Police in Greenfield, California arrested a man on Sunday for planning to sell his 14-year-old daughter’s hand in marriage to her boyfriend for $16,000, 160 cases of beer, 100 cases of soda, 50 cases of Gatorade, two cases of wine, and six cases of meat. Marcelino de Jesus Martinez, 36, was taken into custody after calling the police to report that his daughter’s 18-year-old boyfriend had not lived up to the deal. The would-be groom has been arrested on charges of statutory rape. The father first reported his daughter as a runaway in December after the girl traveled to Mexico with the intended groom, which prompted a police investigation with some unexpected cultural twists.
Police say the family are part of the Trique tribe from Mexico where arranged marriages are still the norm. Reports say that the money would have been used as a dowry and for the wedding celebration. By California law, however, the age of consent is 18, or 16 with parental approval."
5 comments:
A bit disturbing, but yet an interesting story. Due to her father's life style, probably his obesity gotten over him. I highly dislike the fact that he would sell his offspring just for his own benifiting pleasures, overall he shouldn't even be selling human beings espcially his own daughter. It is possible for people now a day to go over the edges and beyond their sanity to determine whats right and wrong based on their decisions. But hey, this is America, Anything can happen.
Actually, I'd say that this is America, and NOT anything can happen! This is obviously an old fashioned family, and in the much more undeveloped societies, I think that marriage is still very commonly arranged and "paid for" by the groom, like in all the movies where the husband has to get the dad to like him before he'll give consent. Except this is a creep dad. You might be able to do that in some places, but most definitely NOT in America.
WOW! I cannot believe that somebody would actually sell their child's hand in marriage. I mean this is the 21st century. Sometimes the customs of other cultures just seem so outrageous. Apparently in Martinez’s indigenous Triqui culture, such practices are normal as long as the girl agrees to the deal. This case highlights an intense culture clash. Will this clash be taken into consideration in court? Will his sentence be lessened because this practice is ok in Martinez’s culture?
wait a minute, aren't dowries supposed to be given from parent to the new couple (typically the husband)? After all that is the whole point of dowries, to help get your kids started. This is not a dowry, this is just plain selling your child for money which is awful and generally heartless and uncaring for them.
yep, dowries are normally given to the new couple. This, however, isn't much of a dowry...
it's more of like a trade... kind of. Using one's children for self profit. Reminds me of Swift's "a modest proposal"...only not as extreme.
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