I am amazed at how many men today have no sense of their clear duty under biblical law to protect the virginity of their daughters. Once upon a time, it was highly unusual for a woman to travel abroad without the protection of a male guardian, normally her father. Women without male escorts were described as “unprotected ladies.” (Aboard the Titanic, for example, first class passenger Archibald Gracie was personally responsible for the protection of six women, all of whom survived the night because he made sure they made it to safety.) The notion of protecting women at home and abroad stems from the biblically-mandated obligation not only to protect a woman generally from harm, but from the father’s duty to preserve the chastity of his daughters from any who would seek to violate it. It is the unique responsibility of fathers to watch over their daughters. An unwed daughter, be she eighteen or twenty-eight, is under the headship of her father, which means his protection and provision. Protection requires proximity — one of about six reasons why I have concerns about fathers sending their unmarried daughters thousands of miles away from home for extended periods of time to college. Yesterday, I received the following sobering letter from a reader. Her experience is worth noting:

“I have listened to your tape What’s a Girl to Do several times but today a sentence that you spoke jumped out at me as if it was just added to the tape. (Shows how I am always listening while mothering, sewing, and doing other tasks doesn’t it! hee hee) Anyway, I had to make a comment about the statement ‘When you send your daughters thousands of miles away without even a church, etc., you are asking for trouble’ (VERY loosely quoted mind you). I want to comment on that.... I was allowed to go almost two thousand miles away to a Bible school at a young age. I DID have much support by the church but that didn’t keep me from foolishly opening the door to my apartment at midnight and being assaulted. The result was the birth of my first child. While this worked out to the glory of God in ways that you can’t imagine, this was also the result of my being in a place where I ought not have been. I was out from under my father’s protection and this would NEVER have happened in his home. (Not that it wouldn’t have happened anyway, but not IN my father’s home.) THANK YOU for telling fathers to guard their daughters’ safety. Not enough men are willing to be so bold. I praise God that my husband is such a man.”