Teen marriage auction — is it legal?
Posted
September 13, 2007 at
1:06 pm by
Jessica
UPDATE:
Apparently, I was not in on the gag and made a buttinski outta myself for falling for it…the following is not a real site. (Thank you Vic, the commenter, for pointing this out.)
——————————–
I was recently alerted to a website called “Marry Our Daughter“, where it features girls between the ages 14 and 17, along with their pictures and with price tags that range between $4,000 - $100,000 (dowry), asking men to marry them for the fee listed.
Where is this organization and where are these girls from? America! That’s right. The good ol’ USA. I thought for sure this most be an offshore site, because clearly this can’t be legal.
Here’s an ad direct from their homepage:
Kyra A.
Age: 14 ½,
Location: SoutheastBride Price:
$27,995
Located on their FAQ page:
Q: IS YOUR SERVICE LEGAL?
A: Absolutely. Within the United States girls can marry as young as 13 years old with parental permission, and the Bride Price is a custom of long standing, mentioned many times in the Bible, and as such is a protected religious practice. Click HERE for a listing of the age limits and legal requirements in various states. Click HERE for what the Bible says on Bride Price.Q: WHAT IS A BRIDE PRICE?
A: The bride price is an ancient custom, somewhat like a dowry. A man wishing to marry a woman would offer her family a Bride Price in cash or kind, or sometimes offer to work for their family.
I am horrified. If this is legal, why hasn’t this been exposed on Dateline or 20/20? Isn’t that what those tabloid news shows are supposed to do? Tell us about horrors that we never knew existed?
And, of course, they present themselves as Bible thumping fundamentalists that are prostituting these girls for the sake of God.
Crazy. This has got to be a pedophiles paradise. Where is the DCFS in all this?
Tags: age-of-consent, bride-price, child-brides, dowry, fundamentalists, Parenting, predators |
8 Responses to “Teen marriage auction — is it legal?”
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Leave a comment
Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately in an effort to remove commercial messages, irrelevancies, excessive foul language, racist/sexist/hateful comments, spoofed/cloaked IPs and/or personal attacks and will be edited/deleted at our discretion. Thank you for your patience.
1. Rita said:
September 13, 2007 @ 3:17 pm
Well, since the parents are the girls’ guardians, and the laws in the states allow them to do this, then, well…honestly “marriage” does not legally entitle the husband to sex. So, the girl could refuse sex and if the husband forces her to, then she could charge him with marital rape and get a divorce and then she’d be free. Or put in foster care, where she’d very likely be better off than with her own parents.
I’m sure it’s protected under some religious right.
2. Vic said:
September 13, 2007 @ 8:49 pm
This is a parody site. The person who owns the site says they are doing it to highlight the discrepencies in US marriage laws-particularly that allow very young girls to marry with parental consent.
The good news is that the site is a fake. One will have to decide if they think the site was a good way to point out the legal issues.
3. Vic said:
September 13, 2007 @ 8:49 pm
[quote comment="108910"]This is a parody site. The person who owns the site says they are doing it to highlight the discrepencies in US marriage laws-particularly that allow very young girls to marry with parental consent.
The good news is that the site is a fake. One will have to decide if they think the site was a good way to point out the legal issues.[/quote]
Sorry, I meant to leave a link to the NYT article about it. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/marryourdaughters.com/
4. Rita said:
September 14, 2007 @ 7:39 am
LOL, well, that’s a relief! But, I guess it does speak volumes about the particular culture in mention if people don’t immediately recognize that as a parody. Like, well, it could be true!
5. ibc said:
October 22, 2007 @ 2:38 pm
“This is a parody site.”
When you say “this”, do you mean the “MarryOurDaughters” site, or “ImperfectParent”?
6. Allison said:
October 22, 2007 @ 4:53 pm
Oh, this place is no parody site, I’ll tell ya’.
We are some seriously screwed up people, here.
Now run away!
7. Jessica said:
October 22, 2007 @ 4:58 pm
[quote comment="115892"]When you say “this”, do you mean the “MarryOurDaughters” site, or “ImperfectParent”?[/quote]
Jealous much?
8. ibc said:
October 23, 2007 @ 9:17 am
Jealous much?
Ohmygod!!1! This newspaper reported the Sears Tower has been attacked!!
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/conceptual_terrorists_encase_sears
I look forward to the day that your child is finally able to explain the concept of irony to you someday.