I was chatting with someone this morning about how daughters can work for fathers under the "Botkin Plan." I wonder how this really works and if they have a list of 242 rules that one must follow when a daughter works for dad at his business, that is if it is not actually within the home? (I supposed it's more holy to do it all under one roof, but there are exceptions like Vision Forum, churches, etc.) Let me work out and expose some of these bugs...
The home is a blessed safe-zone for women so there is a "sin cootie free zone" in and around the "sphere of the home." (Note: I understand the "sin cootie free" reference came from the Gothard discussion list, as he was very superstitious about picking up bad spirits and such. You are a sin cootie magnet according to Gothard, attracting evil consequences and spiritual diseases when you are out from under the "umbrella of protection" provided by submission to proper authority. And the "sphere of the home" is language borrowed from Calvin that I am told is not used in context by several people who discussed these matters at length with RJ Rushdoony.) Women who stay within the safe zone have God's protection from harm, corruption, attack, etc. This providential zone of holiness and protection always resides over the Christian home apparently.
It appears that men carry a degree of the sin cootie free zone with them when they leave the home, though the home base sin cootie free zone of protection does not diminish when he leaves. A daughter who does not possess the Spirit of God to as great a degree as any male (sounds like the John MacArthur reference you can find on strivetoenter.com/wim). Boys carry this too, as we see this described for us in the Botkin teachings particularly. The father/husband is the best option for protection, but any male child can be used, such as a brother. So if a woman has to run to the grocery store, theoretically, the woman will be safer if she takes a male child with her. The male carries a sin cootie free zone with him where so ever he goeth.Now, about daughters. They can work with their fathers outside the home, as they are protected by his very powerful sin cootie free zone of providential protection. (This is supported by all the arguments made about not sending a daughter to college: she faces some physical risk because she is not under the roof with her family or her patriarchal father.) She can do whatever woman appropriate work there needs to be done in her father's workplace. But I wonder how far the sin cootie free zone extends outward from the father? Is there a square footage limitation? If the daughter goes down the street to pick up lunch for the father, does his sin cootie free field of providential protection expand? Does it stretch 500 yards (100 times the number of grace)? Does it extend 5 miles? Does the father, by virtue of sending the daughter out on a special mission, donate or transmit some of his protective duty to his daughter by virtue of the fact that she is doing her father's bidding? Is it okay for her to run an errand down the block or across town or make a 50 mile drive?
I guess it all depends on how you work out the metaphysics of it all. The ontological aspects of all this are just laughable. The first young woman (from the nice Italian family in Louisiana) featured in the "Return of the Daughter's" video travels and does all sorts of errands (the most healthy and realistic family in the film). So the providential protection zone must travel with her.
If that's the case, when a daughter does what her father wants her to do while she works in the employ of another outside the home, why then would this aura of protection and providence not go with her? She does so with her father's blessing in in order to fulfil his desire for her through working at a job that she likes, so long as it does not interfere with the rest of her life and responsibilities. There are no Scriptures that speak of this, as Numbers 30 is about vows and not about a "cone of protection." But I'm sure that they will claim this somehow. They can't explain it from Scripture because it is not from the Bible. It came from the minds of those who believe that women are lesser creatures who can neither bear the Word or the Spirit with the same degree of power, authority and effectiveness as a man. It all boils down to ontology here, whether they admit it or not.
