Families Marry off Daughters to Ease Finances Amid COVID-19

Families Marry off Daughters to Ease Finances Amid COVID-19

(Link): Families Marry off Daughters to Ease Finances Amid COVID-19

Excerpts:

by Krista Larson
December 2020

KOIDU, Sierra Leone (AP) — The man first caught a glimpse of Marie Kamara as she ran with her friends past his house near the village primary school. Soon after, he proposed to the fifth-grader.

“I’m going to school now. I don’t want to get married and stay in the house,” she told him.

But the pressures of a global pandemic on this remote corner of Sierra Leone were greater than the wishes of a schoolgirl. Nearby mining operations had slowed with the global economy. Business fell off at her stepfather’s tailoring shop, where outfits he had sewn now gathered dust. The family needed money.

Pastor Saeed Abedini’s Wife Halts Public Advocacy, Citing Marital Woes and Abuse -article says her husband is a Porn Addict

Pastor Saeed Abedini’s Wife Halts Public Advocacy, Citing Marital Woes and Abuse -article says her husband is a Porn Addict

Before I get to the link to the news story itself – about jailed pastor Saeed being a porn user who abused his wife, I wanted to comment about the story first (I also have comments below the news page excerpt below).

So much for the Christian teachings about “being equally yoked,” which is generally understood to mean a Christian person can only marry another Christian.

While it’s true that a lot of Non-Christians are scum balls who would make poor spouses, I have so far not seen any evidence that so-called Christian men are any more trustworthy, loving, or mature than your average atheist guy, Hindu, Jewish guy, or whomever.

I actually tweeted in support of this guy a few times several months back… but he was abusing his wife, and she says he has a porn addiction problem – I didn’t know this until a couple of days ago, when I saw this article.

I also want to remind you of another point I touch on often on this blog: Contrary to what some conservative Christians teach on how to go about getting married, you do NOT have to be perfect, clean  yourself up, or change yourself in some fashion to “earn” a spouse.

People Suspect Pastor Davey Blackburn May Have Something to Do With His Wife’s Murder

People Suspect Pastor Davey Blackburn May Have Something to Do With His Wife’s Murder

(In the days after making this post, I have added new links, mostly at the bottom of the post)

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I haven’t been keeping up with this news story all that much. I’ve just skimmed a few other blog posts about it.

A lot of Christian chatter I’m seeing online indicates people suspect that Davey Blackburn, who is a pastor, may have hired a hit man to murder his wife, or he killed her himself. They find his actions suspicious, his demeanor and tone when talking about his deceased wife suspicious.

All I care to say at this point that if true, if this pastor husband did in fact murder his wife or paid someone to have her killed, I would not be shocked.

I already keep a long, running list of such stories – I have many blog posts on my blog here with links to news stories of men who claim to be Christ-followers, who are married, who are arrested for killing or beating their wives. You can view that collection of links (Link): here.

The police said a few days ago that they cleared the husband, but still, a lot of people I’ve seen online think that the husband had something to do with his wife’s murder.

Let this news story of the pastor’s wife being found dead, with a bullet wound in her head, be a reminder that if you do actually marry, there is no guarantee your spouse will live for years with you.

Your spouse may die, leaving you single again.

I mention this because secular and Christian culture tend to paint this picture of life that there is a “soul mate” for everyone, that you will find this soul mate person, marry them, and live happily ever after.

The truth is, your spouse may be a crime victim, get in a car wreck and die, or develop cancer and die.

Christians therefore need to stop placing so much emphasis on “the nuclear family” and marriage – the New Testament teaches that all believers in Christ (and Christ himself) are to take priority over your spouse or blood relations.

The way this works, is that if you are married and your spouse dies, you will not be left completely alone, IF your church family (assuming you have one) will be your family too. You won’t be left alone.

However,  many churches don’t view other Christians in this manner; they all think the cure for loneliness is to marry and have some kids. But what happens if you never marry, you divorce, or your spouse dies?

Edit. Here are some new links, by way of Watchkeep’s Twitter and Janet Mefferd’s Twitter:

(Link):  Questions, Inconsistencies Remain in Murder of Indiana Pastor’s Wife

Excerpts:

Jarrett emphasized that the pastor is not a person of interest, but must be investigated because in so many cases, husbands and boyfriends are involved when a female is murdered.

The pastor said he left the house at 6am on the morning of the murder to go to the gym, then found his wife when he returned.

Jarrett said another issue is that authorities cannot pin down the exact time that Amanda Blackburn was shot.

Therefore, Jarrett said police can’t rule out that Amanda was shot before the pastor left.

Jarrett said the suspect in the surveillance image is said to have broken into a home nearby beforehand, but there was no sign of forced entry at the Blackburn home and nothing was taken.

… Jarrett noted that there was no “discernible” sadness, tears or anguish from the pastor during the interview.

He said all people grieve in different ways, but others have also pointed out that the pastor smiled at other points in the interview.

(Link):   Pastor takes time away from Indianapolis to mourn slain wife

Here are links to the news story about Blackburn and his wife’s murder:

(Link):  Cops vow to catch killer of Indianapolis pastor’s wife as they probe next-door break in: ‘We will find you’

Nov 13, 2015

Indiana crime fighters cleared a popular pastor in the fatal shooting of his pregnant 28-year-old wife and narrowed their investigation to a rash of burglaries in the couple’s leafy Indianapolis neighborhood, officials said during an emotional press conference Friday morning.

One key to a happier sex life: Share child care duties equally, new research finds

One key to a happier sex life: Share child care duties equally, new research finds

(First saw the following on DefendTheSheep’s Twitter account)

Gender complementarians everywhere should find this upsetting.

(Link): One key to a happier sex life: Share child care duties equally, new research finds

Excerpt:

• August 2015
  By Brigid Schulte
• Want a happier sex life? For parents, a new study suggests that one of the surest ways to do that is to equally share child care responsibilities.

• Egalitarian couples who share between 40 to 60 percent of child care duties, from reading bedtime stories and diaper changing to arranging carpools and playing in the park, not only have higher quality relationships than more traditional couples where women do the bulk of the care work, they also have the best sex lives, the research shows.

• “In nearly every case, compared to having the female partner doing all the child care, we found that couples who split it equally had better outcomes across the board,” said Dan Carlson, a sociologist at Georgia State University who co-authored the report and presented it at the American Sociological Association’s annual conference.

• “Egalitarian couples fought less. They had higher quality relationships. They were more satisfied with their sex lives, and they were more satisfied with the amount of sex they were having.”
• Egalitarian and traditional couples, where men are primarily the breadwinners and women primarily responsible for housework and child care, had about the same amount of sex, Carlson said. But egalitarian couples were more satisfied with it.

• “These are not minor differences at all,” Carlson said. “These are gulfs of difference between egalitarian and traditional couples in terms of relationship conflict, relationship satisfaction and for quality of sex.”

• In fact, of all the couple arrangements Carlson studied, both the men and the women in traditional couples were the least satisfied with the quality of their relationships and their sex lives.

• …The new research, one of only a handful to look at child care and sex, challenges conventional wisdom and classic economic theory, that couples who have specific duties in the “separate spheres” of work and home are happiest and have more sex.
• …And now, an unfair division of labor between work and home is one of the biggest predictors of divorce.
• “Something rather miraculous has occurred in the last 20 years,” Carlson said. “Gender equality has become good for us.”
• …“Study after study shows that the trend in public opinion is increasingly toward a rejection of that traditional, separate spheres model, and a movement toward embracing shared responsibility for both paid and unpaid labor,” Carlson said. “A lot of this can boil down to people’s sense of fairness and satisfaction with their arrangements. If they’re satisfied and feel the division of labor is fair, that’s what leads to the positive outcomes in their relationships and sex lives.”
• …In fact, Carlson and his colleagues analyzed historical trends and found that the amount of sex people are having has been on the decline for years, except for those in egalitarian relationships.
• (( read the rest here ))