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> Yikes. I knew about him “marrying” his 13yo cousin, Much further down, the article clarifies that to "third cousin": "reporters learned that Lewis had marrie
by SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
> Yikes. I knew about him “marrying” his 13yo cousin,
Much further down, the article clarifies that to "third cousin": "reporters learned that Lewis had married his third cousin, Myra Gale Brown, the daughter of his bass player."
Third cousin marriage is a) legal and b) not genetically risky.
So the 13yo part is the dodgy part.
- nsajko 4y ago13-year-old cousin seems worse than 13-year-old nonrelative, given no other information, because of possible undue influence. I.e., Lewis could have had some power over his future wife as her relative. Also as her father's employer I assume? All in all, quite sketchy.
- BirAdam 4y agoThis was rural Eastern Louisiana, so I wonder how odd this would have been to people at the time. Also, his own first marriage was at the age of 16, and he had always spent a lot of time with cousins apparently. To further develop the image, his parents mortgaged their farm to buy his piano. I get an immediate sense of place and culture that was more similar to the victorian age than our modern world, or indeed other parts of the country at that same time.
- tsol 4y agoIt was scandalous at the time, so it was strange enough that people in that day made a stink about it.
- SideburnsOfDoom 4y agoScandalous in rural Eastern Louisiana, or Scandalous in NYC, LA etc?
- smegger001 4y agoalso changes moral standards between that time and place then and here and now are very large. the past is a foreign country, in the rural deep south doubly so.
- kennywinker 4y agoJust for the record, there is no foreign country where I think a 22 year old marrying a 13 year old is ok. It may be normal there, but it doesn't make it right. Keeping an eye on your cultural biases is fine and good, but there is a line - and child marriage is definitely on the far side of that line - and it always has been.