Posted on 04/21/2010 6:06:26 AM PDT by NYer
Oops - I think the comment above should have had Nyer in it.
On the contrary, I’d say that she sounds as though she’s made remarkable progress in her life and has found happiness after terrible decisions and lack of a stable family growing up.
A thirteen year old girl should never have been allowed to roam around in bars for predators to prey upon. The fault lies primarily with her parents for not protecting her, Wyman for being a predator, and bars for allowing youngsters to enter the premises.
Of course, some responsibility lies with her - but 13 is not an adult, and kids her age need restrictions and protection, for the very reason her life illustarted.
“Some boys and many girls are not only capable of being married at puberty, but really need to go ahead and start their lives.”
Start their lives how, exactly? Even if they had the emotional and mental maturity to handle a marriage at age 14, they’d have no marketable education and would be effectively unemployable. And if they start a family right away, their expenses would increase exponentially.
Marrying before age 20 might have been practical before making a living wage required at least a high school education, but it’s not now. And I sure as heck wouldn’t want to marry any of the girls I had crushes on when I was 20, let alone 14!
Did you read the article? Her mother was ill and her father left the home when she was three.
Hey - I’ll have you know that not reading the article has never stopped me from posting a comment or question or two. TYVM
Outstanding article and some great links! I'm replying so I can check my posts and remember to bookmark it when I get home from work.
You are absolutely correct, she clearly asked to be statitutionally raped. Let's just blame the victim. She got what was coming to her... </s>
In all sincerity, your posts on this thread exhibit the perverse logic of a Muslim pedophile. You should carefully rethink the position you are taking before going any further.
So your contention is a childhood spent in bars is a perfectly fine childhood? Had she only spent her childhood in bars, she would not be saying she lost hers?
I can only assume that any one or all of the below are in play:
1. You have a reading or learning disability.
2. You don’t understand English very well at all.
3. You are sick in the head.
(RM - obviously the above are directed at JLS.)
No, my contention is simply that your posts on this thread have exhibited the perverted mentality and sociopathic reasoning of a rapist.
Yours exibitted the lack of mental ability of an idiot who can not read. But this is usually a forum for civil discusion so I was not going to mention that.
In the western world, because the practices of “bride buying” and dowry were seen as loathsome, they were forbidden.
Dowries were common in the Western world - right up until the 20th century women were expected to bring "a portion" to a middle-class marriage. Jane Austen, and writers like that, were always very interested in noting what fortune a woman had, as this would determine her possibilities of a good match.
***Young girls need a father as much, if not more, than young boys to keep things like this from happening.***
A father’s love for his daughter makes her feel too valuable to allow any man to take advantage of her.
This is part of the pattern for my own immediate ancestors (from southern Germany). The husband was expected to provide a home for his wife. Saving money and acquiring a house (and all that went with it) could take a long time, even though they started in the paid labor force in their teens. Hence my forefathers didn't marry until they were in their mid-30's --- though their brides were a bit younger.
The very kids that should probably go ahead and start their grown lives are in large part the same people that will end up working at those jobs eventually.
They would have a 10 year head start on those that stay in school and go to college, which might go a long way towards closing the income gap. There is no reason at all for someone with a 90 IQ to finish high school and spend several years and 10’s of thousands trying to get a college degree ... only in the end to wind up working at the same job they would of 10 years earlier.
There will always be a financial element to marriage, for obvious reasons. However, a formal dowry is distinct enough, almost contractual, to distinguish it, as well as the requirement of family permission to get married. No dowry, no marriage.
I saw a variation of it, a legal version, in the marriage of a friend to a girl from a wealthy Navajo (Diné) family. Her family presented the groom’s family with perhaps $30,000 in silver jewelry and Pendleton blankets (superb quality and extremely expensive, starting at about $250). Then the groom’s family added considerably to that wealth, and gave it as a package to the new couple. This was a separate deal from the wedding presents, which were another $5-10k. All told, the wedding, both church and ceremonial, lasted four days and cost the better part of $100k.
In any event, the dowry was objectionable because it was required for marriage, and that is why, as such, it is unlawful. India has outlawed it as well, but it is still widely practiced, as is “bride burning”, and other distasteful and murderous traditions.
I agree that not everyone is cut out for college— at least not the liberal arts model prevalent at most schools. However, to say that 70% of all jobs require “almost no education” is quite a stretch: even if the specific assignments in, say, a class in calculus or American history don’t apply to everyday work, the habits of critical thinking and mental discipline do. Like it or not, the VAST majority of teenagers do not possess the work ethic to start full-time jobs at age 14, and they’re not going to develop it without some sort of practice.
And since this is a politics board, let me also say that I find your plan to create an uneducated worker class consisting of those “with a 90 IQ” rather disturbing. Land of opportunity indeed.
You don't seem to understand the meaning of the article, nor of childhood, nor of the importance of the legal concept of "statutory rape." Her entire point is that children of that age do not possess the judgment to evaluate the downside of such behaviors, are under constant social and media pressure to have sex, and are too immature to give informed consent. That is why children have historically needed legal protection from older predators.
The article points out that England's past statutes set the age of consent at 13 during the agricultural age, then raised it at the dawn of the industrial age to 16 (1885). Under both earlier statutes, girls were not expected by society to work outside the home nor have sex outside marriage, nor prepare for careers or higher education.
The old statutes are out of step with today's information age. There is no practical necessity for girls to make themselves sexually available to a husband, provider and protector. Since girls must increasingly support and protect themselves (or be a drain on society under the current UK socialist state), they really should be encouraged to wait, and protected by law from predation, until they have gained employment skills.
Did you even read the article? Clearly, she is not still trying. She is working productively to help other girls and has experienced a religious awakening.
It's hard to believe the puritannical attitudes on this thread. Child abuse is not the fault of the child, people.
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