I have to admit it. As a non-aficionado of boxing, I had never heard of Heavyweight boxer Tyson Fury, and I certainly did not know he had a 16-year old daughter Venezuela Fury.
According to the London Daily Mail, which pays attention to such matters, this weekend 16-year old daughter Venezuela got married in the Isle of Man. Apparently, she had been “dating” her future husband since she was 15 – and we all know that means young Venezuela, like so many of her peers, had been bopping like a bunny at a rather young age.
I am struck by the inconsistencies in our world. If an Epstein pays a 17-year old sexually active female who offers her services voluntarily, that female becomes a “victim” – at least in the hands of the greedy lawyers suing the Epstein estate. However, if a sexually active 16-year old chooses to marry her current squeeze, that is a matter for celebration. Space aliens are going to have a lot of trouble trying to understand the mores of 21st Century humans.
The world is full of inconsistencies and contradictions. The current age of consent is rather elderly in a historical and biological context. The age of menarche was in the early to mid teens in the premodern era, suggesting readiness for reproduction. This is mirrored in coming-of-age rituals for girls such as the sweet sixteen party or the quinceañera (age 15), when a girl becomes a woman, adopting women’s attire.
Paying or coercing a young woman is a somewhat different matter. Aside from the undeniably creepy element of these old guys leering (not to be confused with learing) over girls, it’s not clear that the young women on Epstein’s island were really choosing freely. The (ever diminishing) libertarian in me says that prostitution is okay because it’s a transaction between consenting adults. However, there is some real social damage when people do whatever they want even if it does not appear to harm others. Drugs and prostitution do cause social harms; life is not just a series of economic transactions.
Humans should have a problem understanding this behavior, too.
In the course of researching an article about common law marriage, I came across this incident:
A pregnant 16 year old girl, her mother, and her babydaddy come to a magisterial district justice (Y’know, what used to be called Justice of the Peace.),present their marriage license, and ask the JP to perform the wedding ceremony (exchange of vows). In this jurisdiction at this time, people could get married at 16, with parental consent. But all the JP saw was that this lad, who was a few years older than the girl, had been screwing with an under-16 year old girl. He made some excuse and told them to come back the next morning. They did, and Hizzoner had police waiting to arrest the father.
Good goin’ judge! You encountered a couple who wanted to form a family, a boy who wanted to live with his wife and child, and turned it into a single mother whose dad would probably never even be allowed to live with his child.
It’s too asinine. There is nothing more natural than a 15 or 16 year old girl wanting to make love and getting pregnant. But for the last thirty years or so, when that completely predictable scenario occurs, marriage is the last thing on anybody’s mind.
When the space aliens arrive, I am going to sign up with the strong horse — or at least try. We have to assume the space aliens have been receiving and studying the digital London Daily Mail during their long coast towards Earth, and will presumably ask would-be compradors for explanations to check if we might be useful to them.
On the one hand, we have a sexually active 17-year old female who with solid commercial sense negotiates $10,000 to spend 10 minutes with Prince Andrew (“the worst ten minutes of my life”, she said). It was a purely-voluntary one-time transaction, her body her choice. But officialdom (and her lawyers) say that she was a few days short of having the maturity to make such an over-and-done one-time transaction.
On the other hand, we have a sexually active 16-year old female whom officialdom says has the maturity to make a life-long legally-binding commitment.
I am afraid my response to the space aliens would have to be – Nuke us from orbit; we deserve it.
I am struck by one particular inconsistency that explains the rest of the “inconsistencies”:
Supremacists tell people that they are “supremacists” if they want to assortatively migrate to be among those who share their strongly held beliefs about the best kind of environment in which to raise their children.
This isn’t the old saw of “accuse others of that which you are doing” or “gaslighting” or “hypocrisy” or “inconsistency”.
All of that can be consistent with not being a supremacist.
The first country to privatize government by replacing votes with a citizen’s dividend wins.