Letters to the Editor
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I would have died of embarrassment ...
... if my dad had subjected me to one of these "Purity Ball" affairs. Thank goodness he was a normal dad who wasn't unnaturally obsessed with his young daughters' future sexual behavior.
You don't need to participate in creepy pseudo-Victorian rituals to give your daughter a good childhood. Be involved in her life. Teach her how to use tools and fix things. Talk to her. Praise her intelligence and achievements, not just her looks. Encourage her to play sports and do other physical activities. Keep a lid on TV watching and movies. Encourage her to join groups like the Girl Scouts that focus on the positives of being a girl. Treat her like a person. And set a good example for her future relationships with men by having a good relationship with her mother!
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ewwww!
In the absence of strong parental (and especially fatherly) guidance --- what the Bible calls "covering" or protecting ---- the girls will adopt the values of the slut culture around them.
Do you actually believe that a "purity ball" in which a girl learns that her sexuality is a gift to be given -- from her father to her husband, she doesn't own her own sexuality in this twisted worldview -- will help?
There are many, many ways for men to be strong fathers without getting so mixed up in their daughters' most private matters. Note, I am not saying that it's not a dad's business what his underage daughter does sexually. I'm just saying it can be done, and is done by many, many dads, but in a way that respects her as something other than a hymen to be given to another man.
(My own case: utterly secular family, my own decision not to have sex because it had complications that might have interfered with what I wanted from life *and* because it would have interfered with what my parents wanted for me. I changed my mind at 19 and haven't regretted it once in the subsequent 22 years.)
And BTW, I am just as sickened as anyone by the "Bratz" dolls and the other ways that sex gets pushed on little girls. I just think you can teach a girl to value herself for other things, without jamming a "sex is terrible until I, your father, say it isn't" message down her throat.
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Girls do not need creepy dances.
I went to several dad-daughter dances with my father as a girl. They were not strange, ritualistic, virginity-celebrating dances, just regular dances that you went to with your dad. My dad and I both enjoyed them very much--he enjoyed spending time with his daughter and teaching her to dance. I enjoyed spending time with my dad and learning to dance. My dad also taught me to drive a car, change a tire, use power tools, play baseball, cook steak on the grill, and plant a garden. He talked to me about problems at school or with friends. I always knew my dad loved me and was proud of me for what I was. I watched my dad treat my mother with love, respect, affection, and trust. I knew that if I ever got pregnant or in some other kind of trouble, my dad would still love me, because his love did not depend on me being some ideal, perfect, pure princess. As a result, I've never been much interested in guys who did not treat me well, never felt the need to have sex with boys before I was really ready to just to get some male attention, and never felt that sex was dirty and shameful and degrading. I also stayed a virgin until I was out of college.
Do little girls need their fathers' protection and attention? You bet they do. They need their dads to teach them, by actions rather than words, that they are beautiful, admirable, valuable people deserving of respect and love. They need them to teach them, by actions rather than words, that they are valuable not just for their bodies, but for their minds, their hearts, their souls. They need them to teach them, by actions rather than words, how a good man treats women, and that they deserve to be treated that way.
They do not need weird sexualized religious rituals about purity.
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Don't Associate Christian Extremism With Torah, Thank You,
As a student of religion in general, and of ancient near eastern religions in specific (yes, Yahwism wasn't the only religion in Canaan), I can't help making a few observations:
- A High Priest in the Judeo-Christian tradition must a) be a Levite, a specific tribal subset of Jewish ethnicity, b) specifically a descendant of Aaron, and c) appointed through a sort of judicial review process. His responsibilities include maintenance of the inner "shrine" of the Temple and regular live sacrifices. He does not exist if there is no Temple. Jesus never referred to himself as a high priest, and in fact instructed people to do their regular Jewish duties by the priests, high priest included. Paul continued obeying the Torahic Law, including his duties towards Temple and priests, long after conversion and referred to Jesus strictly metaphorically. In other words, it's egotism to appoint oneself a high priest and theologically meaningless.
- Premarital sex is in no place forbidden in the Laws, besides the fact that we're talking about Christians who believe themselves above the Law (unlike Jesus and Paul). Contrary to popular misconception, women who are not virgins when they are married are not stoned, unless they lied about their status (not that that's much better). Otherwise, the only penalties for fornication devolve onto men, who must pay a fine if caught and have no choice but to marry the girl if her father says so. Though a woman's consent to marriage is not mentioned in the Law, it is mentioned in the narratives such as Rebecca's family asking her if she would be willing to go marry Isaac. Infidelity, on the other hand, is punishable by death. Sorry, the various Judeo-Christian Scriptures do not conflate the two, unlike certain modern sects of Christianity. On the other hand, virgins are less likely to be killed in war, they'll just be raped aplenty.
- "Covering" is an extra-Biblical metaphor derived from Paul's opinions on local customs re: headcoverings, which rhetoric he finished by saying "if any should ask, we have no such custom among us." IE veiling women is not their custom, though some do it. By taking one or two verses out of context many groups run with it, eventually claiming that, along with Paul's opinion that women should submit to men, this makes women essentially chattel. The fact that women were Judges and Prophets prone to ordering men, even up to priests and kings, around during the Torah is conveniently swept under the rug.
For the record, the sexual history of the matriarchs is rarely mentioned. Words carelessly translated as "maiden" or "virgin" in English, really mean "young woman" in Hebrew, for instance. So we don't know if Sarah was a virgin when she married Abraham or had done the East Babylonian football team. What is mentioned, to the horror of modern Christians, and without condemnation in the texts are such things as Joseph soliciting a prostitute, Sarah sleeping with various notables (and Abraham collecting money for it), and so on and so forth. What condemnation there was, generally fell on the men in question, so male purity balls would be much more appropriate.
Other than that this practice is hypocritical in light of Scripture, and doubly in light of a theology that says the rules no longer pertain, I agree that this practice is also fairly creepy. There are dubious overtones to these events that set them apart from the awkward father-daughter "dates" done by groups like Girl Scouts, or other father-daughter occasions. For instance, you wouldn't see these pledges at these other events. And, of course, these girls are far too young to participate in such pledges while fully aware of their import.