Not in most Western countries. I’m sorry, I know it was hyperbole, but “child” marriages were very uncommon for centuries.
Yes, many of them were betrothed at young ages (especially among the nobility), but actual marriage did not take place until after sexual maturity on the parts of both (because many times children were betrothed to other children).
It’s a pet peeve of mine to this historical inaccuracy trotted out all the time. Yes, they tended to marry people, especially women, off younger then–but not as young as critics would make one think.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, set in about 1910, and obviously in Brooklyn, mentions 4-yr-olds taking care of their infant siblings as just a matter of course. I think they were wheeling them up and down the neighborhood, but I could be mistaken.
The protagonist’s mother has to leave her kids alone in their apartment to go to work, at roughly ages 3 and 4. So she locks the door & goes. Then their aunt stops by, gives them a closed box of condoms to play with as she leaves to go to work; they manage to open the box and string its contents out the window.
The family is disgraced and must move to another neighborhood.
I agree with everyone here, but 30 days inside doesn’t seem like a solution to me. If ten days isn’t traumatic enough to make this woman straighten up, 30 days isn’t going to faze her. In fact, it might be enough to make her used to the place and not fear going back for other small sentences.
So I say: ten days in jail, and five years of having to make daily check-in phone calls to CPS, as well as weekly inspections by a social worker. Put her in parental training, make her meet with support groups of people who have lost their children. Also make her do drug tests every month. Take her kids away if she fails any drug tests or fails any of the other criteria I’ve mentioned. That sounds a lot scarier to me than putting her in jail for an extra 20 days and then allowing her to walk away scott free. Better for the kids, too. Dunno if any of what I’ve suggested is legal or if a budget exists for it, but that’s what I’d make her do if I could.
Sounds good to me but I doubt there is money for it from what I read about Various CPS agencies being critically understaffed and IANAL but I strongly suspect it might not be legal.
Who’s watching the kids while she’s in jail?
Or did she do a big shopping for that contingency?
IMO, she’s too stupid to be allowed to have her kids. She pulls this shit when they’re babies, what about when they can walk and talk etc?
I say no second chance–she lost her privilege to be a mom.
I like your ideas, Leviosaurus --but think that she won’t benefit from them one bit.
I remember a book with a study about the average age at first marriage during the renaissance in France (I can’t remember which century exactly) and this age was something like 21 for women and 25 for men.
What makes me so ill about this kind of situation is knowing that there are so many couples who are paying thousands of dollars to conceive a child, while “miss spit 'em out every year” goes off and leaves hers to see Jerry Springer. I never thought I would be a good mother, so I haven’t had any children. At least I thought about it!
Anyone want to take bets as to whether she winds up as a guest on Springer?
Not only was it hyperbole, but I wrote “planning”, not “marrying”. As in, “200 years ago, a nine-year old would be occupied for much of her day making items she would later use in her married life. such as bed linens, napkins and handkerchiefs. She might be obsessing about the identity of her future husband, performing ones of dozens of divinations commonly believed to reveal the identity of the man she would marry. Her mother would already have taught her most of the things she needed to know to run a household of her own, and her labor would be no less than that of the adullts in the house - save for some exceptions afforded her due to her smaller size. While all this was happening at home, her brother would likely be off working in the fields or chopping wood, or later, in a dangerous factory all day. Treating preadolescents as fragile, incompetent beings is a relatively new phenomenon.”
But I went for brevity and a failed attempt at wit. Sorry it led to such a highjacking.
