Laestadian Women Leads Charge Against ‘Big Family’ Pressure
A divorced Laestadian woman is making waves by speaking out against the treatment of women with the movement to which she belongs.
Most expats in Northern Ostrobothnia are familiar with the Laestadians. A strongly conservative ‘awakening movement’ within the Lutheran church, the group is particularly influential in and around Oulu. Members tend to have large families, an average of ten children, and look and behave subtly differently from non-members. Women tend to reject make-up, ear-rings and hair dying but otherwise embrace the latest fashions, members are more inclined to smoke and television is supposedly not allowed. Importantly, neither is contraception.
But one woman, herself a Laestadian, has been making waves in the local Finnish media by speaking about against the treatment of women by the movement.
According to Rebekka Naatus, changes are afoot within the group. Female Laestadians are increasingly coming to believe that their bodies are their own and they do not wish to spend the best part of their lives simply producing and caring for children.
There are online discussion forums in which young Laestadian women discuss their misgivings about their treatment by the movement. But thirty year-old Naatus speaks out in public and uses her real name and has even produced an article entitled ‘My Body was Not Mine,’ contributing to a broader pamphlet on women’s rights in minority groups in Finland such as the Roma.
‘I wrote on it when I was asked. I thought the issue was important and I have nothing to be ashamed of,’ she told YLE Radio in November.
Naatus is a mother of one and is recently divorced from a Lutheran priest. She told YLE that almost as soon as she had her first child there began social pressure to have another one. Laestadians, according to Naatus, if a woman does not follow the accepted pattern of frequent pregnancies.
Naatus claims that Laestadians do use contraception, though its not really discussed. ‘You can’t even speak of these things by their real names,’ she admits. However, if a particular couple are deemed not to have ‘enough’ children then this will raise concerns in the group’s discussion circles, and the firmness of their ‘faith’ may well be questioned.
Naatus believes that in twenty to thirty years Laestadian women will be more in control of how many children they have. As a precedent she notes that in the 1960s it was ‘sinful’ for a Laestadian woman to perm her hair, but this is now acceptable.
For an ex-Laestadian; definitely discussion-worthy material. Could we just ask for an ease on the ruthless reporting? In some circles her story may have the potential to open up to a ‘big family’ pow-wow.
Interesting article. I converted to the LLC in 1971 and left in 1993. I was often singled out for questioning the “rules” that were made into sins by the male elders and I was made to feel sinful, just for doubting their instruction. I secretly had my tubes tied after I had my sixth baby in nine years and was made to undergo surgery to “reattach” my tubes or I would be a murdered. My then husband called the church elders over to our house and that was what they made me do so my kids wouldn’t be told I was an unbeliever and going to hell. My mind and my body was abused and I feel for the women and children being raised in that cult of a church. I was able to get help after leaving, did divorce my LLC husband and now have a very normal remarried, equal partner life. I am no longer at the mercy of a group of overzealous, self made religious group of men that call themselves “speakers” and the only true “believers”. I will graduate with a second degree in Psychology in June of this year and my prof’s have asked me to write a book on my life in the cult.
From what I was able to learn during the research for my book on Conservative Laestadianism, there is quite a lot of hidden contraception use going on in the SRK, especially in the metropolitan areas of the south. Despite official statements about unity, the behavioral norms seem to be more conservatively taught and observed in the Laestadian Lutheran Church (SRK’s North American counterpart) and I don’t think contraception is very widely used there.
Section 4.7.5 (http://examinationofthepearl.org/html/section-0012.html) of the book discusses the teachings and practice about contraception in Conservative Laestadianism, with comparisons to the Quiverfull movement among fundamentalist Christians in the U.S. The impact on women and an analysis of Seppo Lohi’s defense of the VL position on contraception is discussed in Section 4.7.6.
I would like to find other ex-LLCrs to email and talk with. I left the Laestadian Lutherans in 1988, at a time when very few others had. Once I left, (and especially after my sister also left) no one would tell me of additional members who left the church after me.
So, except for my sister, (who has been a great support), I’ve mostly been out here flying on my own and it gets lonely when no one on the outside really gets my background. They sympathize and can understand to a certain extent, but there is nothing like real being able to mention “caretaking meetings” and someone knowing immediately what you are talking about.