2 Episodes in, any comments around the GOT prequel?
I know the marrying 12 year olds sure push the creep factor up for me.
@catfish1957 That was common less than 100 years ago,right here in America.
My mother and her little sister became orphans in the Flu Epidemic of 1918. She was 8 years old,and her sister was 6 years old.
Since there was no such thing as a Child Services Bureau back then and the ONLY government that existed to protect white people in the south was the KKK.
So one night the local KKK chapter took her and her little sister to a one-legged Civil War vet that lived right here where I am typing these words now,called the old man out into the yard and told him "Old man,we are going to leave these little girls here with you so that they can keep you company,clean,cook,and wash clothes for you. In return,you are to buy clothing and food appropriate for little girls,and send them to school every day."
Then they left.
According to my mother, a couple of weeks later they showed up on horseback again,with torches burning,and called the old man out into the yard again and told him "We have heard you are not buying food appropriate for little girls,and that you are not sending them to school. If we hear of this happening again,we will come back and I will tie you to that weeping willow tree in the corner of your yard and beat you with my horse whip until my arm gets tired. Do you understand this?"
The old man said he did,so they left.
My mother told me that he was never again abusive to them and he bought them the clothes they needed and sent them to school every day.
BTW,I was told this by my mother a few years before she died,and my aunt verified it for me. My aunt was just a teen when she married a man who had sailed the world for 20 years in sailing ships with masts. He ran away from home when he was 12,and went to sea on a 3 masted schooner as a cabin boy. Sailed the world for decades,even going to China in the 20's and 30's. He then got tired of living on a ship,quit sailing,and came home to fish for a living. He met my aunt,and that was the end of it for him. They were together until he died of old age. I THINK she was around 14 or 15 when they married,but am not sure about this.
The Civil War vet died when my mother was 12,so she and her sister were homeless again. She married a WW-1 vet to give her and her sister a place to live,and put up with him for several years before divorcing him and actually getting custody of his daughter by another woman. You KNOW this was rare back in the 1920's. He was a mean drunk.
She married the man I called my father a few years later after making sure he didn't drink,and they were together every day and night from that day until she died in her middle-70's. AFAIK,they never even had a disagreement about anything.
Oftentimes what creeps some people out today was a common and accepted practice just a century ago right here in this country.
BTW,I am NOT trying to claim there is something righteous about this that makes it preferable. I am just saying that it is not child molesting in all cases. After all,AFAIK,it was legal for an adult to marry a child back then,and it was not always for sexual reasons.
People will always do what they HAVE to do to get by in life and to protect people they care about.
