Excerpt: Let Your Hair Down

They told me it was for the best. That the Lord desires his maidens to be pure. Untouched. Unsullied by the modern world. The modern world was no place for the Lord’s true children. We were not allowed off the family’s land without Daddy present to guard over us; it was for our benefit, they said. Daddy particularly worried about my sisters and I. He believed that my brothers were strong men, following in his footsteps, and so shielded them from the outside world a bit less than us girls. After all, one day they would be the man of the house, in charge of their own wife and brood of children. They had to be prepared to shield their families from the dangers found outside of our small church community. Us girls, though, needed to be protected. We were his property until we entered our husband’s houses, and we were to abide by his rules.