A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy

An incredible, wrenching story that is 100% true to life and not at all surprising to those of us who’ve grown up like Tia. I can’t recommend this book enough. If you’re confused by the fundamentalist Christian ideology that’s being politically pushed on Americans, and how those women choose to be complicit in their own oppression, this book will give you a look behind the curtain and how damaging it is (and hard to get out), when you’ve been raised with this ideology.

I also want to highlight the dates - the Republican rhetoric and fearmongering was very much present decades before Trump. This is not new, it’s just reached its final form.

"The fundamentalists and evangelicals, now one and the same since the Trump administration, wanted to cast the fallen son of TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting as a single bad apple. But he wasn’t a single bad apple—he was a product of their making. Duggar was the fruit of a high-control system that taught children from infancy to suppress their needs and conform or be beaten. It taught firstborn sons would become eventual patriarchs. It gave young children a premature and inappropriate amount of authority over their younger siblings. It taught males are entitled to gratification and servitude from females who can’t say no either to men or to God. Josh Duggar registered no guilt for his crimes because since childhood, he’d grown up with an external moral compass, and a feeling of entitlement to women’s bodies. Remembering that IBLP homeschool groups want to run our country the way they run their homes, I suddenly realized why it mattered so much that I talk about what it’s like in those households. I could tell the public what it’s really like. No female vote. No consent. No contraception. No choice. No careers. Courtship marriages. Stay-at-home daughters and parentified older siblings. Closets. Suppression. Book bans. Harsh discipline. Rigid roles. High control. Shame. As bad as it would be for women, it would be worse for anyone gay. Worse for anyone of color. Bad for anyone except a straight white patriarch … and I knew from experience it wasn’t really good or healthy for them either. We all deserve better." (Tia Levings, A Well-Trained Wife)

I just finished A Well-Trained Wife by Tia Levings - My escape from christian patriarchy a memoir and here are my thoughts.


Women, “keepers of the home” were to be silent.... That is incredibly powerful. It pretty much tells you everything you know to know about what you will find in this book.

This book is loaded with triggers...

Child abuse and death
Domestic Violence including rape and some pretty horrific animal abuse.

I don't know how someone should rate a book like this. This is something very personal to the author and her story is quite horrifying. As a survivor of abuse myself, I can't imagine how one would even go about documenting and compiling a story intriguing enough to get people to read and know that critics can be brutal and not take it personally.

I found it was well written and heartbreaking. I rarely read books like this because reading someone else's pain for entertainment seems a little tasteless to me but I can see how a book like this could help someone else heal from trauma or give them the courage to make changes in their own abuses.


My biggest takeaway is that we make assumptions about religion and the people who define themselves within and in this instance, it was used as a control tool to abuse someone. Extreme zealots have used religion to hide their nefarious ways for centuries. I am glad Tia made her way out safely and I hope she continues to heal.

4 stars

Thank you @stmartinspress for my gifted copy

OUT NOW

This book was amazing beyond belief. I can actually relate to some of her stories because I was also raised as a conservative Catholic in my childhood and felt obligated to follow God's teachings without questioning it. Although I never was in a cult, it's wild knowing how religious trauma and childhood trauma can affect our adult lives. I'm glad that Tia got out of the cult and started going through therapy to heal. Overall, this memoir is a 10/10, and I highly recommend everyone to read it.