But Terrence, you are being very anthropological, and I wasn't talking anthropology. Obviously if it's just fine with everybody, no chaos ensues, no blighted or ruined lives, no hopes blasted, no ambitions thwarted, no exploitation of the child's parents (as caregivers to babies born)... well shure, no probleme. Cultures have their reasons.
The hypothetical I gave you was specifically written with reference to a culture I suspect is shared by you, nihil and me; one that entails a great emotional and financial investment in an individual child, and particular expectations, or at least particular hopes, for her to have a happy, fulfilled future, a future that allows her to choose among a number of paths to fulfillment. (She might have wanted, since she was seven, to be a veterinarian, for example; or a ballet dancer; or an athlete.)
You don't seem to have been willing to entertain the scenario; or maybe you did. Maybe if you had a 14 year old daughter, one you'd raised carefully and well, you'd slap the randy male neighbors of all ages on the back and say, "Go ahead, and come back any ol' time you feel like it, in fact tomorrow is just fine!," when they dropped by and invited the dear girl to go to the drive-in with them....
But I don't think so. I think you'd protect her from those circling males because she is a child, still, and you know she is too young to make decisions that will affect her whole life when under the influence of newly-felt physical desires and the sway of an authority figure like a teacher.
At least I hope you would protect her.
Of course you would. |
