The late Ellen Willis, mentor of Quiverfull author Kathryn Joyce, writes of her disdain of traditional marriage, due to the fact that procreation and the fruitful womb are expectations that flow from this God-ordained union:

“Historically, a central function of marriage has been to enforce a repressive religious morality that enshrines heterosexual intercourse as the only licit sexual act, signifying the subordination of sexual pleasure to procreation. A one-man, one-woman definition of marriage is integral to the patriarchal conception of the family as a hierarchy with father ruling over dependent wife and children.

“Feminism and gay liberation have already seriously weakened marriage as a transmission belt of patriarchal, religious values; conferring the legitimacy of marriage on homosexual relations will introduce an implicit revolt against the institution into its very heart, further promoting the democratization and secularization of personal and sexual life.”^[1]

In a separate recollection, Willis reminisces of helping young women gain access to illegal abortions prior to the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973:

“I remember when a friend of a friend came to New York for a illegal abortion, remember us trying to decide whether her pain and fever were bad enough to warrant going to the hospital and then worrying that we’d waited too long, remember her fear of admitting what went wrong, and the doctor yelling at her for ‘going to a quack’ and refusing to assure her that she would live.”^[2]

For more on Ellen Willis and Kathryn Joyce’s efforts to attack patriarchy and the blessing of the womb, click here