Oprah Magazine has an article on the disturbing phenomenon of purity balls (yes, I read O.). These are formal events where girls (apparently as young as nine) exchange rings with their fathers, with the girls promising to remain virgins until marriage and the fathers pledging to protect their virginity.
Quotes from the article: the girl promises “to give [her] husband the gift of purity, pure and precious” and the father wears a ring “symbolizing [his] commitment to protect and shield [her] from the enemy.” As she prepares to put the ring on Daddy’s finger, he explains the symbols on the ring and his covenant to “cover” her:
It is in the form of a shield…symbolizing my commitment to protect and shield you from the enemy. Inside the shield is a heart, which is your heart, which I am covering. Across the heart are a key and a sword–the key is the key to your heart, which I will safeguard until your wedding day, and the sword is the protection I pledge to you…On your wedding day, I will give this ring to your husband.
Have we made any progress in the past couple of millennia? While I appreciate the sincere love and parental protectiveness that may be behind some of these efforts, let me tell you what I find so very wrong with this ancient rite dressed up for the 21st century:
Try read this ceremony another way: “Daughter, when I said that you were my jewel, I meant it. As long as your hymen remains unbroken, you will remain untarnished, and I can transfer you to your husband with my honor intact. And when I said I’d protect you with the sword, I really meant ’shotgun.’”
Remember that discussion about Bourdieu? It wasn’t until reading this that I realized how very wrong the custom of the father “giving away the bride” is. It seemed benign to me until now, and I have decided that there is no way that I will give away my daughter. Women are not property.
These social pressures and high expectations contribute to other problems. Only one out of ten teens who enter into virginity pledges successfully keeps it until marriage. The nine who break the pledges are much more likely to have sex without contraception. Pledge-breakers are at a higher risk for STDs and unintended pregnancies than teens who don’t enter into such pledges.
This is sordid stuff. I want to write more on abstinence education in the next day or two: it’s a perfect subject for this blog, since it represents the intersection between sex, religion and public policy. So save your abstinence-specific comments for the next post, and let’s hear your thoughts on purity balls, giving away the bride, and other primitive women-devaluing customs that have survived to this day.
26 responses so far ↓
1 Elaine Frei // Feb 22, 2007 at 6:45 am
My honest first reaction to this? It made me feel like the people who promote this garbage are trying to set up an atmosphere in this country that will lead to “honor killings” like we hear about from time to time in other cultures. And that is nothing but bad.
I mean really…”shield you from the enemy”? Talk of keys and swords? Are they going to make chastity belts part of the ceremony? All any of this does is reinforce the idea that children, and especially daughters, are nothing but property, to be given away or traded away or used as a bargaining chip.
You’re right, John. “Purity balls” are a huge step backward.
2 Johnny // Feb 22, 2007 at 7:48 am
I liked Elaine’s comments. However I disagree with the title.
-insert Dave Chappells voice now, or if you like Chris Rock- Purity balls have everything to do with balls. Big Nasty Hairy Masculine Patriarchical balls! Yes I said it!
-still speaking in Chappell/Chris Rock- I mean read THINK PEOPLE THINK! Why do you think they are so protective? hmmmmmmm???? A man learns to be protective…by protecting…his balls. They’re the Family Jules Mannnnn! You got to protect your valuables, starting with your balls, then your wife, and next your kids. IN THAT ORDER. Where else could such a stupid ass idea come from, then from a MAN’s BALLS!!!! It got EVERYTHING to do with ‘em!
3 nee // Feb 22, 2007 at 7:50 am
First thought, the assumption that the girl will get married is interesting. However, I’m guessing it’s a cultural expectation and plan of those who participate in these.
Second thought, I do not know the intent of the participants. While I see this as something I would not want to participate in, I can see where to those involved, may see it not as an issue of property but of responsibility and protection.
I find their words and actions extreme and yet, I’d rather see a father maniacally protective than the dysfunctionality that reigns in Gen. 19 where you’ve got a father offering up his virgin daughters to psycho villagers. Ultimately, of course, I’d rather not see a father maniacal at all.
So back to the intent thing…
It does resemble to some negative things in the past. At the same time, I don’t like to throw the baby out with the bathwater. If their motivation is seeing their daughter as property, ew. If their motivation is protection, well, perhaps it is about more than about a hymen. The word used in the quote was heart. I can only hope in the minds of the participants it’s about caring and nurturing and being concerned about anyone who would wrong their daughter in any form - sexually, emotionally, physically.
To that end, a name other than Purity Ball could be an improvement.
And how about additional ball - one for mothers and sons where mothers pledge to teach their sons respect for themselves and others and sons pledge to treat everyone with respect, regardless of gender.
4 Elise // Feb 22, 2007 at 9:02 am
Ryan and I walked down the aisle together and recognized all four of our parents, not just our fathers. No one gave me or him away. It was very nice.
Why isn’t there any type of similar ritual for young boys? Is it more important to fundamental Christians that their daughters be virgins than it is their sons? If they want their girls to save themselves for marriage, they need to teach boys the same thing, since boys are a big factor in the abstinance decision.
Nee, I hadn’t thought of it, but the assumption of marriage is quite interesting.
5 John // Feb 22, 2007 at 9:20 am
Elaine, thanks for making that connection to the honor killings. There is a set of cultural values and a patriarchal social system that makes them possible. The culture of the purity ball is a long ways from those patriarchal cultures that produce honor killings, but I see it more as a difference of degree than of kind.
Johnny (or should I call you Dave?): I was asking for that. You could say that my title could have swung either way…
Nee, I agree that the situation is much more complex than can be adequately examined in the context of a blog post, and I thank you for adding some complexity (that’s making great use of the comments). I’m deliberately reductive in order to shine the spotlight on what I find problematic.
I’m glad that you brought up mother-son purity balls. They do have them–they’re called integrity balls, and from everything that I’ve read, they are still concerned with the girl’s ‘purity’ rather than the son’s. Also, the mothers don’t pledge any protection (the linked article reports that they are asked to ‘teach’ their sons). In the integrity ball article I linked to, the emphasis is still on respecting the girls not for their own sakes, but as another man’s future possession:
Baker told the young men that the women they had come with, their mothers, were somebody‚Äôs daughters, and they meant the world to those parents. He further told them that when they date a girl, she is somebody‚Äôs daughter, and they care deeply for her…
“So you’re dating someone else’s future wife,” he told them. He also told them that someone else may be dating their future wife. “If you knew somebody was with your future wife,” Baker asked them, “touching her in ways you wouldn’t like, pressuring her, how would that make you feel?”
I agree that these purity balls would be less problematic if children of both sexes were treated equally, and if parental concern extended beyond sexuality, but there seems to be way too much focus on the sexual chastity of the girls. Regardless of the intent, it seems to me that the effects are damaging.
6 Kaimi // Feb 22, 2007 at 10:08 am
So, you’re saying it’s better for kids to have no balls?
7 amelia // Feb 22, 2007 at 11:58 am
i don’t have a lot to say here, other than i agree that these kinds of pledges/events are troublingly reminiscent of a time past when women were property. and the “protection” argument doesn’t fly with me. many people two and three hundred years ago argued protection when women’s rights (or lack thereof) were discussed, but that didn’t change the fact that married women did not legally exist as independent beings.
i would call attention to the fact that the problematic nature of “giving” a daughter away begins before the marriage ceremony when the potential groom goes to the potential bride’s father to ask permission to marry his daughter. i simply will not let that happen. i need no one’s permission to marry and i refuse to acknowledge that it is my father’s to give.
that said, i agree with nee that we should not simply dismiss such events or traditions. for many reasons. one is that when we are simply dismissive of tradition, we alienate the very people we most want to influence (we’re not going to have a problem with those who agree or who mostly agree, but we’ll sure as hell lose any influence with those who participate in these traditions). and one is that there are often very real issues under the surface of these traditions. for instance, i think father’s would feel like there had been a lack of respect if their permission were not asked. not because they really think their daughters don’t have the right to marry without their permission; just because a parent spends an entire lifetime caring for and providing and protecting and loving their daughter and it would be disrespectful not to acknowledge that and honor it. so i think it’s possible to preserve the gesture of honoring the parents without reducing it to something that seems like an exchange of property. the couple going together to each of their parents to ask for the parents’ blessing, for instance.
as with so many things, the problem here seems to be not so much with the motivating emotions or desires, but with the activity itself and the way that activity summons problematic notions that continue to inform our society because they are never made visible.
8 Miko // Feb 22, 2007 at 12:23 pm
I don’t know if these are gaining popularity right now, but they are certainly gaining attention, from blogs and, apparently, Oprah. And they creep me the hell out.
I’m with Johnny-Channelling-Chris Rock: they have everything to do with balls. Not necessarily because of the protection aspect (not having lived with balls until about 4 years ago) but because of the male-centric aspect. And I’m sorry to whip out that term, it makes me feel like a feminazi, but these things (Purity & Integrity Balls both, notice the difference in wording?) have everything to do with men. “I will save you for your husband”; “Don’t you want the girl you marry to be treated well by other men?”
Elaine hit it on the head (pun intended): these are not only a step backward a la property, but they pave the way for much more dangerous things. Let’s take a look at the pledge (which was originally taken from the Focus on the Family website, but they took it down, I found it at Wikipedia & it looks like it’s the same one I read earlier):
‚Ä¢ First of all: does anyone have any info about the girl’s pledge (and they usually are girls, although there is the odd woman in her late teens or 20s)? I’ve not seen much of anything relating to her acceptance of her father’s “protection”. So at least she’s not even given the illusion of a choice.
‚Ä¢ “cover my daughter” anyone else note the similarity to “covering a mare“? This isn’t pseudo-incestuous, it’s outright.
‚Ä¢ “pure in my own life…guid[ing]” leading by example is admirable. But that’s a passive action and very little about this seems passive. I’ve no problem with parents or other authority figures leading by example. I think that’s a good way to lead (not the only way, but certainly one of many options).
‚Ä¢ “high priest in my home” harkens directly back to the pater familias who had power of life and death over everyone who lived sub manos (under his hand). This included slaves, children, wives, concubines, and sisters (if once his pater was dead). He was the pontifex in his home, making offerings to the family and state gods in his own home. In fact, the concept of an emperor grew out of the pontifex maximus whose familia was the whole state. Think of your father/husband/brother as having the power of an emperor over his household. Do we really want that? We also get veiling practices from Rome. [citation cannot currently be found, I promise to get it up as soon as I find it, I don’t want to sit here making unfounded claims]
nee’s comment about intent has merit: we should all be protective of children (ours and others) and ensure that they grow up to be productive members of society. However, there is power in a ritual and, however pure the motives of men making the above claims are (and the women who let them do it, what are these wives/mothers thinking?!), once has to admit that the undercurrent is one of very scary denigration of women’s authority over themselves and ability to act as self-agents.
Elise’s recognition of all parents in a marriage is wonderful. The act of leaving one house to cleave to another that you make with your lover is a beautiful one and one deserving of ritual recognition. I wish for everyone to be “given away” or to walk with both their parents to a point where one leaves them to walk by oneself to the spouse-of-choice. I’m jealous
If we look deeper into the traditional ritual, however, of leaving one man for another (or being given by one man to another), it returns very quickly to a world of arranged marriages. I remember as a child knowing for certain that, if a woman’s father were dead, the man (it would be a man, of course) to lead her to her husband would be one of importance in her life: a brother, uncle, or close friend/teacher. I don’t know where I picked that up besides the world around me (which was very closeted), but I mourn for the women who live in that world. Meanwhile, the husband-to-be waits for his woman to be delivered. *shudder*
Let us examine the difference between Purity & Integrity, shall we?
The first is a passive quality: my drinking water (I hope, although I do live in LA) is pure. The second is an active quality: I have to help my friends foster their own integrity by not gossiping around them. The implicit assumption of the female/male assignation of these Balls is that the girls are passive and must be “kept” pure while the boys are active and must “maintain” or “foster” their integrity. I know that my favorite symbol of all time (link for that coming up, too, but in the mean time, keep an eye on my sewing site) also has this unfair dicotomy implicit in it: men are the active principle (yang) and women the passive (yin). This simply goes to show how deep-seated these notions are. Where is the active woman? Our concepts of the four elements is that earth, the solid mass beneath our feet is a female while fire, the untamed burning fire is male. We should be doing our part to break these assumptions, not foster them.
Sorry, apparently “foster” is my word of the day.
I realize that Kaimi’s comment was meant in jest, but yes! it is better that children have no balls if all it will do is breed this unequal active/passive mentality. The only ball I can think of outside of these is Cinderella’s. Even there, the women were paraded before the prince like a smorgasbord. I’m not against dancing, I know how to waltz (and, yes, sometimes I forget my place and lead), and I don’t think schools should ban dances, but all I know about balls is their misogyny. And, I would argue, therefore their misandry.
Finally, let us take a look at the creepiness of the implicit (explicit?) incest involved here. Apparently, there are studies that show that a girl’s relationship with her father will translate into her later feelings of self-worth and confidence. I may be the statistical anomoly: I don’t think I have a relationship with my father (he was always at work). I have nothing but support for child-parent relations being good. I think they should start out as teachers and guides with the hope to eventually become friends later in life. The friendship part is harder if they’re too drill sergeant when the child is young. I believe this regardless of gender of child or parent. However, I do believe that these relationships should be asexual. That is, a mother can be the disciplinarian and a father the comforter (or vice versa). More than that, no parent should look at their child in any kind of a sexual manner. This is part of why children are creeped out by parents teaching them about sex: they understand the weirdness involved with thinking of their parents as sexual beings. Later in life, this will turn into an understand of their parents as sexual but not in relation to the child. Dads “dating” their daughters (or sons!) is a very very creepy way of showing affection. This is something recommended by most of the Purity Ball organizations (not sure of the Integrity Ball people). There is nothing wrong with going out with your father or mother on occassion for a good meal, an ice cream, etc. But speaking about these relationships with sexual terms (”dating”, for example) crosses that line. If you’re so busy that you have to schedule time with your children, fine, pencil them in for next Tuesday, but don’t call it a date and don’t approach it like a date. Parents (and here I realize that I am not and hope never to be one, so you may take my assertions with however much salt you need) should spend time with their children. They should be involved in their children’s interests, whether that’s coaching a team, attending a performance, or helping them study (yes, that was my interest as a kid), this is the kind of time that is important. And yes, recreation should be part of a child’s relationship with a parent: Disneyland, the park, a movie. But again, these are quality time events with children, not dates. I realize it’s a thin line, but, life is hard.
*pant* *pant* [/rant]
This is why I didn’t post about this 3 months ago when I started reading about it…
9 Amber // Feb 22, 2007 at 2:23 pm
I’m sorry I haven’t read all the comments yet, but my gut reaction to purity balls is that they are disturbing and disgusting. They look like weddings between fathers and daughters, and I can only feel that they are VERY VERY WRONG.
10 John // Feb 22, 2007 at 2:39 pm
I’d like to interrupt this conversation so that everyone can go over to Amber’s blog and check out which law schools have accepted her.
Wow.
11 Miko // Feb 22, 2007 at 3:24 pm
congrats, Amber!!! I lust after Boalt, myself :-p
12 Elaine Frei // Feb 22, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Congratulations, Amber. Those are some good schools to which you’ve been accepted.
*sigh* I’ve been thinking about this discussion all day while I worked (which slowed up work some, but I still managed to make deadline - yay, me), and I’m still creeped out by the whole thing, for the various reasons listed above.
While my first thought earlier was of honor killings of girls who were to violate such a purity oath, I don’t think that’s anywhere near the only danger here. The way that boys/young men are seemingly identified as “the enemy” (or is it sexual activity in itself?), I see a definite danger that some loose cannons could find it perfectly acceptable under the terms of these oaths to try to harm a male who was seen to have violated their daughter.
Now this harm might well be physical, but it could be legal as well. I happen to have been acquainted, through a friend when I was in college, with a young man who will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life because he had consensual sex with his girlfriend in high school, when they were both something like sixteen years old. The girl’s father took exception to that and had the young man charged with statutory rape. He was convicted, and while he didn’t have to serve much time, he was classified as a sex offender due to the conviction.
I guess we could argue the propriety of sixteen year olds having sex from here till next summer, and I’m certainly not going to say that it is a good thing, but the fact remains that it happens. All the time, if the statistics I’ve seen are anywhere near accurate. But it seems to me that there is something wrong with an outcome that puts a teenage boy and his girlfriend having sex on the same level with a predator who harms little children or with a serial rapist. And I don’t think it is really all that far-fetched to think that this sort of thing could become more common in a culture that accepts these “purity” oaths.
13 Amber // Feb 22, 2007 at 5:00 pm
Thanks, John, Miko and Elaine.
Miko did discuss, with more evidence, exactly the aspect of these things that I find so disgusting. I don’t think it’s healthy for girls to associate their virginity (and loss thereof) with their fathers.
Now that I’ve read what you all have to say about the issue, I wish I’d stopped to think harder before I commented.
14 Elise // Feb 22, 2007 at 8:05 pm
Wow, especially wow to Miko. Thanks for the time/energy you must have put into that well-written response. I’m still processing…..
15 amelia // Feb 22, 2007 at 8:51 pm
just a quick amen. thanks to miko especially for that articulate response.
16 nee // Feb 22, 2007 at 9:17 pm
What is it with children and balls this week?
17 Miko // Feb 23, 2007 at 10:53 am
heh, yeah I heard about that on NPR earlier this wk. The author alleges that it was the sound of the word that made (him? her?) put it in. I don’t think we should keep kids from anatomical words, better scrotum than balls, eggs, sack, etc., IMHO. The argument (about the sound of the word) made sense to me because one of my favorite books as a kid was Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back. Lafcadio’s favorite word is “marshmallow” and he’s never tasted them, but they’re his favorite food, too, because if they tasted like they they sound, “mmmmmmm”…I don’t know if scrotummmmmm counts as a tasty word, but I can understand the argument of an interesting sounding word. Esp. since the character thinks it sounds like the green stuff you cough up when you’re sick…which may count as misandry, but it made me laugh.
18 pilgrimgirl // Feb 23, 2007 at 2:38 pm
I find the purity balls troubling for many of the reasons that you’ve all stated above. That said, I think abstinence is an important concept to teach children (both sons and daughters), but not in such a freaky and ritualized way.
19 John White // Feb 23, 2007 at 2:56 pm
An image of a sword? Really? A sword? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but a sword?
20 pilgrimgirl // Feb 23, 2007 at 4:00 pm
In the article it explains that as part of the ceremony the daughter and father pass through a tunnel of swords (held aloft above their heads). I imagined it a bit like walking down the aisle at a wedding. Freaky, freaky, and very wrong.
21 Miko // Feb 23, 2007 at 10:04 pm
vagina L vagina = a sheath. From its shape and function.
penis L penis = the male sexual organ. Originally, the word meant a tail.
from here, I had to do a find function. I’d heard that penis meant “sword” making the whole sword thing that much more creepy, but we’ve still got sheaths running around these balls…
22 amelia // Feb 26, 2007 at 8:32 am
penis as sword is a very, very old metaphor. it’s in the _odyssey_ for instance when one of the demi-goddesses that Odysseus encounters invites him to sheath his sword and have sex with her. the allusion is unmistakable.
and yes. he does take up her invitation. odysseus wouldn’t be odysseus if he didn’t philander his way through the mediterranean world before returning to his faithful penelope who has been fending off suitors for twenty years. just another instance of the demand for female abstinence regardless of male sexual profligacy brought to you by the canon of western literature.
23 CJ // Mar 8, 2007 at 7:26 am
Regarding those Purity Balls that our government is helping fund….
It’s interesting to note that many if not most of the churches promoting this idea are Reconstructionist denominations. Reconstructionism is a rapidly growing and arguably heretical sect of Christianity (due to the fact that its adherents follow the teachings of John Rousas Rushdoony and Gary North in addition to and often instead of those of Jesus Christ) and their goal is to eventually take over America and install their brand of faith as the state religion.
Father-daughter dances are a fine thing, but here are a couple of websites that will show you what ELSE these folks believe:
http://0rz.com/?vDVsP
http://0rz.com/?vcDYg
http://0rz.com/?NsCrB
And, here is a link for VisionForum, a HUGE promoter of the Purity Ball concept and one of America’s leading homeschooling curriculum companies. VisionForum is run by Doug Phillips, son of ex-Reagan cabinet member Howard Phillips and pastor of Boerne Christian Assembly, a hyper-patriarchal Reconstructionist congregation where women are relegated to virtual slavery in their own homes, denied higher education, are not permitted to participate in prayer in the church services, make prayer requests in church, or even receive communion unless it is served to them by their husband or another male member of the congregation.
http://www.visionforum.com/
The Phillipses are quite the father and son team, too — Howard Phillips is the founder of the Constitution Party, whose 2004 presidential nominee was League of the South member Michael Peroutka. While the Constitution Party courted the votes of the League of the South (identified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center) and other neoConfederate groups in 2004, Howard’s son, Pastor Doug, was hard at work garnering the Christian vote, encouraging his congregation to vote for Peroutka and warning them that they were not spiritually “at liberty” to vote for the Bush or Kerry because of their unBiblical stances on key issues.
And our government is funding father-daughter dinner dances for these groups. Sweet.
24 Miko // Mar 8, 2007 at 9:54 am
wow. thanx for all the links. I’ll need to meditate on them for a while…
25 Miko // Mar 12, 2007 at 1:29 pm
ABC.com just picked up the story. Maybe if we blog loudly enough, we can get our other posts picked up! Can you imagine ABC’s review of End of Faith? muahaha
ABC also has a poll, which I contributed to, but I think they should’ve included other options. While I do think that sex-ed should include all choices, I don’t think that all people who support abstinence-only education are pedophiles (I really can’t get around the dating thing, so yeah, I think that most of these purity-ball types are). It’d be nice if there was a “I’m pro-abstinence but don’t really feel like getting it on with my kids” choice on this poll.
26 Miko // Jun 25, 2007 at 9:49 am
The Silver Ring Thing has made its way across the pond and a recent pledge and her parents are currently suing her school to allow her to wear her silver ring…thing. The school has a ban on jewelry but makes exceptions for kara bangles and the like (religious jewelry that is necessitated by the faith in question). The girl & her parents liken her silver ring to hijab or a turban, which the school allows. Ignoring, of course, that you can very well miss the fact that a girl has a ring on but are unlikely to miss the fact that a girl has a veil on. Opinions are that the court will make its decision based on whether or not the girls faith requires that she wear the ring.
The kicker? It’s the end of the school year & she’s graduating. If the court releases a ruling in time, she’ll be able to wear her ring for a whole month. If not, she’ll have to wait a whole month before (subtly) showing the world that her virginity is owned by her daddy. So: religious freedom at stake or publicity stunt? You decide, but I thought humility was valued by Christians (Matthew 18:4; Matthew 23:12; James 4:6; &c.).
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