A Christian wife?
Puzzler
Shipmate
in Epiphanies
Ann Smyth, wife/ widow of the serial abuser John Smyth said to her adult children ( Channel 4, 9pm, 11 December ) that ( and I paraphrase) her understanding of her role as a Christian wife was to support her husband.
Should that have included silently colluding with his abusive behaviour?
Should that have included silently colluding with his abusive behaviour?
Comments
I haven't watched it yet. But that isn't going to stop me.
I suspect that a toxic combination of a number of issues completely warped her understanding of what was normal.
The culture of the time - which was similar to what @Gramps49 describes, "A wife is expected to submit even if she disagrees. Obedience is framed as spiritually virtuous. Questioning a husband's authority is portrayed as rebellion against God. Abuse is minimized or spiritualized. Women are discouraged from seeing help. Loyalty to the husband is prioritized over personal safety".
And the lack of any safe space to do any actual thinking about what was going on.
She would have been bullied at home. And outside the home, surrounded by people who believed her husband was a marvelllous man with a mighty ministry. Very few of whom would have been interested in hearing that he really wasn't. He was a monster. And even fewer who'd have been willing to do anything about it.
“Some of them are really keen to learn more about the Christian life. But being young teenagers a lot of their behaviour is probably not as good as it could be. And I think they will appreciate being dealt with’.
So I said, ‘Well what do you mean by that?’ And he said, ‘Well just having a whack or two’.
“And I said, ‘But these aren’t your children, so I don’t really see why you should do that. And I don’t really know if they want that’,” she explained.
She says at times, she had to care for the young men brutally beaten by Smyth, sometimes until they bled.
“Occasionally he would say to me, ‘So and so has got a bit of a bleeding mark on his bottom. Could you put some cotton wool and some oil, ointment or something on it’.
“So I would. I can’t remember asking ‘Is that sore?’ or anything like that. I just did what I was asked for,” she told the documentary, See No Evil.
…
Anne Smyth says for years she had to keep up the pretence.
“I was married to him. And I knew I had to love the man. Just keep going. Don’t dwell on the things that are so awful.”
Well of course not. But covering up the abuse for decades also wasn't the proper role for all the Christians in the CofE hierarchy who didn't have to live with this guy.
I have a bit of a personal interest in this as my parents had a similar sort of Christian view of marriage, though it evolved over the years ( married in 1939, both died in 2001 ). Dad had some strict rules and expectations back in the 50ies, 60ies and 70ies.
My father also ran Christian summer camps for a different organisation - but he was the gentlest of men, never a bully, never abusive.
I think my mother would have found a way to speak out if he had been abusive.
Exactly. And a clergy wife at that time would have had even more expectations loaded upon her. Plus the fear of being left with no home, no income or way of making a living and being totally in the wrong because lovely clergyman.
It's not always a bucket of joy now, but back then * shudders *
I suppose that's because the people involved would take legal redress to maintain the cover up. So not much changes.
Quite.
I watched most of the programme last night and also read the whole of the Makin report when it came out. I find the whole case disturbing on a number of levels and one of them is that in my early Christian days I was around that culture of the husband being head of the wife and the wife obeys him, no matter what, because to disobey him is to disobey God. I was fortunate - my husband isn't an abuser. If he had been I frankly don't know how or when I'd have drawn the line. It makes me feel a bit sick to write that.
I also think that John Smyth must have been a charismatic character as so many young men (including his own son) wanted to be like him and follow him in the Christian life. I always remember being at a talk at a Christian conference many years ago, by a very articulate and beautiful woman, who said that people who are charismatic characters and can influence others must be very careful about how they conduct themselves. I've wondered since what she had observed that made her say that.
Firstly, she was NOT a clergy wife. Smyth was not a member of the clergy but was a wealthy layperson. She would have likely have been given the house and a large income in the case of a divorce.
Secondly, [ see hosting]
Even if the church hierarchy wouldn't have believed her, she could have (and should have) gone to the police. It was obvious that the abuse constituted a crime, even moreso due to the physical nature of the abuse. Far too many people here are putting themselves into her shoes, and far too few are putting themselves into the shoes of the boys Smyth abused. What about their lives that were blighted because Anne Smyth let them be blighted? Frankly she should be charged as an accessory - I don't think it would necessarily be in the public interest for her to go to prison, but she should be legally held to account.
True, alas, and women who have been assaulted or abused are often reluctant to go to the police, whether or not they could or should have done. AIUI this is still the case in these perhaps more enlightened (in some ways) days.
The boys abused by Smyth are still the real victims here and have still never seen justice for the crimes committed against them. I do not think that setting Anne Smyth up as a blameless victim is doing anything but perpetuating that. It seems to me that part of it is simply down to people being more comfortable with female victims than with male ones.
There's a difficult line for hosts between not getting into tone policing of stuff that justifiably deserves outrage which really needs to be heard and asking people not to go poking other people sharply in the eye who are also posting from their lived experience which may be very different.
We have the Hell board for venting and getting personal. I've spoilered what went the wrong side of aggro for me. Outrage is valid, especially on topics like this, but it needs not to come across as a dismissive attack on another poster for sharing from their lived experience.
Thanks
Louise
Epiphanies Host
Even if she had been a clergy wife, she was a wealthy and well-connected woman who would have been in a much better position to leave her husband than most other clergy wives. It doesn't justify keeping quiet when you know that children are being abused by your husband. That would apply to anyone, clergy wife or not. I appreciate that there would have been ways in which it may have been more difficult, but not as difficult as it was to be a child abused by a grown adult.
1968 was the year in which John Smyth married Anne. I can well believe that she thought it was her duty to support him.
These are, alas, powerful motives for not reporting abuse, even though reporting may be vitally necessary for the sake of others.
John and Anne Smyth were privileged entitled people living privileged entitled lives. At the same time, as they understood it, they were living out Christian lives of service to God, doing God's will, showing love to one another and those around them.
What the story illustrates for me is the way that the ideal of God's love becomes conflated with a privileged entitled reimagination of God's love, and in which a covertly self-interested version of selflessness ends up corrupting the expression of God's love on earth, and comes to redefine goodness and service.
In the Anglicanism that I grew up with, the expression of God's love was always most clearly and unequivocally expressed in 1 Corinthians 13: Being interviewed about why she didn't intervene, Anne Smyth says I don't know about the nature of love that Anne had in mind when she said that, or at the time of the abuse but, alongside the loyalty and obedience to her husband, the ingrained duty of privilege and entitlement, I can see the Corinthians description of love, all fused together into a chimera.
In the climax of the narrative, two of John & Anne Smyth's children go to see their mother, to have the first proper conversation they've had with her about facing up to what happened, and what she could, and should, have done about it. Anne finishes by saying she feels ashamed of herself. Her children tell her that she doesn't have to feel ashamed, and that most people feel she was John Smyth's first victim. Anne tells them, “I'm so grateful that you haven't given up on me.” One of the victims is then shown saying that he hasn't heard any of the victims blame Anne Smyth for what happened, and that he fully and unconditionally forgives her for what happened. These element together provide the narrative closure.
As boys, the victims of John Smyth had their lives torn apart. In 1982, after a particularly serious incident, a vicar called Mark Ruston started talking to victims, and his detailed report was circulated to the leaders of Iwerne Trust, some of whom held senior positions in the Church of England. After this meeting, one of the Iwerne leaders visited the victim of the incident, who says he told him, “I want you to know that John Smyth will be held to account for what he has done. But the reputation of Iwerne is sacrosanct, so let's keep this between ourselves.” His close friend, another victim of Smyth, says, “I assumed that I would at some point be asked by police to give a testimony of my own experience as a victim, but that never happened.” There was no reckoning, no resolution, no justice. Just a cover up by Iwerne and the CofE. John and Anne Smyth had a big argument, and the family moved to Zimbabwe. John Smyth told his children it was because God had called him to be a missionary there.
Thinking about Anne Smyth's role in the narrative, while she was also a victim of John Smyth, she continues living a life of privilege and entitlement.
Reflecting on this, I'm reminded that these are all privileged and entitled people. People with very impressive front rooms, as one of the researchers observes. But they're also all victims of privilege and entitlement, all still desperately hoping to be shown the love that a privilege and entitled version of Christian love took away from them and denied them.
As a Grammar School teenager from a poor background I would have loved to be part of a more intellectual, yes, more privileged Christian group.
The aspect I can also relate to, though to a minuscule extent, thankfully, is that corporal punishment was the norm at that time for most children, with Biblical justification for Christian parents (“ Spare the rod and spoil the child” and “ Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth”. )
And further on from that comes the need for purification from sin, and sanctification, in some cultures, through mortification of the body. To a certain extent I think Anne Smyth was in agreement with this. Couple that with the unquestioning obedience of Christian wife to husband and she was probably in no position to object, let alone report or prevent the abuse which followed.
On another forum, some women are utterly condemning her and wanting her to be prosecuted. To me that serves no purpose.
It is also worth pointing out, I think, that corporal punishment at Winchester College did not officially end - like some other boys public schools - until September 1999.
(It had ended in state schools around 1987 and some public schools like Eaton had followed suit - but Winchester doesn’t seem to be one of those.)
Not saying it should be done in this case as I haven't watched all the programmes but an obvious purpose to me would be to show that:
' I was only obeying orders'
isn't a defence anymore - whether it's a patriarchally-exalted husband or the military.
Having said that, coercive control/ domestic abuse also needs to be taken into consideration, if it was indeed the case.
Patriarchy is a hell of a drug. People who are not the patriarchs internalise it. The witch hunts couldn't have proceeded without evidence and support from women who, until very late on, almost universally supported them (and the exceptions would be people who said of course there are witches and they must be executed but this woman is innocent, these ministers are wrong)
It shows the real dangers of patriarchy being reinforced by churches. It surely makes coercive control easier and makes it easier to acquiesce to abuse from and by those above you in the patriarchal hierarchy.
(That hierarchy also includes women abusing or facilitating the abuse of other women and children placed below them in it- one of the reasons we need to watch out for conservative movements stripping children's autonomy away them under the guise of protecting them or saying that only men abuse)
Some churches believe in witchcraft in ways that lead to children being beaten (sometimes to death) in 'exorcisms'. I doubt there would be empathy for their exorcists and those who assisted them here but the results are the same for the child or young person whether we are likelier from our backgrounds to empathise with the church culture that produced it or not.
I think generally these kind of cases probably ought to be tested in court with due regard for any real mitigating circumstances. Because it's still legal for churches to teach patriarchal submission and some of them do and people need to understand that if they allow children to be beaten because of it they will be prosecuted, even if institutions have dragged things out and they are older when the legal system catches up with them.
Involuntary manslaughter is something we prosecute when there's no intent to kill but there's gross negligence. Not having intent because you're acquiescent for cultural reasons doesn't excuse or exonerate negligence which leads to such serious consequences. The problem with saying people 'were of their time and culture' is that we dont want that culture to persist and those evils need to be underlined, not excused. Especially because it was once part of 'our' culture, it calls for us to repudiate it.
I am not claiming they are similar - I am claiming it may have allowed people to rationalise and also, it is easier to say “you should never beat a child” and know the rule has been broken - than to quantify how much is unacceptable and how to check that after the fact.
In my safeguarding training I am taught to to recognise non-accidental bruising, but no one is expecting me to be able to tell different amounts of bruising correlating to different amounts of beating.
Being a barrister implies a few things about a person, but being the wife of a barrister does not. I have known people in those situations be mousy quiet shadow people who are scared to have an opinion. But I have also known some who are absolutely fierce in the home and do not give two figs who their husband is in the courtroom.
Life is complex and in this kind of situation the information was fragmentary for many years.
OK, but if we're going to judge people's actions (or inactions) by more modern standards, we should also judge whether they were the victim of what we'd call coercive control by those same modern standards.
One group is assuming that all that kept Ann Smyth in the marriage is the ideal of the "Christian Wife". The other is that there is something more sinister being hinted at with the mention of her as his "first victim" and the Christian Wife narrative is just the public part of at least years of psychological abuse. If the second is true then the row with him before going to Zimbabwe sounds to me like she was being hugely courageous.
I suspect that if abuse is the case, the "Christian wife" narrative is being preserved to give Ann some dignity, and actually, there is known to have been violence against her, at least by the family. Maybe the abuse was suspected even wider in the community. Yes, spousal abuse can be "suspected" in a community without there being enough evidence to report it. What do you say, "She never stayed long after meetings and always seemed on edge", or "she was never allowed to talk with others alone for long". Unless it is taken with a whole lot of other vague circumstantial evidence, then it is as substantial as mist, but communities collate this evidence slowly with time.
As to what she was telling you, she was saying some leaders are wolves, and know that they are wolves, and when they are discovered to be wolves, they feel terrible about it and express heartfelt sorrow for being wolves, and a heartfelt desire to stop being wolves, but rarely show any desire to give up their jobs as shepherds and remove themselves to a role or position where they're unable to inflict any more harm. Having observed this a number of times in years gone by, what often struck me was how willing the sheep were to continue being led by them. (But I was never much good at being a sheep.)
In the documentary, the finger is pointed unequivocally at institutions in England (the Church of England) and post-colonial attitudes and ideology. But it doesn't go into any detail about the individuals who enabled John Smyth's increasingly abusive "ministry" in Zimbabwe and South Africa. And, as well as the question of those who acted as trustees (legal or de facto) of the various bodies that covered up the abuse, and allowed John Smyth to evade justice by moving to Africa, there is an even more pertinent question about the tustees (actual) of the organisations that didn't just support the abusive "ministry" in Africa, but funded it to a quite significant extent.
My impression is that the Makin Review primarily addresses John Smyth's charismatic quality in the context of the boys who were his victims. Other than one or two comments, like the following, it doesn't dwell on his influence on his peers: The point I was going to make was that, in churches and church circles, what seem to me to be widely-held expectations that leaders can or should have charisma, have always worried me. But reading through this again (ie regarding the documentary), it's struck me that there's a sense in which the charisma of John Smyth continues to control the narrative, which I find even more disturbing.
Which I specifically said in my previous post.
'Having said that, coercive control/ domestic abuse also needs to be taken into consideration, if it was indeed the case'
It’s a big leap from my other half can be a bit of a whatmit to my other half is a monster. One is a standard set of thoughts however much you love them. The other is world shattering.
And who would have listened? The same people who suggested they move abroad, making the whole thing someone else’s problem? The same people encouraging her to go with her husband because that’s what a good Christian wife does. So, everything, plus a side of sexism, classism and racism.
Sure, maybe she could have done something … She wasn’t the only one. And she certainly wasn’t the one in the church with the actual power and the ability to use it.
Playing happy families with an abuser acts as a lure/ lulls targets into a false sense of security. I think of young people who would never have got into a car with a lone male driver who took a lift because they saw a husband and wife, thought it was safe and ended up murdered.
I also think of NEQs informative and non- hellish contribution on the Hell thread - if schoolmasters in Scotland knew vicious beatings with canes were excessive in the 19th century and took steps to stop it, people carrying out such brutal beatings in the 1980s really had no excuse. They chose to ignore more humane approaches that had existed for a long time, and in this case appear to have breached even bad contemporary standards around them.
I come from a much less privileged family where my parent left a violent abuser in the early 1980s. It wasn't where we are now, but it also wasn't the dark ages. There was still stigma but women could get jobs and own property and get custody of their children and alimony. So when I hear of much more privileged women being treated as if they lacked all agency over absolutely clear child cruelty I do have questions.
Such questions ultimately can't be settled by trial by TV and blog but probably ought to have been tested in a court of law where claims of diminished responsibility and lack of agency could have been fully assessed.
As MaryLouise pointed out on the Hell thread, Guide Nyachuru’s family has joined six Zimbabwean survivors in a lawsuit against the Church, demanding accountability for both the abuse and the Church’s deliberate inaction. More about this from the law firm involved.
Meanwhile, it appears that 7 CofE clergy are currently facing disciplinary action in response to the Makin Review. As reported by BishopAccountability: Whether any such punishments amount to a commensurate response is open to question.
Nor do we do seem, as a society, to have got to grips with the way that, in some contexts and some families, patterns of abuse are passed from generation to generation.