A Well-Trained Wife

A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy

60 pages2-hour read

Nonfiction

Autobiography / Memoir

Adult

Published in 2024

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF Play Audio

Summaries & Analyses
Plot Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Preface-Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Character List
NEW
Key Figures
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Book Club Questions
Quizzes
NEW
Reading Tools
Story Recap
Timeline
Discussion Questions
Book Activities

Background

Ideological Context: The Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP)

The Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) developed from a youth ministry founded by Bill Gothard in 1961. As Gothard’s seminars expanded, the ministry became the Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts in 1974 and was renamed the Institute in Basic Life Principles in 1989. According to IBLP, more than 2.5 million people worldwide attended its Basic Seminar. The organization promotes an “umbrella of authority,” a hierarchical model that places Christ over the husband, the husband over the wife, and the parents over the children. This structure positions husbands as the spiritual authorities within their households and emphasizes wives’ submission to their husbands’ leadership.

IBLP’s influence expanded through its Advanced Training Institute (ATI), a home-education program launched in 1984 that began with 102 families and eventually involved thousands of homeschooling families. The movement also gained wider public visibility through its association with the Duggar family, longtime ATI participants whose TLC series, 19 Kids and Counting, premiered in 2008 and later averaged approximately 3.2 million viewers. Gothard resigned in 2014 after more than 30 women alleged sexual harassment or molestation. Litigation against IBLP followed in 2015, and Gothard was added as a defendant in an amended complaint in 2016; he denied the allegations of sexual misconduct (Posner, Sarah. “Five women sue Bill Gothard’s ministry that had ties to the Duggars.” Washington Post, 22 Oct. 2015).

In A Well-Trained Wife, IBLP teachings intensify and systematize the patriarchal ideas Levings has already encountered within conservative Christianity. Her mentor, Judith, and her husband, Allan, rely on IBLP materials, including its red textbook, to teach principles concerning family life and gender roles. The IBLP model of male headship reinforces Levings’s understanding of her husband as the religious authority within their household. These teachings help explain why Levings increasingly associates submission to Allan with obedience to God.

Social Context: Christian Domestic Discipline (CDD)

Christian Domestic Discipline (CDD) is a practice based on male headship and female submission in which husbands use punishment, particularly spanking, to discipline their wives. Researchers Tina Deshotels et al. describe CDD as a practice that combines “wifely submission and male dominance” with religiously justified punishment (Deshotels, Tina et al., “For HE tells me so: Techniques of neutralization applied to Christian domestic discipline.” Deviant Behavior, vol. 40, no. 6, 2019). Their study of CDD websites and testimonials found that participants used religious and cultural beliefs to rationalize male authority and physical discipline within marriage (Deshotels). CDD proponents commonly connect this authority to biblical teachings about male headship and female submission within marriage.

The role of consent within CDD is contested. Elizabeth Dolfi, examining CDD from the perspectives of religious and queer studies, explains that CDD derives legitimacy from biblical and masculine authority. She notes that consent remains significant within practitioners’ accounts but occupies a secondary position within the practice (Dolfi, Elizabeth. “Christian Domestic Discipline and Queer Religious Studies.” S&F Online, vol. 14, no. 2, 2017). CDD can involve physical punishment and rules governing wives’ behavior, while practitioners may understand these practices through a religious framework of marital authority and discipline.

In A Well-Trained Wife, Allan discovers CDD through online forums and presents it as a way to address what he considers Levings’s rebellion. He tells her that Christian Domestic Discipline can “repair problems in the marriage” and proposes replacing his uncontrolled violence with prescribed punishments (144). He later requires Levings to write that she will not accuse him of domestic violence because of “Christian discipline” before punishing her with a belt. CDD thus provides Allan with a religious framework for recasting his existing violence as marital discipline. When Levings subsequently discloses Allan’s abuse to a church counselor, the counselor tells her to “honor your husband more” and submit to him (146). Although the memoir does not identify the counselor with CDD, his response reflects the broader emphasis on male headship and female submission present in Levings’s religious environment.

Cultural Context: The Quiverfull Movement

The Quiverfull movement is a pronatalist Christian ideology that encourages couples to accept children as blessings from God and generally rejects deliberate attempts to limit family size. It takes its name from Psalm 127: 3-5, which describes children as “arrows in the hand of a warrior” and pronounces blessed the man whose “quiver” is full of them. An important early influence on the movement was Mary Pride’s 1985 book The Way Home: Beyond Feminism, Back to Reality, which advocated motherhood, large families, and traditional gender roles. Rick and Jan Hess’s A Full Quiver: Family Planning and the Lordship of Christ, published in 1990, subsequently helped popularize the term “Quiverfull” and argued that Christian couples should allow God to determine family size rather than using birth control. Scholar Kathryn Joyce’s 2009 book Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement estimated the number of adherents at thousands to low tens of thousands, while noting the difficulty of determining the size of the decentralized movement.

Some strands of Quiverfull ideology overlap with Christian Dominionist and Reconstructionist ideas about increasing Christian influence over society. Frederick Clarkson notes that Christian Reconstructionists involved in the Quiverfull movement have framed children as “arrows in God’s quiver” in a broader struggle for Christian dominion, with large families increasing the potential influence of future generations (Clarkson, Frederick. “Dominionism Rising.” Political Research Associates, 2 Jan. 2025). As one of Levings’s mentors explains, large families are seen as a way to win a spiritual and political “battle…especially at the polls” (89).

In the memoir, Levings is pressured to adopt this ideology by her mentors, who teach her that children are blessings from God and encourage her to leave decisions about family size to God. Levings herself wants a large family and also expresses a desire to space her pregnancies and use contraception. Her mentors challenge these choices, teaching her that “the Lord opens and closes the womb” and encouraging her to have as many children as God provides (91). Quiverfull teachings consequently place religious expectations around Levings’s reproductive decisions and contribute to the restrictions on her bodily autonomy. The women’s political language also links large families with future religious and political influence. The Quiverfull movement therefore provides cultural context for the expectations surrounding childbearing, contraception, and family size that Levings encounters within her religious community.