More news about this exciting new trend of passing the daughter's sexuality from daddy to hubby. Digby gives us the summary of another piece on this aspect of the wingnut culture:
You folks are going to love this. More from World O Crap on the Daddy's Lil' Virgin movement. Apparently there is some special chastity jewelry available for man and girl to exhange in the covenant ceremony:
The Heart to Heart™ program, created by jeweler Joe Costello, differs from other abstinence programs in some important, unique ways. [...]
First, the "key to her heart." This beautiful heart has a smaller heart in the front. Behind that heart is a keyhole. When making the covenant with your daughter, you explain that the covenant is between her, you and God. Since God has placed her in your care as a parent, you and only you can hold the "key to her heart."
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You then explain to the child that you will hold the key to her precious heart until the day of her wedding. On that day, you will give her away like at all weddings, BUT in doing so you will also "give away" the key to her heart to her now husband. The key and lock are actually functional and your son-in-law will place the key in the heart to open it.
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Inside will be a small note that had been placed in the heart on the day you made the covenant. That note can say something like, "I do not know your name or what you even look like, but this is my promise to save myself for you this day. Love, Melanie."
I cut out all the funny things Digby added because I want to say them, too! But do read the original and also the original of Digby's post at the World O Crap.
And then, after all, I won't say the funny things. Instead, I am going to point out that all this is very old hat. The Romans did it, by defining a woman first under the legal custody of her father, then her husband and then her son. The Muslims have done this, the Hindus have done this and, lo and behold!, the Christians have done this. The practise was only stopped formally in the west during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, so the wingnuts are not path-breaking at all.
The only difference from the past is that the wingnuts can't possess their daughters in the same legal sense, so they have whittled the process down to the essentials: the sexuality of the woman is not hers but belongs to the male members of her family. This may also be linked to the idea of honor killings and other ways in which women's sexual behavior is interpreted as affecting the esteem of the whole family while men can run loose, most likely because it is the woman who shows the outcome of such running loose.
And yes, there is something incestuous about all those little keys in all those little locks.