Strangely our society dictates what maturity level a thirteen year old has. I have been around, I have lived and studied abroad for many years. Also anthropology was one of my fields of study in university, I didn't pursue it all the way through and have no degree in it, but I have taken more than my fair share of anthropological courses. In cultures that do practice marrying their daughters off at thirteen, you would be impressed how mature of a thirteen year old they are. I do not believe there is a set time in a humans life when he or she truly becomes and adult, but that they become adults once they are treated as an adult. In America a thirteen year old has very few responsibilities, in a culture that would have her married as a teenager you can bet she is given far more responsibilities than the typically thirteen year old any of us would be likely to meet here in the western world. You also mentioned the oddity of arranged marriages, I once though exactly as you on the subject, but after studying different cultures I have concluded that it is just that merely different. If you look at the divorce rate in the western world and compare it to the divorce rate in places with arranged marriages you are sure to find an extreme difference. You could argue that this is for several reasons, one of which being the woman does not have the option to separate from her husband. I agree that this is likely a large factor in the lower percentage of failed marriages, but I believe there is more to it than that. I have read many articles of male Indian immigrants returning home so that they can marry a woman their parents choose for them. To them it is just normal, and in most cases it not a matter of sending some poor girl off to get married to some jerk who will own her for the rest of her life. A lot more care and delicacy is taken by both families to find suitable mates for their children. Though this is never portrayed in Western movies. A common theme is the couple who fall in love but can't be married because she is betrothed to somebody else. This is not as realistic of a situation as you might think, but nonetheless has been known to happen on occasion.

Originally posted by: TheCassidy

Originally posted by: sean wookie
Even though it is wrong I don't recommend lynching them. That makes you no better than them.

Wait till you have kids of your own some day. You'll change your tune.

Whoa! I didn't see that post by Sean. If somebody ever touched my kids in that way I wouldn't hesitate to slit their throat, but not until after I shoved their own balls down it.

Lynch the hell out of 'em, it is a lot better than they deserve. I fail to see how that makes us as bad as them. They assault and molest a helpless child, and because they are treated badly for this we have become as bad as them? Even in the extreme case of a father murdering a man who molested his little boy, how does that make the father as bad as the molester? The molester being an adult with the ability to fight back and defend himself, and the child having been helpless and innocent and preyed upon for that very reason, I fail to see what makes the father so evil for having an emotional reaction to this injustice and lynching the man.