Patriarchy Hannah and the Biblical Blueprint

How the Conversation is the Same Every Time

File: Nicolaes Maes - The Listening Housewife - Wallace.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

The New York Post is reporting that the mother and two children kidnapped and held in Gaza all this time were murdered after all and that their bodies will be returned to Israel this week. I have been diligent to scroll quickly by and squint over the painfully slow release of the hostages over the past many weeks. I don’t even know how to think of what they have endured and why they weren’t all returned at once—or why they were even taken in the first place—but somehow I let my guard down when I saw the headline and clicked.

It is curious, in fifteen minutes online, to read about the ongoing horrors associated with the attacks of 10/7 and then to watch that video of a German diplomat of some kind weeping at the end of a speech. According to Grok, he wasn’t upset about Mr. Vance’s shocking thoughts about Europe in Munich. Rather, he choked up because he is at the end of his three-year term as Chairman of the Munich Security Conference. And, well, it seems like two different planets. One is a polite and decorous world of elites who never have to live with the consequences of their decisions, and in another, the rubble of generations of hate and misery continually unfold. Both seem like a hopeless exercise in futility.

Anyway, I had something else on my mind for today. It is the strange tale of Patriarchy Hannah. My goodness. Probably most of you don’t even know what those two words portend. Hannah is obviously a nice Biblical Name meaning Grace, the stubborn mother of Samuel who would not cease to entreat God for the gift and blessing of a child. And Patriarchy is one of those cultural flashpoints that is making a lot of people come apart at the seams, like Margaret Brennan finding out that the Nazis weren’t especially known for their love of free speech.

As far as I can understand it, heaps of Christians on Twitter, now X, followed the anonymous account, Patriarchy Hannah. It was a woman who claimed to be married to a man named Tony, who had 14 children, who lived in a town called Tony Town, who was building homes for all her children as they grew up, and who was filled with advice for how other women should live their lives. It seems that the holder of the account was part provocateur—which is how it got to be so big—and part useful information about how to make sandwiches and keep your husband happy. Tragically, I did not know anything about Patriarchy Hannah until the whole thing was blown up by someone who combed through the internet and figured out that “Hannah” is actually a 37-year-old single woman called Jennifer who lives with her parents and has no children of any kind, let alone with anyone named Tony.