Comment by martin8412
2 years ago
Apparently he went to North Africa and Italy. Plus he was what would be called a rapist today.
Mind you, I don't know if this is a reliable source.
https://thefederalist.com/2018/09/18/time-left-stop-idolizin...
I'm not really a fan of applying modern standards in historical contexts. Times change, but even today the age of consent is 16 in the UK. Condemning him for being 30+ and having sex with 15-16 year old boys just doesn't make sense to me. It seems people try to apply American puritanical standards to a historical person from Europe, who lived in the 1800s Victorian era.
If we were to apply modern standards, you should be condemning over 1B people around the planet for following the teachings of a 30yo+ guy who married a six year old girl.
Even if you accept that, the age difference and the hiring of poor boys as prostitutes makes a difference.
Differences of an year or two in age of consent is one thing and some variation is one thing. The article you link to mentions a 14 year old. How far will you take "it was acceptable in their culture". Child brides in modern Yemen or many other places? Romans being into little boys?
Legal does not mean socially acceptable either. 16 might keep you on the right side of the law here in the UK, but a 40 year old who is found to have had sex with a 16 year old is likely to be badly regarded.
> If we were to apply modern standards, you should be condemning over 1B people around the planet for following the teachings of a 30yo+ guy who married a six year old girl.
A lot of them claim he did not have sex with her until she was much older. I would condemnd them if they had sex with six year olds themselves.
It's complicated.
> and the hiring of poor boys as prostitutes makes a difference
I'd say absolutely yes, that is wrong, but at the time it was not considered so wrong. I understand the age of consent was introduced for girls to stop them being used as prostitutes, and some men at the time were against this legislation. The question is, who defines 'right'?
> Child brides in modern Yemen or many other places
Sadly in their eyes, this is considered acceptable, even good. In our eyes, and mine, it's unacceptable. How do we define 'right' in this context? If we are right then how do we make them understand they are wrong?
Why they do it is simple; it is done in their culture so it is right. I see exactly the same kind of thing appearing here on HN where somebody condemns something they don't like (e.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38981118) because "you're wrong because you're not right", essentially.
> but a 40 year old who is found to have had sex with a 16 year old is likely to be badly regarded
I'm not so sure. Such cases have existed, I remember on TV maybe 25 years ago a woman of 40 who married her husband of 16, it seemed to work and nobody seemed to upset about it. I personally knew of a couple, she was 19 and he was 60 and it was a good relationship while it lasted. I think people would take such age-unequal relationships on their own merits, and that is actually a good thing because otherwise it would just be intolerance.
Extremely informative, thanks. Agree with you about the difficulty of interpreting morality over timespans and cultures.