There's a "marriage" bed in a temple with rumpled sheets and a strand of female hair, which may well have belonged to a young girl forced to marry a much older man who probably already has any number of wives. And we're horrified.
Should we be? Yes.
Should we be surprised? No. Not at all.
Polygamy, sexual relations with young children, and incestuous relations all have long historical roots in patriarchy. Brother/sister, father/daughter, and mother/son relationships were practiced among royalty during the Pharaonic and Ptolemic periods in ancient Egypt. One well-known sibling spouse was Cleopatra. Ancient Greece elevated the practice of relations with young boys to an art. Going to our Judeo-Christian roots, the Old Testament reveals polygamy was not at all unusual. Abraham, Jacob, Esau, and David all had multiple wives. There was randy King Solomon, with his 700 wives (one of whom was his sister) and 300 concubines. Then there were Lot's daughters, who each had sex with their father to ensure their lineage.
Later Christianity condoned polygamy at certain times. In 1650, the parliament at Nurnberg said that because so many men were killed in the Thirty Years' War, every man was allowed to marry up to ten women. In Islam today, polygamy is allowed within the limit that men can only have up to four wives at any one time, as long as they can be equally well supported.
It's no wonder that polygamy, as well as sex with relatives and young children, is a part of our cellular memory, passed down through the generations, in all cultures and at all levels of the socio-economic spectrum.
The raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints compound in Eldorado, Texas, while bringing polygamy into media focus, also has the potential, according to ABC News, to "unravel what could be the country's largest child abuse case in the nation's history."
But child abuse is hardly news, or new. It is certainly not only a splinter LDS group that forces young girls to have sexual relations. No one is immune. No child is safe.
The most frequently quoted incidence of childhood sexual abuse in the U.S. is one out of every three girls and one out of every five to seven boys, although it is acknowledged that many many cases are not reported because of secrecy and privacy, and the incidence may actually be at least 60 percent for girls and 45 percent for boys.
I know this all too well. Up until the time I was twelve years old, I was abused by my father, and by a priest at the Catholic school I attended.
I know what it can do to your life. In my case, it led to sexual promiscuity as a teen and young woman, addictions to alcohol and Valium, an eating disorder, and a variety of illnesses and allergies -- all common when we're trying to keep such potent information secret. It was only when I got cancer in my mid-twenties that I stopped running away and started bringing my awareness to the root cause of my difficulties -- a long strenuous process that was well worth the effort.
The burden of shame that comes from incest (estimates from 1992 showed 20 million Americans had been the victims of parental incest as children) and childhood sexual abuse in general ruins the lives of both victims and perpetrators.
Those who experience sexual abuse, whether girls or boys, are prone to low self-esteem, trouble with relationships, sexual dysfunction, are three time more likely to suffer from depression, 6 times more likely to have post-traumatic stress disorder, 13 times more likely to abuse alcohol, 26 times more likely to abuse drugs. There is also a far greater risk of suicide.
Not a pretty picture.
The children from the Texas compound were psychologically imprisoned. Their abuse was not confined to sex; they were also beaten, brainwashed to be terrified of the outside world, given little education, and basically treated as possessions. The motto seems to have been that old throwback: Keep 'em barefoot and pregnant from as early an age as possible. Their entry into the "outside" world will not be easy.
What can we do to bring this scourge out from under the sheets and into awareness? We can stop keeping it so secret. When we begin to expose the truth of what so many of us have experienced, when we develop compassion for both the victims and the perpetrators (who in almost all cases were abused themselves), we can start to heal.
As I crisscross the country, working with thousands of people at events where they share their secrets with me, I know that many of our addictions, our illnesses, and our crimes can be traced to the abuse we suffered as children. How different would our society be if we could remove the trance of shame that keeps childhood sexual abuse under cover? Would women, like those at the compound, stop accepting their place as second class citizens?
Would your daughter or son be safer, grow up happier and healthier?
I'd like to think so.
Follow Deborah King on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Deborah_King
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/crime/stories/DN-clubs_27met.ART.West.Edition1.1589397.html
They can pay 12 year olds to strip for 50 year old men and don't lose their license, but then you have this Gestapo-esque raid on a compound based on a highly questionable and still unidentified 'source' calling in.
It's all very, very fishy if you ask me.
Any illegal behavior among the FLDS must be punished. And any child that is abused must be protected. But I don't think I'm alone in thinking the way this has all been handled is extremely troubling. It's not "innocent until proven guilty" in El Dorado. The state just marched in and stole hundreds of kids away from families without any proof whatsoever that they had been abused. I find that deeply, deeply troubling. CPS is acting like the gestapo. If they can do this, they have far too much power.
In a society that trains little girls to dress like whores starting in elementary school, turns women into sex objects, and glorifies violence against them, I find it hard to believe that people are worried about a teenager getting married to someone for any reason other than already being pregnant. I respect the state laws, and I don't condone statutory rape in any circumstance, but I think the government should show much more respect and deference toward these families. They should follow routine procedures, and punish the guilty while preserving the rights of the innocent. I fear that they have utterly devastated these families, and that they may have caused permanent damage to a lot of kids that never have been and never would have been abused.
By having more people write blogs like this!
I echo many of your sentiments and say thank you for being so open about the abuse of your past. Once again ... this brings to light the point of "religion" being a cover for whatever the larger agenda of the "cult" is currently propagating. Personally I think the only thing worse than murder would be abusing or torturing a child ... when you ad the religion brain washing twist it is enough to send chills down my spine.
Great post!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Inside
No birth control, all men are allowed to have women, sounds great but on the other hand
no privacy, no things, no traveling, drugs to keep you in line, always inside, never outside, no other living species of animals, kinda shocking really.
How dare you expose the fact that this is not still, "the greatest Country on Earth". Why do I keep hearing these words when they are not true? It can be, once again, but will require more effort than the current generation is willing to give.
They prefer to rely on "Hope" and "Change" instead of advice and experience from "the greatest generation" who are dying out and abdicating their responsibilities to the young.
It makes my blood boil when our elected leaders tell us on T.V. that they support a particular candidate because their children told them to. Children who were given "social promotions" and told they should "feel good about themselves" even if they couldn't read and write because our public education system was "dumbed down" to allow everyone to pass into society with a public education.
I become afraid when I witness the improper grammer, pidgen english, and mis-spelled words on this Blog and realize these are the future leaders of the Country. These are the people who profess to be the young, college educated first time voters that we are entrusting to elect the next President of the United States. God help us all!
Another was molested by her father around 10 to 13, usually while giving her a bath (she had polio), with the bathroom door locked. He was a captain in the fire dep't of Salem Oregon.
A third was molested when her mother would leave her home alone around 6 to 10 years of age, by an uncle who lived with them. They were fairly poor, and she said she had precocious sexual maturity, developing breasts around 6 or 7. She later became a stripper at the Squirrel Cage in Santa Maria, CA, and died in an apparent suicidal car crash, attempting a U-turn on hwy 101 in San Luis Obispo at around 90 mph with an unknown man in her car.
I think this sort of thing is far more common than people like to admit.
Mainstream media generally do not use the word "marriage" to describe the coming together of two consenting, committed adults of the same gender. Yet this word, which give some weight and validity to the relationship, is acceptable to describe a relationship which abuses and exploits girls.
This seems like one more symptom of misogeny; our culture still does not deeply value the worth of women and girls.
In the case of religious perpetrators like the thugs in Texas where the psychological power is all in the hands of the rapists, I believe that conviction and castration should go hand in hand.
I work with civilly committed sexually violent predators. As their therapist, I am privy to their stories. They give me nightmares. You would be surprised (and disgusted) by the "creativity" some of these men possess. Sadly, there seems to be no end to the list of things that can be inserted into an orifice..
Since Ms King is a survivor of child abuse, studied the law & was an attorney & now is engaged in a helping profession-she is a unique position to understand what a survivor of child abuse is forced to endure. She tells a chiling tale & analysises this wretched continuing problem of child abuse. It isn't pleasant to read Ms King's well written blog. She wanted to show how awful the crime of child abuse is; well done, Ms King
larry lynch
The best we can hope for is to train our children (from the youngest age possible) the skills they need to be safe in an unsafe environment. As far as I can see, that training is behind the desparate need for it. Life is good, but not without its monsters.