make my own decision. From his perspective, he sees this as being more about protecting me, so I have a difficult time explaining to him why it's important to me that he back off (without my pushing him out of my life entirely) and allow me to be the adult.

[Allison]

Yikes...typos gallore. (shrug, oops)

[NancyP]

another vote for evil fizz's interpretation - when I hear "covering" in a sex context, I think of breeding horses, the one type of large animal stock where pedigreed males are still required by the breeding associations to do the deed "in person" rather than via artificial insemination. "Covering" is the general term for the breeding appointment (though stud fees are usually contingent on live birth).

[The Gonzman]

Well, I think one point of the post is that these purity balls highlight a particularly pernicious double standard, i.e. virginity is only important in daughters, not sons. Hugo's point is that from a Christian perspective, you can't just focus on one. Hence, why aren't boys being talked about?

I'm still pretty confused as to how this raises your ire.

Who says they only focus on one? They just focus ongirls, and the father/daughter bond, in this case. There's no evidence that there is no similar father/son or mother/son type of program (or whatever) just the claim that there is none.

So what is it =- it's okay for feminists to propose sex specific solutions to what they see as problems, but nobody else can? What was that about a pernicious double standard? I mean, like feminists, Hugo's brand of Christianity is pretty liberal, (ahem) Christians aren't some monolithic "Stepford Religion" that all thinks the same.

[mythago]

when I hear "covering" in a sex context, I think of breeding horses

Yeah, me too.

Gonzman, I believe Hugo is the one proposing a gender-neutral solution. Are you that hard up for picking a fight with the girls?

[evil_fizz]

Well, a cursory google search reveals nothing comparable for boys, and I've certainly never heard of a similar program. If you'd like to point us to a program where mothers or fathers pledge to keep their sons sexually pure (but make no mention of daughters), I'd love it see it.

And I genuinely (still) have no idea what you're talking about. Hugo's not proposing a sex-specific solution. He's saying that a message of sexual purity must be addressed to both boys and girls.

[erica]

I find the whole covering notion creepy.
I like to think of my father having absolutely nothing to do with my love life, sex life.
It has to be that way for me for me to feel normal and healthy.
When I was younger and the whole covering thing was thrown at me, I had a strong enough sense of self-possession to just ignore it altogether, even contradict it stubbornly. I totally agree with the commenter who said this practice commodifies the daughter.

[bmmg39]

"Hugo's not proposing a sex-specific solution. He's saying that a message of sexual purity must be addressed to both boys and girls."

I believe that Gonz's complaint is that in cases such as THIS the philosophy on this blog is that boys and girls should be treated the same, but on OTHER issues (sexual harassment, DV, self-esteem in children), when someone asks, "What about the boys/men/male victims?" the response is, "Well, it's not quite the same for boys, and we're just focusing on girls right now, anyway. Why do you always have to bring men into a women's issue?"

The thing is: I think you're both right. I agree 100% with Hugo's impatience with the virginity double standard, while also seeing Gonz's point that if we're going to treat boys and girls the same, we should ALWAYS treat them the same.

[bmmg39]

For the record, here is what I sent their way...

Hello,

I certainly don't have any sort of problem with virginity, but I am quite troubled by your single-sex approach, in which only the girls are being told to remain chaste.

Our society is sadly based upon faulty gender stereotypes, and one of the big ones is that males are salacious creatures incapable of controlling their animalistic urges, while females are shy creatures who usually just want to hold hands and talk. Girls are encouraged to remain virgins, while boys are told to "sow their oats." This double standard -- like so many others -- winds up hurting both genders: females are given the onus for "saying no" and stopping promiscuity, while males are treated like heathens.

Why is there nothing here about telling BOYS to remain chaste until marriage? Wouldn't a few "mother-son" events share your message among ALL young people?