> Any 36 year-old man ... that finds it acceptable to marry a 9-12 year old and then start raping her when she's 13 is a piece of shit
I would assume she fully expected to have sex with her husband, 13 years old or not. To suggest this was rape, against her will, is a bit preposterous and an incorrect usage of the word. At the same time I find it reprehensible that a 36 year old American, whose culture says underage is below 18, would get involved with what we'd consider a child.
You don't know what rape is. The modern interpretation of rape isn't just when people force themselves on others, it also includes things like coercion, and abuse of power.
I'm not sure I can think of a more obvious example of taking advantage than a almost middle-aged affluent man who marries a child from a group of people almost completely isolated from the outside world while he's supposed to be studying them.
Why is it in every thread online involving statutory rape is there some guy trying to shift the definitions or morality of it around? What are you trying to accomplish?
I hope you see the irony in your complaint about "some guy trying to shift the definitions or morality" when we're discussing a primitive tribe in the Amazon that thinks marriage to 13 year olds is perfectly OK.
You're saying that the moral rules of your culture are the absolute correct ones that apply globally? What else might this apply to? There are cultures who lay out their dead for the vultures to eat; we don't do this, so do you have a problem with that too?
You not understanding me is not ironic. He's not a member of a primitive tribe, he's an anthropologist.
If I visit a country and they tell me I should hate homosexuals, knowing what I know about homosexuality means that doing it would make me an awful human being. Even if I respect their different opinions on the matter, it doesn't mean that they are being good, because we know that homosexuality isn't a choice more than they know it is a choice.
Vultures eating dead flesh is not inherently wrong, it's just distasteful to some. This very obvious example of child sexual abuse that actually harms someone who is alive is not even close, and it's weird that you're making that comparison. Do I really need to cite the negative effects of sexual abuse on children to justify my position here?
And I'm saying she's a member of a primitive tribe who thinks being 13 and having sex is fine. To her, she's not being raped.
If you read my comment above in full, I did say what he was doing was reprehensible. Relative to our culture, he's molesting a child, and if it were happening in the US it would be considered rape because we consider people under 18 to be incapable of informed consent. And therein lies the uncertainty of definition, since she was informed and consented.
>To suggest this was rape, against her will, is a bit preposterous and an incorrect usage of the word
There are different kinds of rape. It doesn't really matter if a 13 year-old consents. How many 13 year-olds do you know that are mature enough to make such a decision?
I know plenty of 30+ year olds who aren't mature enough to make such a decision either. The age of 18 is just an arbitrary choice to plant a legal marker, because it's not practical to judge on a case by case basis.
Not that I'm condoning the behavior in this case....I'd think the intent of age of consent laws would be to protect those not yet able to protect themself with their own judgement - it should be obvious in this case, especially considering his age at the time, that taking a ~13 year old "wife" and proceeding to have sex with her when you had no intent to move there permanently was an incredibly wrong thing to do, by any moral compass.
I agree that SOME 30 year-olds aren't mature enough to make adult decisions, but on the other hand almost every single 13 year-old on the planet is too immature.
I would assume she fully expected to have sex with her husband, 13 years old or not. To suggest this was rape, against her will, is a bit preposterous and an incorrect usage of the word. At the same time I find it reprehensible that a 36 year old American, whose culture says underage is below 18, would get involved with what we'd consider a child.