# "Marry Our Daughter" -- Please tell me this is a joke ... . **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 10, 2007, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-our-daughter-please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke/418626 "2007-09-10T00:04:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-our-daughter-please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke/418626/21 "2007-09-10T02:32:23Z")
[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink] But for less than half of what she’s going for, you can have Samantha, who “can hunt, fish and shoot and drive with the best of them, quote sports stats from any team you’d like to mention, and can hold her own in a cussing contest.” [/QUOTE] Well, if you actually know anyone like that, send her my way. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-our-daughter-please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke/418626/22 "2007-09-10T03:00:22Z")
Send in a proposal and see if the cops nail you. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-our-daughter-please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke/418626/23 "2007-09-10T03:07:21Z")
Send in a proposal and see if your wife\* kills\* you. ---
**Author:** ![Fern\_Forest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/71c47a/32.png) [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-our-daughter-please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke/418626/24 "2007-09-10T03:13:45Z")
I signed up my “daughter” hoping there’d be more funny afterwards but they played it straight. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-our-daughter-please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke/418626/25 "2007-09-10T03:22:00Z")
What they (I’m assuming, of course, that there’s one solitary person out there who creates **all** of the high quality parody sites…what?) need to do is cross-pollinate some of these sites. I would love a cross between this site and the old [manbeef.com](http://manbeef.com) - between dowry “by the pound” and the option to eat your bride if she didn’t (snerk) pan out for you, it would be a hoot. ---
**Author:** ![Fern\_Forest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/71c47a/32.png) [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-our-daughter-please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke/418626/26 "2007-09-10T03:24:35Z")
Here’s their keywords. “preteen, virgin, sex, teens, marriage, marry, slave, matchmaker, bride, mail-order, underage, young, money, naked, child, kids, daughter, teenage, juvenile, escort, buy” ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-our-daughter-please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke/418626/27 "2007-09-10T03:32:20Z")
[QUOTE=Pochacco] Ick, ick, ick. It’s a fundamentalist matchmaking site where Christian parents can post pics and bios of their teenage daughters (some as young as 13) along with how much dowry they’re worth. [/quote] They’re listing bride price not a dowry. Bride price is paid by the groom, or his family, to the family of the bride. A dowry is paid by the bride’s family to the groom or his family. Marc ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-our-daughter-please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke/418626/28 "2007-09-10T03:33:01Z")
My favorite: > [@](#): > > Sarah calls herself a Goth but we insisted she not dress in black for this photo. She reads and writes a lot of depressing poetry and it takes a lot to get her nose out of a book. She says she’s an Old Soul in a new young body and she’s already been married lots of times and she might die again tomorrow so why wait? Yeah, there’s nothing a girl like that wants more than to be married off to an older fundamentalist Christian. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-our-daughter-please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke/418626/29 "2007-09-10T03:36:51Z")
[QUOTE=Frank] Love the testimonials: [/QUOTE] That’s the one I was going to quote as strong evidence of hoaxifying. There’s an odd typo in the menu, though, saying “Sign up our daughter” when it should be “Sign up **your** daughter”. Also, the extensive rules for proposals, actively discouraging any opportunity for the man to identify himself (even unintentionally), suggests a plan to eventually publish some of the loopier ones with little or no editing required. ---
**Author:** ![Slacker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@Slacker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slacker)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-our-daughter-please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke/418626/30 "2007-09-10T03:49:32Z")
I’d use a spare email address if you’re testing it out for fun. Looks like a spam email address collector to me. ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-our-daughter-please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke/418626/31 "2007-09-10T03:55:30Z")
Jackpot! ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-our-daughter-please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke/418626/32 "2007-09-10T03:56:27Z")
[QUOTE=Larry Borgia] My favorite: Yeah, there’s nothing a girl like that wants more than to be married off to an older fundamentalist Christian. [/QUOTE] I hazard to guess that the poetry would get even darker, post-nuptials… ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-our-daughter-please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke/418626/33 "2007-09-10T04:04:16Z")
[QUOTE=eleanorigby] Where do I sign up? [/QUOTE] Buying or selling? [QUOTE=bubble pop electric] Somebody could fill out the proposal form and see what happens. [/quote] If it were not fake, someone would have done so and reported the result by now. Plus, if it were real, the owners would have come forward to say so by now. > [@](#): > > But yeah, the testimonials are pretty fake-sounding. They often do, even for real businesses. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-our-daughter-please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke/418626/34 "2007-09-10T04:15:51Z")
This _screams_ hoax. Especially the form for actually proposing. They’re obviously looking for the cheesiest answers they can find, and as mentioned above, they go to great pains to keep personal information out of it. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-our-daughter-please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke/418626/35 "2007-09-10T04:36:55Z")
It’s a hoax? Damnit. That first girl was kinda cute. ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-our-daughter-please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke/418626/36 "2007-09-10T05:19:10Z")
Hey folks? There’s a key point that everyone’s missing. No matter what state you’re in, marriage MUST be voluntary. Yes, judges in some states allow children under 18 to marry with their parents’ consent (usually when the underage girl is pregnant), but it would be a massive violation of the kid’s constitutional rights to let parents force an unwilling child into marriage. No. This is not real. ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-our-daughter-please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke/418626/37 "2007-09-10T05:40:00Z")
Can anyone loan me 30,000$ or so? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-our-daughter-please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke/418626/38 "2007-09-10T05:40:45Z")
But the impression given is that the girls are at least resigned to having themselves listed (ugh) on the site. If this is real, there might have been some coercion involved in getting them to agree, but not much more than the coercion they’ve lived with all their lives. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-our-daughter-please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke/418626/39 "2007-09-10T05:58:09Z")
[QUOTE=RandMcnally] It’s a hoax? Damnit. That first girl was kinda cute. [/QUOTE] They’re all attractive, in fact. Which right there tells you it’s a hoax. If it were real there’d be a normal percentage of dog and meh and average okay girls. Probably have higher prices on the really cute ones. ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-our-daughter-please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke/418626/40 "2007-09-10T06:22:02Z")
> [@Rilchiam](#): > > But the impression given is that the girls are at least resigned to having themselves listed (ugh) on the site. If this is real, there might have been some coercion involved in getting them to agree, but not much more than the coercion they’ve lived with all their lives. Even so, most states have an “age floor” below which, even if the kid wants to marry _and_ the parents want her to marry, there must be a finding of just cause before a judge will let them marry. “Just cause” doesn’t mean the judge finds that the state has no reason to object; it means the judge determines that the state has a pressing need to let these kids marry (again, usually pregnancy). These age-floors range from 12 to 17, but are rarely as low as 13, as the site suggests: > [@](#): > > Q: IS YOUR SERVICE LEGAL? > > A: Absolutely. Within the United States girls can marry as young as 13 years old with parental permission… And even in a situation where the kid isn’t fighting it and the parents are pushing it, the judge is going to take a pretty tough look at the situation before allowing the marriage, probably including a one-on-one interview with the kid, to make sure she’s capable of understanding what she’s getting into. There’s a strong policy interest in protecting children from this kind of obviously exploitative situation. In almost all family-law court determinations involving children, such as custody/visitation plans, the child’s best interest is the number-one priority. There was a fairly recent case (I can’t find cites now, as my law books are all packed away) in which a family moved here from a foreign country – Iraq? India? I forget – and tried to marry their daughter off when she was 12 or 13, and the state categorically refused to grant the license. This Web site’s plan would be no different. The site continues: > [@](#): > > …and the Bride Price is a custom of long standing, mentioned many times in the Bible, and as such is a protected religious practice. Yeah, good luck getting that to hold up in court. Incest, polygamy, and animal sacrifice are also old practices mentioned in the Bible. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-our-daughter-please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke/418626.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marry-our-daughter-please-tell-me-this-is-a-joke/418626.md?page=3)