Return of the Daughters and Agrarianism
I recently watched, with my wife, Anna and Elizabeth Botkin’s film The Return of the Daughters. I suppose the film will be shocking to most moderns, a call to return to a normal family will seem bizzare to many people. After watching it, I got to thinking that this film will unintentionally bring folks to Christian agrarianism. If fathers and daughters are convicted by what they hear and see, the next step of applying this to their own families will be a challenge in the “normal postmodern family” that contracts someone else to provide their every need. I thought of the Amy Scott Plain Talk conversation, where she said that modern evangelicals are not so much saying that children aren’t a blessing, but rather asking the honest question “HOW are children a blessing”. Outside of a working home economy that actually produces things and meets the families needs its hard not to see children as a liability and “blessing” rather than a blessing and an important asset to the family. I think as fathers stop chasing their daughters “off to work in the dime stores”, as the southern agrarians put it, they are going to have to find something for them to do. The average suburban family will find implimenting the ideas in this film hard without making changes in how their family operates. The garden, the milk cow, hens to tend and home based business are fertile ground for the Christian family, where it can grow and blossom. The destruction of the family was not an accident, nor was it fathers choosing to chase away every member of the family as soon as they reached 18 because they thought it was a good idea. It was a result of fathers being sucked into a wicked economic system (that they should have rejected), one that by design destroyed the Christian family. I believe that influx of Christians to agrarianism has only just begun. As people work to restore the Christian family and renew the local church, it is enevitable that they will return to the ideas of family economy and local economics.
January 9th, 2008 at 7:18 am
As I think more about these things I see that there are many paths towards agrarianism or a restoration of rural living. This is certainly one of them. In order to return to the sort of vision the Botkins cast many will need to escape the heavy burden of high property taxes. Also some who think along these lines don’t feel right about where those taxes are going in the first place. The escape path can lead to the country. One also may feel the desire to put the children in environments which are “inspirational” for lack of a better word. I think the country can be one possibility.
We know a number of married friends who followed the modern route, the women got a degree, worked for a year or two, got married, and quit work to raise a family. A number of them are now seeking out various home based businesses. One has started her own photography business. I think how much better off some would be if they had started these businesses and worked on them. Instead of spending those resources (time and money) on college (the value of which is debatable for men and women alike) they would have been building capital which for many would likely be or more value.
January 9th, 2008 at 8:57 am
Amen and Amen!!
January 9th, 2008 at 10:15 am
More and more I feel that the word ‘ tribe’ or ‘clan,’ best define the establishment of multigenerational homesteading.
I have 5 daughters and no sons so to be able to give each girl a dowry of an acre each and with it the opportunity to mary a poor man and still live in freedom is agreat blessing.
I look at the tea towels of Ireland with the familial geographical clusters ie the O’neils of ulster and the o’sullivans and O’malleys etc. These are the testimonies of lineage that stand the test of time.
Fathers must provide the counter enviroment to grow the counter culture. And that needs land. When you think of it the patterns of the past were not fashions but were customs, there is a big difference. Customs are based on belief and life. And as we explore ‘living in the past’, we encounter again and again both the wisdom and the practical reasons behind such terms like dowry, courtship, betrothal , patrimony, inheritence and patriarchy.
January 10th, 2008 at 9:16 am
I would have to agree with Ethan. We moved to town from the country when the kids started driving in order to find something for them to do. Maybe I should rephrase. There was plenty to do on our 6 acres; just not any way we could find for them to earn a wage. So, for the same reason I had a job in town (to pay for everything) they got jobs in town. Once you go that way, it makes less and less sense to live further away from grocery stores and gas stations. It then becomes a vicious circle. Get up, go to work, shop, come home. Trade your paycheck for another months worth of gas, groceries, heat. I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.
In order to make the country life work, you either need to emulate Scott & Leah, and do more with less, or, you need to be part of a group, living in close proximity, working and sharing together. Lots of children would certainly be a blessing in that context; though I think it’s a little crass to consider anyone a blessing based primarily on what they can produce. Children are a blessing in town, too, it’s just harder to keep the family from flying off in multiple directions every morning. This fact makes family worship & homeschooling even more indispensable in town. If you’re on the farm working together, it’s easier to speak of the Lord ‘when you rise up, when you sit down, when you walk by the way’. But we townies have to schedule everything; squeezing family time into many often conflicting work schedules.
We obviously have a long way to go. That’s why I really appreciate men like Scott and Tom McConnell over in Rayville, and others, who are actually making a living on the land, and making room for their children to work beside them. It’s a wonderful dream. I hope I live to see it.
January 11th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Thanks Ethan and Katherine for your comments.
Colin, its always good to hear from you. I enjoy the perspective you bring from Ireland.
Randy, its good to hear from you as well. You said “though I think it’s a little crass to consider anyone a blessing based primarily on what they can produce.” Gee, so do I, and that wasn’t what I was trying to say nor was Mrs. Scott who I quoted (just be clear). I’m not sure how to say what I’m trying to say really. Children are a blessing, period. I guess what I’m saying is that in working family economy it is expressed more fully and in a more complete way. They still doesn’t sound right. Perhaps its easier to Beleive children are a blessing when they aren’t an economic liability. Look at the Church of Rome, they have always taught that birth control was a sin, yet becouse of economic realities its members were limiting children. That was one of the chief reasons for the Granger Homesteads that Church sort of sanctioned in the US back in… the 30’s I think. We should try to not live under a system that encourages us to sin, but live under one that makes being faithful to God’s Word easier and more natural. I know I’m preaching to the choir on this, just wanted to clarify a little. I should remeber that my clarifactions ussually require another
Well, at least I tried.
January 19th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Just a lurker from Leah’s site. You’re not preaching to the choir here. My husband and I are city folk (Long Beach, Ca). We’re Quiverfull (finally) with one 2 year old daughter. We loved Return of the Daughters. What’s wicked about the economic system we live in? My husband’s a public high school teacher. I’m a stay at home mom. We admire the industry coming out of Christian homeschooling families that are beginning to farm, but in the documentary, not a single one of them were farming, as far as I could see. That didn’t seem to stop them. Though I do wonder what the janitor’s daughter does all day when she’s not taking hunting lessons with her brother and encouraging the younger women in church. So could anyone tell me? I’m convinced that it is actually possible for an economic system to be evil (Communism, for instance), but I don’t see how that is with ours.
January 21st, 2008 at 5:52 am
Hi Jenny
Thanks for stopping in. Those are good questions. First of all, I’m not saying that agrarianism or farming are the ONLY way to live biblicly. I do think think that they are the best way, for a number of reasons. I was just saying that agrarianism (which is not limited to “farming”) is one of the ways to attian the goals in the film and IMO the best way.
What is wicked about our economic system? Well, a lot of things really. To start with our whole economy is built on the foundation of a fiat currency which violates God’s Law conserning just weights and measures. It is equally built on the foundation of usury, which untill very recently has always been condemed as sin by the Church. We live in the age of Total Economy and out of control materialism. People have bought into the lie that it is good to trade labor for money and then hire someone else to provide their every need. Now, you might wonder whats wicked about that. The devils in the outcome, the destruction of real productive family economies that make it easier to live faithfully and multigenerationaly. The choises we make have consequences. I agree with you that Communism is wicked, but I don’t think in the long run how industrial capitalism is any less wicked. To be a good capitalist(in its raw and true form) you have to be a lousy Christian. How can you love your neighbor as yourself and then take advantage of his weakness and put him out of business. We face in America today the old “Two False Choices” choice when it comes to economics. I’m proposing a 3rd way to look at it, and not a “baptized version” of the other two.
Hope this answers your questions and thanks again for taking the time to ask them.
January 22nd, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Spot on scott
Both communism and capitalism are false solutions that attempt a material solution to mans eternal problems.
The third way amongst so many ways is Gods way. He has/had a pattern of exsistence that was the norm for millenia and only the rise of industrialism destroyed that when men were fed to machines.
Interestingly one of the founders of IHS press goes to my church, there ar’nt to many there but the books ‘Church and the land’, and ‘flee to the fields’, are well worth reading.
If the family is,nt multigenerational guess who steps in when you are old, either your wallet or the euthaniser.
Families are for the weak , both old and young. Babylon sees them as uneconomic cell batteries.
Just some thoughts
January 23rd, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Hi Colin
“Interestingly one of the founders of IHS press goes to my church”
Thats cool, I have a few books from them. I was just rereading The Utopia of Usurers last week. I also have An Essay on the Resoration of Property and Flee to the Fields but haven’t haven’t got the Church and the Land yet. Its on my wish list.
January 24th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
I don’t get it. Before the Industrial Revolution, were there no shoemakers? architechts? engineers? artists? shippers? sailors? musicians? tailors? hairdressers? repairmen? Clockmakers? Candlestick makers? and other tradesmen? A shoemaker can’t eat his shoes. Or live in one. What do you expect him to do? Do all farmers make their own shoes? I don’t believe that. Love thy neighbor most certainly may be obeyed in capitalism by a businessman. If you are a tailor, you love your neighbor by providing him with a service he needs at a fair price. You also love your other neighbor that owns the other tailor shop a mile away by respecting his right to do business, while at the same time providing something unique about the way you do business to attract the customers who are looking for that unique service/item. Let that tailor down the road sell clothing from faraway places in special, hard-to-obtain textiles while you, on the other hand, provide the more practical, day-to-day clothes with an eye to quality craftsmanship and creative, innovative details. You don’t ruin your competitor’s livelihood that way, and you still serve the needs of those in the community who don’t have anyone to make clothes for them. That is still just as true today as it always has been.
January 24th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
“I don’t get it. Before the Industrial Revolution, were there no shoemakers? architechts? engineers? artists? shippers? sailors? musicians? tailors? hairdressers? repairmen? Clockmakers? Candlestick makers? and other tradesmen?”——No, I never said that. Of course there were. One thing though, the candlestick and shoe maker made their own product and sold it. They didn’t trade their labor to a big company to make them shoes. Of course the capitalist has to have his shoes made were ever he can have them made the cheapest. There are plenty of poor Chinamen and children who are forced to do it for pennies an hour in conditions that would make you or I sick. But hey, we have cheap shoes and that is what everyone cares about at the end of the day.
“A shoemaker can’t eat his shoes.”—-Agreed.
“Or live in one.” —-What about the old lady who…..just kidding
“What do you expect him to do?”—–Well, most of these people had a garden at home and a few hens and a milk cow. Then the Industrail Revolution brought us “progress”.
I think that your missing my point about modern capitalism. The current mess we have could not exist without fiat money and usury. What about that?
Agarainism is NOT limited to farming. I mentioned that in my comment above. Sure, an agrarian economy has all the things that you mentioned above. The difference is the scale in which they are practiced. A scale that is humane and keeps the family and local community intact. Without fiat money and usury (sins against God) this is the natural way that things are done.