Child Bride Kills Husband and his 3 buddies

[Yarathir]

Pretty sure torture is the worst crime.

I think I'd rather get a quick death than be subjected to torture day after day, yeah.

[Puupi]

Yeah, such as music, art, food etc but they're the shallow parts of a culture. People, in many cases, refuse to look at the values a culture instills in people and the purpose of it.

Is this acceptable? Should this be tolerated?

I didn't mean food and music. I meant what is considered right and wrong, the meaning of life, the meaning of society. Those kind of things, which by the way, are vastly different from western countries. And what is done with weewees and dingdongs is just a minor detail in the whole big picture.

The problem is that the people who should be deciding are not allowed to decide. If this girl had decided to get married then you wouldn't have this outcry.

A 14 year old is not in the position of making the decision whether or not she should be married. That's the Nigerian/muslim view and this is the point of the whole discussion. Her PARENTS had the power to make the decision, it was not the girl's to make. Her parents made the decision, so if the girl didn't like the decision, she should have taken the issue to her parents, not the husband.

[Yarathir]

"Live free or die."

There are actually many people who consider sex slavery to be a fate worse than death.

Die free or live shackled?

[Bullderp]

(Got to page 22 before I realized this thread is going faster than what I can read, so sorry if I missed something crucial in the last 20 pages.)

Karma is a two-way street, methinks. Those who are prepared to rape, or condone raping, a child in a forced marriage are not on the high end of shining examples of humanity. What the girl did was done out of desperation... though based on what I can see from the article itself, she did what she did more because she simply didn't love the guy, not because she was frightened of the horrible thing that was going to take place that night. I say that because motive should be factored into the situation, even if we ourselves can find other reasons to justify what she did. She wasn't scared of (or perhaps even comprehended) any idea of rape; she simply didn't love the guy. Does that as a motive merit killing him, 3 others (1 of which was a woman at the feast, not an accomplice), and poisoning 14 people in all... some of which may not have even been at the feast by their own choice? (Remember, if we're talking about a nation which promotes forced marriage, and women have no say, what choice did the other wives have in being there? Are they acceptable 'collateral damage'?)

I suppose what I'm saying is we can fistpump the deaths of the three evil little shits all we want, but we have to consider that the girl may possibly be deserving of whatever punishment the legal system doles out for her too. NOT because she was going to be the victim of rape, but because she didn't give two shits about that and simply wanted out of something she didn't care to be in.

Again, to reiterate, I am NOT saying forced marriage is okay. I am NOT saying rape is okay. I might even be more empathetic to the girl had that been her motive. But it wasn't. She just wanted out because "she didn't love him."

Motive matters, folks.

[Fexus]

That's a type of question I really don't like answering as I think the answer is dependent on other things, such as whether or not a society has any sort of purpose. Instead, I'll say it's probably pretty hard to justify high levels of authoritarianism and social inequality over high levels of individualism and equality. I also want to be clear that I'm not in this thread to preach ethical relativism.

I'm being genuine here, because I want to better understand where we agree and disagree. I am fully comfortable saying western practices on marriage are ethically superior to those of Nigeria. Some might use this, however, to say Americans or Europeans are ethically superior, but nothing could be further from the truth. Our ethical thinking is also completely burdened by the environments and presuppositions that we were raised with. I would argue that we are capable of making ethical objective judgments about certain practices. Humans will no doubt have certain biases when approaching an ethical dilemma, but I firmly believe we have to ability to overcome those biases and discover ethical truths.

[Goradan]

Pretty sure torture is the worst crime.

I have to agree on that. We all gonna die sometime but to torture someone to the point of no-return is the same as making life a living hell for them permanently.

[Yarathir]

I have to agree on that. We all gonna die sometime but to torture someone to the point of no-return is the same as making life a living hell for them permanently.

Exactly. There's the point where you break someone so much that they'd rather die than live on.. so I'd consider continuous torture without relief or without a hope of escape worse than death.

[Varyk]

A hero, quite simply a hero, if more young girls had the courage to stand up to these rapists(not saying this is an easy task in any way) they might think twice about forcing others against their wishes.

It's not rape in their culture, but she still murder. Being 14 doesn't make it okay to murder 4 people, 3 of whom have likely done nothing wrong except be present.

This was in Nigeria correct? (article says Nigeria), where this is common and not against the law? There isn't any room for morality on this issue.

[AndaliteBandit]

It's not rape in their culture

Do you think that personally made her feel any less raped?

[Deleted]

A 14 year old is not in the position of making the decision whether or not she should be married. That's the Nigerian/muslim view and this is the point of the whole discussion.

If she is not old enough to make the decision on marriage then she is not old enough to be married. Is that not the logical position to have on these things?

Her PARENTS had the power to make the decision, it was not the girl's to make. Her parents made the decision, so if the girl didn't like the decision, she should have taken the issue to her parents, not the husband.

Firstly, the husband being the person she's married to is the exact person she should have taken it up with.
Secondly, she did what she did to get out of the marriage. If she'd killed her parents she'd still be married.

It's not rape in their culture, but she still murder. Being 14 doesn't make it okay to murder 4 people, 3 of whom have likely done nothing wrong except be present..

Rape is not a cultural thing or solely a legal one (unlike murder). Rape is rape regardless of what a culture believes about consent, since it is based on whether both parties wanted part in the activity.

Also it is illegal in Nigeria for her to be married.

[Puupi]

If she is not old enough to make the decision on marriage then she is not old enough to be married. Is that not the logical position to have on these things?

That's a very simplistic way of thinking things. Just an example: a child doesn't understand that he needs to wear a helmet when he is driving a bicycle, yet the parents force him to do so. Is this wrong?

Muslim and African society don't see marriage and sex the same way we do, so don't try to wrap around things with your own moral code and western mindset.

Firstly, the husband being the person she's married to is the exact person she should have taken it up with.
Secondly, she did what she did to get out of the marriage. If she'd killed her parents she'd still be married.

If she had killed her parents she wouldn't have been married in the first place.

Stupid and biased logic.

[Goradan]

(Got to page 22 before I realized this thread is going faster than what I can read, so sorry if I missed something crucial in the last 20 pages.)

Karma is a two-way street, methinks. Those who are prepared to rape, or condone raping, a child in a forced marriage are not on the high end of shining examples of humanity. What the girl did was done out of desperation... though based on what I can see from the article itself, she did what she did more because she simply didn't love the guy, not because she was frightened of the horrible thing that was going to take place that night. I say that because motive should be factored into the situation, even if we ourselves can find other reasons to justify what she did. She wasn't scared of (or perhaps even comprehended) any idea of rape; she simply didn't love the guy. Does that as a motive merit killing him, 3 others (1 of which was a woman at the feast, not an accomplice), and poisoning 14 people in all... some of which may not have even been at the feast by their own choice? (Remember, if we're talking about a nation which promotes forced marriage, and women have no say, what choice did the other wives have in being there? Are they acceptable 'collateral damage'?)

I suppose what I'm saying is we can fistpump the deaths of the three evil little shits all we want, but we have to consider that the girl may possibly be deserving of whatever punishment the legal system doles out for her too. NOT because she was going to be the victim of rape, but because she didn't give two shits about that and simply wanted out of something she didn't care to be in.

Again, to reiterate, I am NOT saying forced marriage is okay. I am NOT saying rape is okay. I might even be more empathetic to the girl had that been her motive. But it wasn't. She just wanted out because "she didn't love him."

Motive matters, folks.

True, motive is a key factor in this. But believe what she did not matter how it was, was justified. Most of the victims wouldn't bat an eyelid for the sick things that would happen to her and for what you said about karma. I thinks that the guest deserved to suffer but not die form the poison. However they are just as bad as the husband for joining and condoling such behaviour. Remember the whole about bulling? Well it's the same in this scenario, letting someone harass other's your effectively taking the bully's side.

[Khiva]

It's not rape in their culture, but she still murder. Being 14 doesn't make it okay to murder 4 people, 3 of whom have likely done nothing wrong except be present.

This was in Nigeria correct? (article says Nigeria), where this is common and not against the law? There isn't any room for morality on this issue.

Legality and morality aren't the same thing. Not even close.
Frankly, the guy was planning to rape and enslave a 14 year old girl. He deserved to die, and everyone there was complicit in it by not only refusing to try stopping it, but by showing their support for it by being there.

[zephid]

I think I'd rather get a quick death than be subjected to torture day after day, yeah.

But murder doesn't have to be quick and torture might eventually stop.

[Goradan]

It's not rape in their culture, but she still murder. Being 14 doesn't make it okay to murder 4 people, 3 of whom have likely done nothing wrong except be present.

This was in Nigeria correct? (article says Nigeria), where this is common and not against the law? There isn't any room for morality on this issue.

You call her a murder for this?! A child a murder to protect herself from being raped?!! I'm just speechless

[LookingGlass]

Explain again the good bits of Islam.

[Fexus]

I said what I meant. My distaste for answering such a question has little to do with who asks it and I think it's generally a bad question without first establishing other things. Anyways, I think we're mostly in the same place. I wasn't saying it's literally impossible for someone to expand outside of their culture, but the condemnation of this person as somehow morally deficient compared to the people condemning him completely ignores the culture he was raised in, as well as how morals develop. Even if it's possible to establish certain things as moral, whether or not they're a 180° against cultural norms, it's still going to have to be precipitated by something and will not just happen spontaneously. If this guy maybe wasn't raised in a way that is conducive to thinking for himself or never had a particular type of experience that encourages him to think about it, it would be unreasonable to expect him to just suddenly come to the conclusion that "Oh fuck, I'm a terrible person." Furthermore, because religion is involved and forms an often times unquestionable foundation to a world view, that further encourages not considering whether or not something is acceptable. "Well why is it OK? God said it's OK and that's all I need to know."

I would mostly agree. For example, I can't help but feel like the term rape is being thrown around a little liberally in this (as well as pedophilia, the correct term would be hebephila or ehebephilia). If you looked at fMRI scans of a rapist who abducts teenage girls and tortures, and a man who is "given" a teenage wife in an arranged marriage, you would get some very different readings. While both practices are despicable, I don't believe they are at the same level. I believe calling the second situation rape is somewhat disingenuous.

[Yarathir]

But murder doesn't have to be quick.

Then the pain you are subjected to is the worst part of it. When you are not killed, you either receive help and you are freed from being tortured, or you are helpless and can't escape it. In the latter case, I'd rather die in pain than endure more of it. Like I said.. it can break someone's will to live.

[zephid]

Explain again the good bits of Islam.

There are a lot of "good" bits and there are "bad" bits, same with Christianity.

[Deleted]

That's a very simplistic way of thinking things. Just an example: a child doesn't understand that he needs to wear a helmet when he is driving a bicycle, yet the parents force him to do so. Is this wrong?

A child not wearing a helmet is at risk of being harmed also children usually can and do understand that if they don't wear a helmet they can be hurt. Thus the two do not match.

If she had killed her parents she wouldn't have been married in the first place.

She killed the people after she was married after the fact to get out of it. Killing her parents after the marriage would not have had that effect and killing them pre-marriage would have been pointless.

So please do think things through before you call me stupid. It doesn't reflect well on you.

You call her a murder for this?! A child a murder to protect herself from being raped?!! I'm just speechless

She is technically a murderer since the killing was unlawful.