Odessa

Authorities in Texas rounded up the many of the mothers and children from Yearning for Zion, a religious sect's compound. A religious sect that advocates polygamy . . . and marrying off their teenage girls not long after they can reproduce. Typically these girls get married off to men far older than they are.

There is the crime - these girls were essentially the victims of rape. In many cases it was a minimum of statutory rape, However I could image being so incapacitated by fear if some old geezer was mounting me when I was 14, 15 or 16 that there would be no way that the sex could be considered consensual. Heap on the fact that most of the men in authority in my life would have told me I had to do it because it was the will of God.

As part of the investigation into the crimes, the women and children are whisked away from the compound - many are cajoled into leaving, some could say under false pretenses. These women left voluntarily with their children. Then the only mother child bonds that the officials leave intact are those of mothers with children under four years old. The women were not even given the chance to say goodbye to their children. Many of the women, when given the opportunity, declined to return to the compound and opted for alternate arrangements.

Has anyone said that the mothers abused their children in anyway? You may argue that they let their teenage daughters be married off, but lets not forget the fact that they themselves were likely married off at a young age and that their society was strongly patriarchal and that the men would not have listened to their wives.

The sons were not being married off at young ages (that might lessen the number of young ladies available to the elders), so where was their abuse (beyond being denied some nookie)? So why remove them from their families?

The authorities may hold themselves up self-righteously saying they have saved some young women and rescued others from enduring the indignities of "marital responsibilities" to an old fossil. But, how much psychological damage have they done by not only removing these children from the only life they've know, but keeping these children from their mothers? Two wrongs will never make a right.