John Husvar wrote:
In article et,
Jeff McCann wrote:


Chuck Sherwood wrote:

The girl's brother, sister, and mother backed up her story and in the
end she was never charged.


The really sad part is that the mother continued to let it happen.
Why didn't she have the courage to stop the father?

Why wasn't she prosecuted as an accessory to capital sexual assault, or
something similar? She apparently failed to take steps necessary to
protect her daughter from serious harm.

Jeff


Sheesh, how would I know? I was 13-14? It was (good/bad) luck and
teenage busybodyism I found out as much as I did.

Got it. I meant the question to be rhetorical. Sorry.

(Pure speculation below)

Maybe the mother was beaten and browbeaten into outright submission.
Things were much different in the late 50s/early 60s in Steubenville.
There wasn't much "interference" with family doings in those days in
that place unless something like that happened. Even the police didn't
do much about domestic violence except maybe hit 'em with Disturbing the
Peace or somesuch.

Failed to take the steps? Certainly. But was she even psychologically
able to take the steps, given the near total domination her husband
exercised? Many women who were married in the 30s/40s were raised with
an attitude that the man of the house could do no wrong. He was
virtually a god in some societies. They didn't even have a phone and she
might have been terrified to leave the house without permission.

If the kids talked, they might have paid dearly for it. Father knows
best wasn't a Robert Young TV show to some older generation families.

I don't want to get into a ****ing match here, but that kind of attitude
prevailed far longer than we in this time might think possible.

I think you've probably hit the nail on the head. But in this more
"enlightened" era, we complain a lot about irresponsible kids.
Personally, I think that the root problem is irresponsible parents. So
I draw a pretty hard line when parents allow or cause their children to
come to harm, or cause harm to others, as a result of parental
negligence. That's not to say that I have no sympathy for battered
spouses, especially in a time before recent societal changes in
perspective, but letting your teenage daughter be repeatedly raped is
just beyond the pale, and should not be tolerated in a decent society.
Nor should we tolerate spousal abuse, but at least the abused spouse is,
presumably, an adult.

Jeff