First let me clarify my position. I DO NOT approve of the lifestyle that the polygamist compound promoted. I DO NOT approve of the "marriage" of young girls/women under the age of 18. I DO NOT approve of the arranged marriages, re-assignement of wives and children to new husbands or anything like that.
Now, I have real heartburn with the State of Texas for their raid on that compound. What pretext did they have for taking those kids? What pretext did they have for breaking up the families? How do they justify MANDATORY DNA confiscation and testing? Does any of this bother anyone else???
The allegation was that a teenaged girl was beaten and forced to have sex with her older husband. How does that justify taking 400 kids? I thought the whole point of the legal process was to prosecute the ones who commit the crimes. What crime was committed by the parents of these kids? Okay, polygamy is a crime. You punish the guilty... the husband. You don't come in with armed officers and rip kids away from their parents. How does taking some teenaged boys and locking them away somewhere help to find the guy ( who was supposed to be 50 ) that the caller alleged had raped her. What will Texas do when they determine the parentage of the kids? Will they then "reassign" children to new parents? Will they then reassign wives to husbands? You know, someone made an allegation against one unknown assailant and now over 400 kids are suffering. These people all had the same belief structure... pretty much so does everyone that lives on my base. So, if someone alleged a crime was committed on base I guess the government would come and haul away all of our kids and wives??? I think Texas really stepped on it's collective penile appendage on this one.
ngh
I agree with pretty much everything you said here with one small exception. The under 18 years of age part. I am 58 years old, and I have watched this age thing being debated for about the last 25 years. Most of the time it is pure speculation on maturity, and I will give an example or two, by saying in advance that girls under the age of 18, and yes, even 16 have been getting married "willingly" for centuries, and the marriages have worked. My grandmother was married when she was 16. She was the daughter of a widower, and my grandmother literally raised her two younger brothers, and her sister was an infant when her mother died. Her father never remarried. Long story short, my grandmother was married 60 years.
My own mother was also 16 "BARELY" and Dad was almost 20. AND NO! It wasn't a have to marriage. They married in 1948, and Dad died last year. They were never separated a day.
Back in the fifties and early sixties it was common for girls younger than 18 to get married, and MOST OF THE TIME it was to older men. Most of these marriages are still together.
Disagree if you will, but much is being made of this age difference and I believe it holds little water. FORCE is an entirely different issue. JMO
As a side note, young boys down to 6 years old used to be capable of loading the family musket, stalking, killing, butchering, and toting back to the cabin a deer to feed the family. This happened many times when the father was laid up with sickness or injury, had died, or gone off some where to work.
Now a days we can teach a teenager to fly a jet, run the most complicated computer, and show utter amazement that a pre-teen could hack into the Pentagon computer system, but treat him like an infant when it comes to expecting any responsibility out of him. Once again however. JMO