Talk about devaluing the language.

When did Salon hire high schoolers to write their material?

Messed-up? Totally!

Word.

(linkback) A or B? Dad fights to keep his 8 year old marriage to 50 year old intact [VOTE] - http://www.thriveorfail.com/80fe6

Eight years old isn't even old enough to conceive, never mind being married to a man old enough to be your parent/grandparent. You KNOW it's wrong when the little girl's mother along with other family members are looking to have this "marriage" annulled.

She is RAPED. I'm really tired of seeing various media outlets replace the word 'rape' with the term 'forced sex.' Broadsheet really has no excuse.

I don't pretend to know anything about Saudi customs, but historically child marriages of this type have been arranged to cement bonds between dynasties and families and have not been consummated sexually until the child is old enough. After all, the husband may well have other, older wives who will take care of her until she matures.

We already know, of course, that there are parts of the world where some factions are still living in past centuries, and Saudi Arabia certainly falls into that group. In fact even in the US certain cults occasionally get into the news for similar practices.

However, I for one will say unequivocally that I would not consent to a forced marriage between myself and anyone who writes for Broadsheet, no matter how substantial the dowry.

Since they are the root of all evil in the world. That's their Saudi indigenous custom. Leave it alone. And stop being evil Americans who are the root of all evil. And war and poverty and disease.

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that everytime one of these women or child rape stories comes out it's always in a country that's our ally?!

This is a really sad story - child marriage is fairly common in some parts of the world. In some areas the child is married off early and then not sent to be a "wife" until puberty, in others she's sent off right away - in both cases she's still a child with little or no choice in the matte.

But often child marriage is tied closely to economics. I wonder, what is the father's story here? Is he looking to make some sort of financial or business alliance with this older man, or with a relative? Does he think it's going to be too expensive or impossible to marry off his daughter when she's older? Did he receive money in the deal? Or was he trying to repay a debt and is ashamed to say so? Were they very poor and he was worried he wouldn't be able to feed his family, so he did the traditional thing and married off his daughter to compensate?

Or was it really just him exercising what he thinks is his right as a father? Was it a power trip?

These are often important questions to ask in situations like these, in order to try and understand the larger issues at stake when it comes to child marriage. Only if you get at the deeper issues involved - usually economic as well as cultural - can this kind of practice be understood and stopped.

Such as that contracts can only be made or enforced between two people with an adult understanding of the contract. Is there a culture in the world where 8 year olds are considered adults? I doubt it.

The problem is that in cultures where 8 year old girls are married off, women aren't considered able to make contracts (or capable of being adults, perhaps). The contract is between men and the girl is the goods, not a party to the contract.

Where is the line between selling or giving your daughter in marriage without her consent and selling your child into slavery? Perhaps that's the way to frame the question of whether we should respect those customs or condemn them.

Kind of like the boys forced to pay child support to their female molesters here in America.

Oh, but that can't be true....not feminist, so never mind.

How is that even "kind of like" the scenario you mention? You're right; it has occurred, and it's ugly. I know of at least one instance in which the state forced a young man to pay child support, despite the fact that the conception occurring in circumstances that met the criteria for statutory rape. And feminists fought against it, because statutory rape laws should be enforced both ways!

However, besides the financial injury, did this young man lose his liberty, or his autonomy? How is this remotely like being forced into a marriage without any say?

And what we're fighting here is culturally accepted in some parts of the world. What you're talking about, at least the molestation portion of it, is condemned and prohibited by law. Sorry, I don't see the parallel.

The perfect time for a BS writer to use “ewwww”, and she misses it.

Anyway, such marriages are not uncommon in our Western history either. Plenty of English had arranged marriages, and it involved plenty of girls under 18. Under 14 even. But boy, those darkies sure are evil.

He is sexually assaulted, and then forced to pay his child molester assailant for 18 years.

I know it's a male life that's affected, Tricijad, and that counts for very little to people like yourself.

"We already know, of course, that there are parts of the world where some factions are still living in past centuries, and Saudi Arabia certainly falls into that group. In fact even in the US certain cults occasionally get into the news for similar practices."

The difference of course being that one is a cult that is basically mocked, shunned, and relegated to the hills of Utah for all intents and purposes, versus an entire society.

Cultural relativism has its place in certain spheres of life, arraigned marriage, rape, owning other people, murder aren't those areas. You simply cannot make a choice of that magnitude at that age. And quite frankly, these other societies could define down the age of adulthood all they want, and it's still not right.