Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes
Child marriage does not seem to be confined only to the mountains of Tennessee. The marriage of the little nine-year-old girl in that state, however, brought to light the marriage of a twelve-year-old girl in New York State. It seems inconceivable that parents should countenance a practice of this kind unless food is so short that one mouth taken out of the home counterbalances all other arguments. Certainly no one in their sane senses would want a child of nine to be married, and the publicity which has attended this marriage we may well hope will result not only in the passing but in the enforcement of laws requiring that children under a certain definite age may not be married. We have all heard with horror of the child marriages in India, and it is rather a shock to find that we are open to the same criticism in our extremely modern country.
Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884-1962, First Lady (Franklin Delano Roosevelt), U. S. Delegate to the United Nations, Column, My Day, February 10, 1937
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Responding to a proposed bill that would raise the minimum age of marriage to 18. Underage marriage was then a serious problem in the United States. Many children, even under 12, were forced into marriage by their parents--usually to older men. At the time, 27 states set no true minimum age for marriage, and nine states set age limits below 16.
She had urged that the age of consent be raised from 13 to 18 when one of the Lords responded that it should be LOWERED to 10.
Physiologically a very young girl is often capable of getting pregnant, but physiologically is not able to bear children without high risk to both children. A similar risk pattern exists with women over the age of 40. While there are a number of Islamic countries that do sanction pedophilia within marriage, there is nothing inherent in Islamic theology that justifies this. Modern Islamic nations like Turkey and other Muslim majority nations do not allow marriage at such a young age. Also, it was not to long ago, in historical time, that Christian nations also sanctioned marriage to very young girls.
The Mormon Church did not in condone the practice, but as there were a number of Mormons who led offshoot sects and cults where they claimed that the sexual relations with multiple young girls was divinely inspired, she and other Mormons believed that the Church should be more explicit about prohibiting the practice. There are a number of Mormon offshoot sects where civil authorities charged clerics with statutory rape and other sex crimes. One delicate area of history is that the Prophet and founder of the Morman Religion was a polygamist whose wives included a 14 year old girl and Money and other Mormons wanted the Chruch to declare the the Prophet had erred in this respect.
This quotation illustrates the Catch 22 dilemma that faces a minority. Black slaves were not allowed to marry and have formal families. After the Civil War racists warned against Blacks who had no respect for marriage monogamy end civil family life. See {619099} But when the slaves were freed and the ex slaves attempted to formalize and solemnize their marriages, they were castigated for that – acting like white people.
Young said when Utah was admitted as a state, it would then have this right
Later in the same document, he calculates the age by which a girl should be married as nine (9) years old. However, many Islamic countries have been under pressure from their educated populations and women’s groups to set a higher age as a minimum. Sharia scholars in the latter part of the 20th century tend to have moved the age up to 12, but many countries will not even make that a minimum. Yemen for example ‘recommended’ 15 but leaves it up to the girl’s parent to pick the exact age which very often is under 15 and in some cases as low as the 9 that Khomeini recommended.
Billinghurst was physically handicapped without the use of her legs. She protested and marched in protest parades using a hand propelled tricycle which the police sometimes dumped her out of and left her immobile in alleys.
The law at that time gave a married woman almost no rights. The husband legally controlled the family assets regardless of who had earned or provided them. He aslo had absolute control of the upbringing of the children. Women could not vote and in many states were considered property of the husband.
This editorial was an excellent summary of the issue of Mormon polygamy where both sides are described. The Thugs were a violent religious sect in India where females were forced into marriage.
Lambert’s quotation is a classic example of some religious extremists who honestly believe that if a government does not legally prohibit something that their faith believes is a sin that the government is firmly endorsing that behavior rather than being neutral about it. So they believe that by making homosexual marriage legal, the government is brain washing the community including children to “believe in” the behavior as a very wholesome and beneficial behavior. This would imply that by allowing alcohol to be sold in the state, the government is brainwashing citizens including children to drink. Or that the state is endorsing adultery because it is no longer a crime. Most of the Christian Religious Extremists are very selective over what sins the government should prohibit. Children who do not honor and respect their parents is actually a capital crime in the Bible, but there is no serious religious effort to criminalize the behavior or to all fathers to execute their misbehaving children.
This was an amazingly controversial quotation. At first glance it seemed like a typical position that a very conservative, anti-government politicization might take—the government should not interfere with a parents bringing up their children. However, there was a more ominous part of the quotations. While everyone in America would certainly agree with Paul that the Government does not “own” the children, there are few who would agree with the point that follows—that the Parents “own” the child. Paul reveals the normally hidden aspect of his politics—that he is highly influenced by the extreme, Biblical Literalist Fundamentalist Christians and Jews. In the Old Testament, the Father really did OWN the child. The latter was his chattel. A father had the legal and duty-bound power of life and death over his children. Most American Christians and Jews have long since abandoned the literal biblical notion of children being owned by a father and today see a child as a person who can sometimes need the protection of the state just like any other citizen. And there are occasions where the child must be PROTECTED from the parents who may be acting within their fundamentalist notions of Biblical rights and duties, but not with their civil rights and duties. Ownership, of a child is not one of the modern civil rights of parents.
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was an American political figure, diplomat and activist. She served as the First Lady of the United States from March 4, 1933, to April 12, 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four terms in office, making her the longest-serving First Lady of the United States. Roosevelt served as United States Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1945 to 1952. President Harry S. Truman later called her the "First Lady of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements.
