that discusses a story that has a romance between a 12 year old girl and a much older man. There are some similarities in this story between it's main characters and to one of the couples in the Women of Genesis books (sorry, I'm trying not to spoil it for others), and I was curious what your views are on the topic.
Posts: 1480 | Registered: Dec 2004
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Everything depends on culture. Some cultures have thrived on having men marry rather late, when they are financially established, and then marrying very young women, so they virtually raise them like children - but the women have long child-bearing periods. Personally, I think it's tragic to deprive a child of her (or his, for that matter) adolescence. But then ... am I just a product of MY culture?
The Women of Genesis reflects the culture of its time and place ... when Abraham and Sarah are 100 and 90, respectively, they seem like they're practically the same age. But if they married at 23 and 13, not so nice, eh?
Every culture gets to define "marriageable" however they want, I suppose. But I like cultures better when they let BOTH partners in a marriage reach adulthood before they wed ...
And keep in mind that Abram doesn't actually marry Sarai (in my novel) until she's much older than she was when they met.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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Something else that I think should be considered is that in modern society, childhood itself is greatly prolonged. Nothing wrong with that--our lifespans have been prolonged, too--but what it means is that in earlier times when there was less to learn and more real-life work that had to be done, it was not a cultural expectation that a 12 or 13-year-old would still be more child than adult.
Biologically speaking, humans reach childbearing age at puberty. That's what puberty is. That's the point when a human is supposed to be capable of forming a pair-bond and producing children. In the days when we were in our natural state, when education consisted of learning how to hunt and what berries not to pick and where to hide when the saber-tooth tigers came around, that worked perfectly fine. Civilization brings additional baggage that means that, as time went on, it became increasingly less feasible to begin adult life so early.
(You can argue that a child's physical development is not complete just because they reach puberty, and the proof of that is that they keep growing. I would answer that a human's physical development never stops, and the proof of that is that a 50-year-old looks very different from a 30-year-old, and they look even more different still when they reach 60 and 70 and so on.)
In other words, it's not shocking at all that a girl in Biblical times would enter marriage at twelve. In those days, a girl was basically a woman at twelve, and no one would have expected that it could be otherwise.
Today, in our society, times have continued to change. A girl (or boy) should not be allowed to marry or enter a sexual relationship so early, because our society is different. It's no longer practical to go with purely biological definitions. So in our society, it has ceased to be the norm for such things to happen, and since we're no longer used to seeing it, we think of it as repulsive when we do see it. So to us, it would be a horrible thing to see a relatively old man marry a twelve-year-old girl. But we are products of our own time and place; had we been raised in Biblical Canaan, we would not find it worthy of comment.
Posts: 1814 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote: There are some similarities in this story between it's main characters and to one of the couples in the Women of Genesis books
But see, there isnt really more than 1 similarity between the story I was talking about, Emily of New Moon, and the story of Sarah and Abraham. They were the same age, 12 or so, when they met a man who became romantically interested in them. From there on out, the stories part ways. The story line that squicked me out took place in 20th century Canada, where it was NOT normal for a much older man to show interest in a much younger girl (36 and 12). There was no culteral precedent for that level of romantic feeling between two people of such disseperate ages. That isnt the case in the story of Sarah. The fact that Abraham actually waited for her to grow up (in her societies eyes, anyways) made their story a little unusual. A historically acurate depiction of an interesting story doesnt squick me out. Making a romantic ideal out of a relationship where one person is incapable of making grown up decisions does. And actually, Ms. Montgomerys story doesnt do this nearly as much as the other example I mentioned, Neal Stephensons "Snow Crash".
Posts: 499 | Registered: Mar 2004
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I think the fact that this squicks you out is entirely due to the culture you've grown up in. In 20th century Canada, there were still Aboriginal groups who marry young girls to older men, and if you go back a little further in Western culture, it was likely more common there as well. I'm not sure it would have been *so* strange in PEI in LMM's time, either. As Verily mentioned, the idea of 'childhood' is prolonged much longer in contemporary Western society than it used to be here and still is in many other societies, past and present.
In many of them, it is because men need to have established themselves and proved themselves able to support a family, and women need to have a lot of fertile years left to provide children. As for being able to make "grown-up decisions", 12 year olds in many cultures are adults, for all intensive purposes. (What distinguishes an adult's decision from a child's?) They're not deprived of their adolescence, or raised by their husbands as children in most cases; it's just that they have different responsibilities as teenagers than Western teenagers do. As teens, we did chores and babysat other people's kids, and as teens, they do chores and babysit their own children. Is it that different?
Besides which, he waits for her, does he not? Doesn't that remove the squick factor, since he obviously values what he believes is her potential and is not simply looking for a 12 year old to make out with?
Posts: 624 | Registered: Mar 2005
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What I find fascinating, and disturbing, is the way biology and modern media sexualize children at earlier and earlier ages, while modern society demands that children refrain from sex, and especially child-bearing, until older and older ages.
Earlier and earlier puberty is a mystery with many proposed causes. Girls have been having a steadily earlier menarches (first period) since the 19th century. Better nutrition is a partial explanition, but there's more to it.
And modern children are bombarded with sexual imagry in modern media, including glamorized and sexualized teenagers..
Yet, educational and societal demands force a delay of marriage and pregnancy past the teenage years. And of course AIDS makes any sex risky.
This generates a great tension of ideas and desires for modern kids, moreso than in the past: hormones and media tugging them one way, practical concerns and society shooing them another way.
It's enough to make me glad I'm middle-aged (for a millisecond. )
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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Huh. I've always thought of them as two different expressions. It still makes sense to me both ways, though I can see how the one would have originally stemmed from a mishearing of the other. In my mind, I read "all intents and purposes" to mean...well, all intents and purposes. I read "all intensive purposes" to mean the more important/definite/frequently emphasized (or intensified) of those intents and purposes noted in the former expression.
Interesting how brains create explanations and justify things, eh?
Posts: 624 | Registered: Mar 2005
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I don't have a problem with teenagers pairing off with other youngsters. It's when someone is much much older that it is kind of disturbing to me. OK: Two Amish teenagers get married. Not OK: 40 year old uncle takes teenaged niece as his 6th wife.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Not OK: 40 year old uncle takes teenaged niece as his 6th wife.
You're using this to show that the age difference is not okay? Personally, I'd be more offended by the incest and the polygamy than I would by the age difference.
Posts: 1814 | Registered: Jul 2004
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