by Sandy » Fri May 06, 2016 8:51 am
This is a fringe, even among homeschool families. And I don't think Quiverfull has much of a following, either. Patheos has a whole core of authors who dig this stuff out.
I don't agree with either their alleged "Biblical" premise (what do they do with I Corinthians 7:25-26 which is set in the same context as other verses they cite?) nor with the practice. However, most states allow underage marriage with parental consent. Unless they are marrying off an underage child to a legal adult, there's probably nothing legally that could be done about it.
I think there are some false impressions out there regarding "homeschoolers." Not all homeschool families are "fundamentalist" or even "evangelical conservatives." About half of them, depending on whose survey you look at, are not church-related at all. Their numbers in any given area are pretty proportional to the quality of the academics in the public school system close to them, or to the social atmosphere at the local public school. Even among the Christians who homeschool, there's a fairly high percentage of "mainline" Protestants who home educate their kids. In our area, the largest homeschool association is connected to the largest UMC church in the county seat, along with an ELCA congregation and a Disciples of Christ congregation. The other association is connected to two independent, former ABC-USA congregations. So they are hard to characterize or stereotype.