by weinermcgee 97 Replies latest jw friends
No sitting next to your boy/girl friend until you were engaged. ( Yes, they encouraged leading a double life)
The slit in your skirt couldn't go above your knee, unless of course you were an elders daughter or pioneer....then it was okay
Your skirt couldn't cup your hind end, unless of course you were an elders daughter or pioneer...then it was okay
No jean skirts
No showing of the bra straps Ohhh, yes I almost forgot about that one!
This makes me wonder if there are ever battles between congregations. The one congregation must think itself superior since they didn't wear mustaches. Such unity!
This would definately happen when there's more than one congregation sharing a hall.
Clothing is definitely a matter of geographical presence. I once visited the Keams Canyon congregation in NE Arizona(on the Hopi indian reservation) for a week. It is the closest you can be in the USA to visiting a 3rd world country. For field service, the brothers and sisters wear denim pants, regular t-shirts, non-dress shoes, and no ties. Extremely casual -- picture yard work clothes. The indian people are so poor that they turn away the witnesses if they are dressed up at all. It makes them appear hoity-toity. The Mormons in the area dress up like they normally do and they pretty much get rejected. It was a very unique experience.
In my past halls, to be a book study reader or to say prayer, you had to wear a jacket of some sort. If I felt like skirting the duties, I would wear a cardigan sweater. I had a mixed wardrobe which consisted of both suits and sports jackets. I was never told about wearing only a suit to be allowed privs.
If you were handling mic's during the WT study, you had to have a WT in your hand while roving. That was kind of a pain. You couldn't leave it back at your seat. Embarrassing if you hadn't underlined a single sentence because you were partying the night before. It made it worse if you had a hangover and your meeting started in the morning. Your friends would smirk cause they knew what sort of condition you were in.
If you had a two-door car, you could NEVER drive in field service. This is funny because my used-to-be best friend bought a two-door Civic so that he wouldn't have to drive in service. He kept it until it went up in flames, literally, in his apartment parking lot, along with his motorcycle. Mind you, he was and still is an MS pursuing a degree in Elderism.
At one point our PO decided that to be "exemplary" and have privileges you had to have 10 hours of field service every month.He didn't quite word it that way but all those of us who weren't getting 10 hours all lost the few "privileges" we had and since there wasn't enough brothers to go around the privilege merry-go-round,they started giving privileges to sisters(literature counter and book-study reading).It didn't go over too well and just served to expose the hypocrisy of the local elders.
Goldminer
You know... all this talk makes me really realize something. Circuit overseers and certainly members of the GB certainly see/saw the wide range of localized behavior regarding appearance. I wonder if they let it go, with the understanding that the Elders of the cong are to ensure that the members of the cong should more or less match what is generally expected in the local society, so as to more easily Advertise!, Advertise!, Advertise! to the public.
It's allowed that each cong place moralistic rules on dress to keep the R&F in line, even though the GB doesn't care one way or the other? As long as the preaching work continues?
I really need to read some books like CoC.
No sleevleess dresses.
No two door cars allowed, unless it was your second car.
Not allowed to own any movie, or go see any movie that was over PG.
Only one earring in each ear.
Heels bigger than 2 inches were a big No-No.
I remember the "no car with only two doors" rule. and of course the suit and tie rules. But when it came to how the teens dressed in my hall we basically did our own thing with the exception of miniskirts. We all wore sandals with no nylons all summer long, had multiple piercings in our ears and lived in our hippie skirts and tank tops. Of course at the end of my time there the "spirtually weak" teens seemed to be in the majority.
I remember one mother had a panic attack when she realized the shirt she had bought her 4 year old had a picture of Bugs Bunny with a baseball cap worn backwards
This was a big non non in out hall which prompted many of my guy friends to immediately do this.
Dams
Every part of the body must be below the water's surface in baptism .
Actually this was and is a Society rule.
How many times I've seen the curtains close on the platform and some poor soul have to be baptised again because the CO or DO saw that their nose remained visible just above the waterline!
Of course you could ask: where's that in the Bible? Another one for the pharisees?
i had an elder's meeting about my hair when i was 16. they said the hair behind my head wasn't allowed to touch my shirt collar. and when i was 14 the elder's told me not to wear my archie (from the archie comic book series) tie to meetings. and my brother had an elder's meeting for reading mad magazines when he was 14ish.
How many times I've seen the curtains close on the platform and some poor soul have to be baptised again because the CO or DO saw that their nose remained visible just above the waterline!
It makes me wonder about the stories we heard of "bathtub baptisms" in countries where they were under ban. I haven't seen too many bathtubs large enough to completely immerse an average sized male.
W
