Good Christian Folks

In a strange alien country, ruled by a fanatical oligarchy and riven with religious zealotry, a woman has claimed that she was raped as a child, became pregnant and was forced into marriage. In fifty-four per cent of the strange alien country's federal states, there is no lower limit on the age at which people can be married. About nine and a half million women in the strange alien country were married before the age of sixteen and, doubtless owing to the resulting spiritual exaltation, tend to suffer a higher incidence of psychiatric disorder. "You can’t get a job, you can’t get a car, you can’t get a license, you can’t sign a lease," the alleged rape victim said, "so why allow someone to marry when they’re still so young?" Of course, this misses the point: there is no question of allowing children to marry, but only of allowing their parents to marry them off. That's what freedom of conscience is all about, as a recent presidential hopeful observed after vetoing a bill that would have outlawed child marriage. In this regard, the strange and alien country remains closer to the good old ways than the head-chopping House of Saud, which imposed a legal minimum age of eighteen as long ago as 2013. All things considered, it seems fortunate that this particular strange and alien country is one with which we share only a few of our values. I certainly wouldn't approve of its much-married mullah holding hands with any dead-eyed warden of mine.