Girls into wives

Chicago Tribune, via Kansas City Star ^ | December 12, 2004 | Paul Salopek

[Graybeard58]

THE CENTRAL HIGHLANDS OF ETHIOPIA

[Kay Ludlow]

Now I was married at 16 and never considered myself a child bride. Not to ask personal questions, but what year was that? I know my husbands grandparents were 15 and 16 when they married ("set up housekeeping"), but when my children reached that age (1998) I couldn't even imagine them setting up "housekeeping" on their own. Our culture has changed so much, and we protect our children so much, that they are totally unprepared to fend for themselves at that age.

[MonaMars]

When I read stuff like this its almost enough to turn me back into the hardcore feminazi I once was.

I've never heard any feminist speak out aginst any of this.

I'm a feminist and I speak out against it every day. All true feminists do.

[Age of Reason]

Are you saying you are for arranged marriages and/or the weddings of little girls? Please tell me this is not what you are saying.

I favor a father's control over his children.

As for the people in the article, I will not criticize their ways, as their ways work in their world.

I wonder if our customs of the last fifty years will prove as wise and lasting as theirs.

Perhaps you'd like to compare our birth rate to that of the third world?

[clee1]

I favor a father's control over his children.

I do too, FRiend.

However, your children are no longer "kids" when it's time to marry. I'm not talking out of my assets, either. My wife was one of those "children" that stayed under her domineering father's control for too long. At 25, she lived at home, didn't drive, had no idea about financial matters, etc. I had a knock-down, drag-out fight with my wife's parents just before we got married. My wife had NEVER been to an Ob/Gyn doctor in her life, and we wanted to wait a year or so to start a family. Anyway, my then-fiancee' needed to get on birth control, and you should have heard the howl from her azz-backward parents! I let it be known, in no uncertain terms, that their control of their daughter ENDED when she accepted my proposal of marriage. I was not going to dictate to her, and I was going to be damned if I was going to let her parents do so either. They had a choice: acquiese gracefully, or never be allowed near their grandchildren and be unwelcome in our home. They chose the intelligent path, and we all get along well now.

Teach your children appropriately while they are young and they'll make good choices later in life. Just because they are your children doesn't mean that you can dictate to them all their lives. If I were your daughter and you tried to force me into an arranged marriage or tried to veto my choice of a spouse, you would die by a gunshot to the head. NO joke.

[Age of Reason]

If I were your daughter and you tried to force me into an arranged marriage or tried to veto my choice of a spouse, you would die by a gunshot to the head. NO joke.

But you are not.

My daughter would have been raised better.

[Age of Reason]

I let it be known, in no uncertain terms, that their control of their daughter ENDED when she accepted my proposal of marriage.

And there I agree.

Once married, the wife should become the property of her husband.

[clee1]

Once married, the wife should become the property of her husband.

Yep. This confirms it. You ARE whacked.

[Age of Reason]

Yep. This confirms it. You ARE whacked.

I find it wacked to celebrate a culture responsible for a below replacement birth rate.

[Huntress]

Once married, the wife should become the property of her husband.

How islamic of you.

[Cronos]

The concept of "born again" and "washed in the cleansing blood" must elude you also.

When a person is baptised into the Apostolic church (and that consists of the Catholic or Orthodox or Oriental churchs -- including the Ethiopian), then they are born again in Christ.

[Cronos]

Once married, the wife should become the property of her husband.

I hope you mean that in the same sense that a wife becomes the property of her husband JUST AS THE HUSBAND BECOMES THE PROPERTY OF THE WIFE and both belong to God.

[NavVet]

Perhaps you're right about that. The fear of being called a racist if we criticize the Mugabees (sp) of the world does cause the right not to speak out as loudly as it should. However, even if the criticism from the right is a whisper, it could still drown out the criticism coming from the left.

[k2blader]

I'm fairly sure that's not what the sicko is thinking.

[expatguy]

And yet that is deemed to politically incorrect now days.

An American Expat in Southeast Asia

[Jess Kitting]

The marriage of Rachel to Isaac is typical.

Marrying one's daughter-in-law is typical? I think you've got them mixed up.

Isaac's wife was Rebekah. They had a son named Jacob, who later married Rachel and her sister Leah; he also had children by two of their handmaidens.

Rachel and Leah were also Jacob's cousins. I believe their father, Laban, was Rebekah's brother.

Aren't you glad we don't follow Biblical customs anymore?

[Cronos]

I dunno, one can easily make a mistake while typing, so let's wait for Age's response.

[Maria S]

"A grown man marrying a seven year old child!
What do they TALK about???"


I doubt they do much talking; probably just a lot of raping.


AND, never forget...the great Mohammed married his dearest at the age of 6. However, he DID wait until she was 9 to "consummate" the marriage.

[Popman]

I recently meet an older, I mean probably in his late 70's middle eastern man and his grand daughter. I politely told him during our introduction that his grand daughter was quite beautiful.

I was politely informed she was his wife.

She was at the most, 20 years old.

Strangely, she seemed happy.

[Paul C. Jesup]

When I read stuff like this its almost enough to turn me back into the hardcore feminazi I once was. Why are females so hated (or is it feared?) in Africa and the Middle East?

When I read and article like that, I makes me want to see the feminazis in this country (U.S.) jailed for doing nothing, not even speaking out against this, for women who really need help like these girls.

[dsc]

"whacked-out mentality to place a cheating spouse on the same moral tier as a murderer or thief"

Hey, a guy will sacrifice his entire life, and even sacrifice his life, for his own childen. When a woman tells a man that he is the father of another man's child, she *is* stealing from him, and in a particularly despicable and damaging way.

That's one thing a woman can do to a man that a man can't do to a woman...unless it's Gracie Allen, maybe.