Found this in my college sociology book (Henslin 2007) : 196

[-] wrath_of_grunge@kbin.social 122 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

this was pretty bad. it was bad enough that even back then you had people pointing out how bad it was. it was so bad that various states passed laws so that it would be against the law, going forward.

the textbook's point is that even though this wasn't common place, it was somewhat taken for granted.

i can kind of understand somethings. like how it was probably far more common back then for people to be married by the ages of 15-18. i can get that. but the case of Johns and Eunice, it was shocking even then. that should tell you something.

that thing being that Johns was a pedophile.

[-] UnpopularCrow@lemmy.world 44 points 8 months ago

I agree. It was certainly more common for child marriages but not that extreme. That guy was definitely a pedo. If you are buying your wife a doll for her wedding present you need to rethink your life choices.

[-] FlickOfTheBean@lemmy.world 33 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Ok, this may be wrong history but I could have sworn I saw some article a few years ago explaining that this marriage happened because it was the middle of the great depression and her parents couldn't afford to feed her or something like that.

Makes it worse, imo.

That said, was he a pedo? If sex happened then obviously yes, but I thought this marriage was a charity case more so than a "indulge a pedo who's interested in our daughter during the depression" situation...

I'm gonna have to go find that article at some point...

Edit: welp, I went looking for it, couldn't find it, so everything above this line may be bullshit, but based on the age she had her first child at, yeah I'd say that obviously counts as some pedo shit

[-] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 9 points 8 months ago

Even if it was a charity case and he waited to fuck her until she was of age it's still grooming. They should have lynched this motherfucker as soon as he expressed interest in marrying a 9 year old.

[-] Soulg@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago

Yes yes death is the only solution to anything bad

[-] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 4 points 8 months ago

It's the only solution to child molesters.

[-] kay 1 points 8 months ago

I've tried to get a pedophile to see a therapist. I can tell you from a pure harm reduction perspective a bullet is much more likely to be the solution.

[-] SteveXVII@pawb.social 4 points 8 months ago

Is anecdotal evidence accurate? This guy says yes.

[-] kay 1 points 8 months ago

Don't call me a guy. And if you don't cite a study, anecdotes are still legitimately a better bet than pulling shit out of your arse

Go on, genuinely willing to have my mind changed. Something tells me you haven't googled any literature on the topic until now tho.

[-] SteveXVII@pawb.social 3 points 8 months ago

First things first: the only thing I did was disqualifying what you said, and since you used anecdotal evidence, I think it is more than fair that I did just that. How can I have pulled anything out of my arse if that is the only thing I did?

Anecdotal evidence being better than the supposed shit I said (I didn't find any, maybe you can point it out?) doesn't mean that your argument is any good, and wouldn't it be reasonable to expect good arguments if you are arguing for the bullet?

And I didn't need to do any research so far because just thinking for myself is sufficient at the moment, and before you ask me to do research, I'll recommend doing some yourself.

[-] kay 1 points 8 months ago

Anexdotal & qualitative evidence is absolutely preferable to no evidence. And there are areas where quantitative evidence is impossible to gather and/or, in individual cases, inapplicable.

I assummed from context that your conclusion was that killing a pedo isn't the answer. Sorry if the assumption was wrong but I think it's reasonable. In that case, the fact that you didn't even bother to provide analysis for that conclusion is NOT A POSITIVE. You can't assert something, then when asked for data to back it up say 'I didn't make a proper argument do I don't need data'.

My suggestion in the first place was: if you cannnot get a danger to children to seek help and/or can't get them locked up a bullet can very well and often be a justifiable course of action. I think you assummed I was drawing a universal moral prescription of how to deal with all cases and I see how, but I wasn't.

All I'm saying is that in many cases, a bullet for those who aren't willing to rehab is a valid way out, and there are a lot of those people.

Sorry for the lengthy ass comment, didn't see a way to shorten what I said while keepin the substance. When I have time I'd rather avoid empty snide quips like those you've been making

[-] SteveXVII@pawb.social 2 points 8 months ago

I want to make one thing clear about the intentions of my comments: all I was trying to do was disqualifying what you said, and the reason for that is simple: you drew a serious conclusion (arguing for the bullet) supported by weak evidence (anecdotal evidence), and I can't stand that.

The conclusion that you assumed in article 2 is not true, I wasn't asserting that, so I don't need evidence for that. My 'proper argument' was that yours was weak.

About article 3: Your conclusion appears to be quite different from the comment you made earlier. First you said that you tried to get a pedo to seek help, that your attempt failed and that therefore the bullet is the answer. Now you say that that is the solution when locking them up doesn't work (or get them to seek help.) Wouldn't that be a better solution in the first place? Why did you argue for the bullet straight away? Heck you even started arguing for the bullet without considering imprisonment one article further.

[-] kay 1 points 8 months ago

No, my argument was, as I said: a) if you cannot get a pedo to rehab, a bullet is better than letting them endanger others b) Those situations seem significantly more likely than pedos willingly participating in therapy - I listed an anecdote as an example because I thought the analysis as to why this is relatively intuitive. I can write it out if you disagree.

Hence a bullet is the more likely solution, not a universal one.

That's what I said, and I stand by it. And I stand by the example provided because I don't think analysis is needed for why a pedo is more likely to reject help than accept it and quantitative data on the subject is inexistent and unachievable.

Adding imprisonment to the mix is a valid complaint but doesn't change much, given how hard it is to even gather enough to allow police intervention, even when dealing with a self-admitted pedophile like I was.

The reason I assumed your conclusion is because of the context of the thread. Sorry for misunderstanding. Your stubborness on putting words in my mouth makes me a little more comfortable about it tho.

[-] SteveXVII@pawb.social 2 points 8 months ago

I might be wrong, but are you suggesting killing the pedo yourself? And another question, is the pedo in particular offending (meaning that they have commited crimes related to pedophilia, such as watching, or making CSAM, groping, molesting, etc.) or non-offending? In all my replies, including this one I assumed the latter, which I just realized might not be the case.

Maybe the bullet works from an american perspective: with easy acces to guns and a garbage justice system, maybe this is the source of our misunderstanding since I am European and the justice system in my country isn't shit and guns aren't easily accesible.

Even if this is the case I still disagree with your opinion. First of al because using the bullet sets a precedent that causes pedo's to hide the fact that they are even more, the next time you encounter one you might not even notice.

And to give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe they don't trust therapists. Maybe the pedo who confessed to you only did so because they trusted you, but that's just an assumption. And even if that wasn't the case in this anecdote, it might be true for many pedo's. It is a big secret after all. And considering how crazy people can go because of drag queens, because of the fear that they MIGHT do something to children, I can imagine that they rather keep their secret. It is not unreasonable to think some fear for their lives.

Can you maybe point out where my stubbornnes to put words in your mouth is? I don't think I have done so.

And I want to add a more nitpicky argument, stating that it is significantly more likely that a pedo doesn't seek help on the basis of 1 person is just plain wrong. Since the margin of error spans from basically 0% to 100%.

[-] kay 1 points 8 months ago

I'm European too, and in my country at least, I found no option to form a legal process against the pedophile.

The moron I was talking about had admitted to consuming CSAM in a group of people, I have no clue if he'd done anything else or has since, and knowing I failed to do anything about him I don't want to think about it too much.

The 'putting words in my mouth' was reffering to your insistence I'd made a general claim of 'killing pedos is moral' and not that 'it would be a solution if they refuse help and that seems likely to me, having dealt with one and tried to convince them to seek it'.

Comparing concerns of pedos to those of drag queens in any way whatsoever rubs me the wrong way on its own, and even then it's not the same, given pedophiles are actually a threat to children. Being concerned about your neighbour spontaneously exploding is dumb, fearing the same from a person who just drank 5 liters of 100% nitroglycerin before climbing on a trampoline is actually ok, methinks (best analogy ever, I know). I think it is absolutely on an otherwise mentally healthy pedophile to overcome their 'fear' and seek help, so much so I don't care what happens to them if they refuse to.

Again, I am willing to defer to experience where quantitative data is definetively unachievable to make my assumptions. I'm not writing a paper about it, but I'll gladly state it with confidence in conversation when I think I have more insight than the majority of people. When my parents told me not to stick my fingers in an outlet as a kid I listened, even though there were no studies proving 230 Volts kill 5 year olds... and the existence of reliable scientific data on these two topics is about equally unlikely.

[-] SteveXVII@pawb.social 1 points 8 months ago

I don't know if ypu're still interested, I was busy and kinda lost interest in this conversation.

I am glad that I now understand a bit better where you're coming from, my assumption that the pedophile you were talking about was non-offending was a mistake on my part. The reference to drag queens was not about the actual danger they present (which is as far as I know not significant) but about the perceived danger, which is unfortunately quite there, but it was based on a wrong assumption, at least in this case.

Now I am still not sure about your initial statement, I don't know which country you are from so that makes it a bit difficult to know what the justice system is there. Or acces to therapy for that matter.

(In my country (the Netherlands) you'd end up in prison if you actually do that, and to be fair, I wouldn't blame my country's justice system for doing that.)

[-] UnpopularCrow@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago

Interesting. That would certainly change the situation. Please post it if you do find it or DM me. I would be curious if that was the case!

[-] orcrist@lemm.ee 4 points 8 months ago

It would not change how bad that guy's actions are. If anything it would make it worse.

[-] Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 15 points 8 months ago

Maybe it's just unfortunate connotation with the phrasing but "these marriages were taken for granted" sounds like the author is saying that people didn't appreciate that they could do that back then.

[-] ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world 15 points 8 months ago

My dad was born in Eastern Kentucky in 1916 so grew up in the same era and region. He knew a guy that married a 12 year old and the guy confided in him that the first day he came home from work after getting married he found his wife playing with a doll. He felt bad, and of course he should have.

Even that marriage was considered bad back then, and this 9 year old of course is about as horrible as can be imagined.

[-] randomsnark@lemmy.ml 109 points 8 months ago

Apparently this was actually a pretty significant case, as it was publicised at the time and led to the creation of laws setting the minimum age for marriage at 16. Although, wikipedia claims he was 24 rather than 22. I feel like this suggests this wasnt really the norm at the time the way the textbook suggests. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_of_Charlie_Johns_and_Eunice_Winstead

[-] blaine@lemmy.ml 38 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

There are only five sentences of text on that page, with the last one explaining that this sort of marriage was not common at all. Where did you get the idea that the textbook is suggesting that this was the norm?

[-] randomsnark@lemmy.ml 49 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

The second paragraph to the right of the photo talks about how our perception of these things changes with time, and while it seems shocking to us now it would once have been taken for granted. It was a big news story at the time and was not taken for granted.

Edit: I guess my wording was a bit off. I meant to say that it was not within the cultural norms of the time. As worded, it sounds like I'm discussing its frequency rather than its level of acceptance - that's my bad.

Intended meaning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_norm

[-] fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 8 months ago

Given that the law was passed two weeks after they were married I think it has already been drafted and the whole subject was probably one of much debate. Also note three neighbouring states passed laws at the same time.

It seems likely that someone said "find a story about under-age marriage for our front page", and these two hapless yokels (or should I say Johns the hapless yokel) were the only ones stupid enough to have their photos taken.

In summary, I think society was working up to passing a law like this, and these two had a bride that was younger than most and got married at the right time.

That said, the author has definitely tried to imply that this sort of marriage was commonplace in the 30s, when it was probably at most "unusual".

[-] frezik@midwest.social 10 points 8 months ago

Maybe an example that gets the point across would be European royalty. When Mary Tudor was six, she was promised to Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire. He was 22, and they were cousins.

While that might not be typical of marriages in England at the time, there are certainly similar cases among the nobility until relatively recently. Enough to make the point about how cultural standards change.

[-] TheActualDevil@sffa.community 3 points 8 months ago

While it is suggesting it was common at the time, it doesn't outright state they're talking about that time. At earlier points in history it certainly was acceptable, but we probably don't have pictures of it to go in textbooks. This reeks of them having a general point to make and having a picture that almost fits that point. I've made more tenuous connections for college papers before.

Also, while it's not as drastic, I was doing some looking into family history recently and I found some ancestors who got married around that time. The marriage certificate listed the wife as 17 and the husband as 21... but the math didn't add up when I found their birth certificates and on the marriage certificate she was aged up from 15 and he was aged down from 22. It was in a small farming community and at that point in time and place schooling was largely abandoned during harvest and as soon as kids were old enough to help out on the farm full time they would just stop with school. And for women, helping out on the farm meant taking care of the house and raising kids generally. Time at school was a waste for them so they just got right to the adult stuff immediately.

[-] Jilanico@lemmy.world 65 points 8 months ago

"...in 2017, Human Rights Watch pointed out that Afghanistan has a tougher law on child marriage than parts of the United States..." 😨

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_marriage_in_the_United_States

[-] barsoap@lemm.ee 19 points 8 months ago

Make sure to insist on a honeymoon in Germany as over here marriages under 16 get auto-divorced (16-18 a judge will decide) and you have a solid reason for asylum.

[-] CoffeeJunkie@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

That's cute & all, but even if certain things happen to be correct, I don't give a flying fuck what the people running Afghanistan have as laws of the land. They're so fucked up. Just had a discussion on here, they've got all these laws, kill the homosexuals, homosexuals are just an abomination. But hey....there's this powerful warlord or prominent man engaging in bacha bazi.....ehhhhh, we'll pretend that's not happening. Maybe even join in. Gross hypocrisy.

[-] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 9 points 8 months ago

They're so fucked up.

That's the point. The fucked up place has stricter rules on this fucked up thing than places in the US.

That's fucked up

[-] jdf038@mander.xyz 1 points 8 months ago

That was post-pre-taliban though (jfc typing that feels so dumb)

I'd guess it's worse in 2023 for Afghanistan now.

[-] m12421k@iusearchlinux.fyi 49 points 8 months ago

Did I read this wrong or the author is really trying to frame it as a cutesy normal thing?

[-] protist@mander.xyz 72 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I don't see that at all, seems like they're just pointing out how cultural norms can change over time, which is a basic ~~tenant~~ tenet of sociology

[-] fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.dbzer0.com 25 points 8 months ago

*tenet

[-] Rusty@lemmy.ca 2 points 8 months ago

Nolan really outdone himself in that movie

[-] m12421k@iusearchlinux.fyi 13 points 8 months ago

makes sense 👍

[-] ULS@lemmy.ml 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Idk that sounds completely American pride-ish to me... 🤮

[-] protist@mander.xyz 34 points 8 months ago

To think child marriage is just an American thing is to ignore reality

[-] academia_sucks1024@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 months ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_interactionism

Stay in school everybody.

[-] Thcdenton@lemmy.world 18 points 8 months ago

[-] buckwheat@lemmy.world 14 points 8 months ago

Formerly Chucksville.

[-] AlfredEinstein@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago

The problem with a pedophile marrying a child is that it's all downhill for the next seventy or eighty years potentially.

[-] boborhrongar@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago

I feel like there's maybe a couple other issues

[-] antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 8 months ago

Sneedville

[-] ohlaph@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago

Which textbook?

[-] UnpopularCrow@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago

“Sociology, A down to earth approach” by James Henslin, 2007.

[-] Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 1 points 8 months ago

1937 is surprisingly recent for this to be considered acceptable.

[-] JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago

According to some other comments, it wasn't.

[+] DannyMac@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago

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