Job Discussion Forums

[The Fifth Column]

[lagringalindissima]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

[justcolleen]

[millie18]

Well would it be the equivalent to ask about the morality of taking employment in the USA where voting rights are being reduced, where minorities are discriminated against etc etc etc.?

Of course we could ask the same questions about working in France or Russia or several other nations?

The original question smacks of the pot calling the kettle black in certain respects if one is examining g civil rights issues

[nomad soul]

[lagringalindissima]

Yes Republicans are trying to cut voting rights for minorities-- although people are standing up and screaming F--K NO! in large numbers and the courts are ruling against the Republicans-- but the human rights abuses in the Middle East aren't comparable. Even Fred Phelps from the Westboro church responded to Matthew Shepard's murder by saying on his website that "we condemn murder.." but 90% of Egyptians support the death penalty for deserters of the Muslim faith. And Egypt is progressive compared to Saudi Arabia. Others can call me ethnocentric and worse, but I have no qualms at all stating that western culture isn't just "different" than Middle Eastern theocracies..it is better. And it is better even if the people living in Saudi Arabic, Egypt or Iran say that they pity us and they would never want to live in our culture.

Muslims themselves are the biggest victims of their culture; the biggest reason the west needs to try to support cultural changes in the region isn't to lessen terrorist attacks in the West. It is to support Afghan girls who are forced to marry at age 10 by helping them get an education and have a chance at a better life. whether or not they stay Muslim.

Am I saying people who choose to go are immoral monsters? Absolutely not!! There is nothing wrong with wanting to be well paid in a job, wanting to help people in the Middle East learn English or wanting to experience daily life in the Middle East, learn Arabic, etc.

I was just curious as to if people who chose to go there had any moral qualms about working there..that is all.

[nomad soul]

Frankly, I tend to focus on the person and not on their religion. We're all more alike than we are different.

[Gerund]

Moral qualms about working in Saudi Arabia? No, but I would have moral qualms about not providing for my family by being too idealistic to work in one of the few places an ESL teacher can make enough to support a family.

[johnslat]

Occasionally, I have moral qualms about being a member of the human race - guilt by association, you see.

But though I've handed in my resignation on a number of occasions, it keeps getting rejected.

In desperation, I finally decided that all I can do is try to live in a way that does as little harm to others and is of as much help to them as possible.

A cop-out, perhaps, but I sleep well nights.

Regards,
John

[ryanlogic]

[veiledsentiments]

[johnslat]

The "Age of Consent" has changed quite a bit over the years:

"The age of consent in both English and continental law seemed to be particularly elastic when property was involved or family alliances were at stake. For example in 1564, a three year old named John was married to a two year old named Jane in the Bishop's Court in Chester, England. Though Shakespeare set his Romeo and Juliet in Verona, the fact that Juliet was thirteen probably reflects the reality in England. Her mother, who was twenty-six, calls her almost an old maid.

The American colonies followed the English tradition but the law could at best be called a guide. For example in Virginia in 1689, Mary Hathaway was only nine when she was married to William Williams. We know of her case only because two years later she sued for divorce, and was released from the covenant she had made because the marriage had not been consummated. Interestingly, historian Holly Brewer, who discovered the case, speculated that if William had raped Mary, she probably would not have been given the divorce. The only reliable data on age at marriage in England in the early modern period comes from Inquisitions Post Mortem which involved only those who died and left property. It appears that the more complete the records, the more likely it is to discover young marriages. Judges honored marriages based on mutual consent at age younger than seven, in spite of what Gratian had said, and there are recorded marriages of two and three year olds. The seventeenth-century lawyer Henry Swinburne distinguished between the marriages of those under seven and those between seven and puberty. He wrote that those under seven who had said their vows had to ratify it afterwards by giving kisses and embraces, by lying together, by exchanging gifts or tokens, or by calling each other husband or wife. A contemporary, Philip Stubbes, wrote that in sixteenth-century East Anglia, infants still in swaddling clothes were married. The most influential legal text of the seventeenth century in England, that of Sir Edward Coke, made it clear that the marriage of girls under twelve was normal, and the age at which a girl who was a wife was eligible for a dower from her husband's estate was nine even though her husband be only four years old. . . . . In the nineteenth century France issued the Napoleonic Code and many other countries, following France's example, began revising their laws. The Napoleonic Code, however, had not changed the age of consent, which remained at thirteen. When historian Magnus Hirschfeld surveyed the age of consent of some fifty countries (mostly in Europe and the Americas) at the beginning of the twentieth century, the age of consent was twelve in fifteen countries, thirteen in seven, fourteen in five, fifteen in four, and sixteen in five. In the remaining countries it remained unclear. In England and the United States, feminist agitation in the late nineteenth century called attention to the young age of consent and called for changes in the law. By the 1920s the age of consent, a state issue in the United States, was raised in every state and ranged from fourteen to eighteen, with most states settling on sixteen or eighteen."

http://www.faqs.org/childhood/A-Ar/Age-of-Consent.html