A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy

4.6 | 1,180 ratings

Price: 17.71

Last update: 12-24-2024

About this item

This gripping audiobook is a strong choice alongside books about high-demand religion, overcoming odds, and finding inner strength in impossible situations."—Booklist (Starred Review)

This program is read by the author.

“Today it hit me when he hit me, blood shaking in my brain. Maybe there wasn’t a savior coming. Maybe it was up to me to save me.”

Recruited into the fundamentalist Quiverfull movement as a young wife, Tia Levings learned that being a good Christian meant following a list of additional life principles—a series of secret, special rules to obey. Being a godly and submissive wife in Christian Patriarchy included strict discipline, isolation, and an alternative lifestyle that appeared wholesome to outsiders. Women were to be silent, “keepers of the home.”

Tia knew that to their neighbors her family was strange, but she also couldn't risk exposing their secret lifestyle to police, doctors, teachers, or anyone outside of their church. Christians were called in scripture to be “in the world, not of it.” So, she hid in plain sight as years of abuse and pain followed. When Tia realized she was the only one who could protect her children from becoming the next generation of patriarchal men and submissive women, she began to resist and question how they lived. But in the patriarchy, a woman with opinions is in danger, and eventually, Tia faced an urgent and extreme choice: stay and face dire consequences, or flee with her children.

Told in a beautiful, honest, and sometimes harrowing voice, A Well-Trained Wife is an unforgettable and timely memoir about a woman's race to save herself and her family and details the ways that extreme views can manifest in a marriage.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.

Casey Mulligan Walsh

Shocking yet relatable, filled with struggle and hope. Don't miss this one.

Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2024

I first learned about Tia Leving’s story through her compelling Instagram reels, where she delves into the impact of her escape from the Christian patriarchy and enlightens her followers about the underbelly of fundamentalist, evangelical churches, even some we often think of as relatively mainstream. Many of the details I read in her important, gripping, necessary book, A Well-Trained Wife, did not surprise me since I’d learned much about this through books and recent documentaries. The latter includes Shiny Happy People, which Levings also appeared in.

Yet. It’s one thing to learn about abuse endured by people we have no connection to. We may feel genuine sympathy for those caught up in these patriarchal sects and wish we could help them escape. But it’s an entirely different experience to walk alongside a woman you feel you know, even a little, as she’s beaten and controlled in all manner of ways, all while balancing wanting to be the “perfect” wife and pleasing to the God she’s been taught to fear with fearing for her own life and that of her children.  

Though my experiences are in many ways quite different from Levings’, there was so much in this book I could relate to, from being a devoted mother and Christian to losing a child to setting aside any hope of a fulfilling romantic relationship in favor of maintaining a two-parent home, even as the happy family increasingly becomes a facade. Her blossoming from an emotionally and physically exhausted young mother into a woman who knows her worth and deliberately shares her love with her children and others who are deserving—in the complete absence of fear—struck so many chords with me. It’s true that the more specifics we include in our stories, the more relatable they become. A Well-Trained Wife is the uncommon book that will both teach and comfort you. Highly recommend.

Kris

This riveting book takes its readers through a powerful journey.

Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2024

Despite the heavy subject of physical and spiritual abuse, Tia's story radiates with hope and warmth. I would highly recommend this book to any Christian (or anyone!) who has always known in their heart that setting up a marriage as a hierarchy of authority provides an avenue for pain and injustice. Tia starts her memoir in her young teen years where she first encounters harmful gender hierarchy theology through a Baptist megachurch, and her story builds towards her escape from an abusive marriage in her thirties. Through that timeline, she shares with us the building blocks of harmful theology that groomed her to accept worse and worse treatment throughout her marriage. On that theme, some may ask, "Why did she let it go this far?", but we as the readers can see the psychological abuse, "biblical" teachings on womanly submission, and isolation she experienced throughout her journey; leaving marital abuse is hard when you have been groomed to think it is God's will to endure it.

I preordered her book this spring, but when it arrived in early August, I felt nervous to read it because of my own current painful (but healthy) journey of addressing harmful gender theology. Honestly, I was apprehensive that it might be a 'trauma dump', but Tia's story is NOT that. Rather, her story is reflective and warm and bursting with hope and recovery. I read the memoir in just a couple of days, and I experienced more joy than I did sorrow in reading her story. In particular, her heart towards her children and the grace she has for people radiates joy from the pages.

As I mentioned above, my interest in her story started this spring, as I have been processing and healing from the gender hierarchy injustices common in the Church. I had been coached to believe things about women and men that never sat right with me (I knew something was "off" with these teachings, even as a teenager), but many of these teachings I accepted and internalized. Through theology study, I can now name and identify the patriarchal scale of "soft complementarianism" to "high control Christian patriarchy". I was raised in the former, and Tia experienced the latter. Even the "softer" form of gender hierarchy I experienced has left me with a lot of psychological and spiritual pain, and I am currently processing the stages of grief as I reckon with what I was taught about how I "should be" in this world as a "biblical" woman. Tia's bravery in addressing this topic head on is inspiring, and I can count her memoir among the helpful and healing books I have encountered these past few months on my journey.

As a note, Tia does not write her memoir in a theology book style, but rather it is a fast-paced and reflective story. The theology themes stood out especially to me because that has been on my radar through my own journey and recent study.

M. Werkhoven

couldn’t put it down

Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2024

I’ll confess I felt the need to keep reading even during work. Tia’s writing is poetry and engages the reader immediately and continuously. I seldom physically react to something I’m reading but several of her experiences brought immediate tears. I couldn’t relate to some of her experiences, but as a Catholic I could definitely relate to growing up with a constant stream of religiosity. I also bonded with so many of the losses she experienced along the way. This is a real eye opener and Tia created an excellent piece of art.

Eclectic Listener

Compelling and Well-Written

Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2024

I enjoyed this book which I listened to on Audible. I enjoyed the author's story as well as her style. I hope she'll write more books.

Cary Fortin

gripping beautiful page turned

Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2024

I can’t say enough good things about this book. Standing on its own as a memoir, it’s phenomenally written, profound and gorgeous. Then as one woman’s account of fundamental Christian patriarchy its horrifying and deeply edifying. Tia is so profoundly brave and such a gorgeous writer. I wish I hadn’t read this on kindle so I could instantly give it to friends because I’m aching to discuss all of the parts of it. Read it, savor it, and may we all grow from it as the author has.

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