Wife reveals the dark underbelly of being in a deeply conservative Christian marriage

Traditional women are all the rage on social media, but Tia Levings reveals the dark underbelly of being a wife in a deeply conservative Christian marriage in A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy (Macmillan, August 6).

Levings was raised in a Southern Baptist church that opposed homosexuality and abortion while encouraging women to marry early and grow up. She met her future husband Allan at the age of 18 and married him the following year, despite numerous red flags including physical violence.

Despite Allan’s protests, Levings remained a virgin during their year of courtship. However, their wedding night was certainly not the stuff of romance novels.

Allan “tore into me like long-awaited mail, shocking me with knives and dry, hard blows,” she writes. “I gasped in searing pain as my skin broke, and then my body went numb.”

Four days later, Levings went to see a doctor who told her she had a terrible infection and advised her to rest because “your body can’t take that many hits.”

Things only got worse as Allan became more immersed in strict Calvinist theology.

At one point he insisted that Levings call him “My Lord” and “submit” to his every wish.

Other traditional women advised her to follow the principles of the controversial Institute on Basic Principles of Life, which emphasizes women’s absolute “submission” to men.

Levings gave birth to five children and homeschooled her offspring. She tried desperately to please her husband, but it was never enough. He constantly berated her, calling her a “young and Christian mother.”

Still, Levings managed to carve out a small sliver of independence by frequenting public libraries, writing a blog, and connecting with other women online.

Levings eventually realized that she “liked writer-Tia more than church-Tia” and walked away from her marriage in 2007.

The memoir ends on a happy note. She remarried, but is now divorced and devoted to exposing the dangers of Christian fundamentalism.

Today, the activist describes herself as a “mother, writer, artist, hiker, friend,” adding, “I am a human spirit on a journey home and I belong.”