Sadly enough, my cousin's wife died recently at the age of 56. For the purpose of this article, I will refer to my cousin as Derek; and I will refer to his late wife as Elisa. As you probably already suspect, this article here of mine hits close to home, because it delves into the untimely loss of a family member.
When Elisa died recently, Derek and Elisa had been happily married for over four decades. Their love was legendary. They had three kids together. They loved life.
When Derek and Elisa first met and fell in love with each other, Derek was 30 years old and Elisa was 15 years old. After Elisa turned 16, my cousin married her. A description of my cousin's marriage to his late wife can be found in one of my older articles.
Of course, my cousin's marriage took place at a time back when American society seldom ever questioned a man in his thirties or older for marrying a 14-, 15-, or 16-year-old girl. Sure, that time era had its fair share of self-proclaimed child advocates who simply loved to meddle into people's personal lives and stir up trouble for them. However, it was nowhere nearly as bad as it is now here in the United States.
My cousin's marriage took place long before Fraidy Reiss of Unchained At Last and Jeanne Smoot of the Tahirih Justice Center went on a warpath against men and sought to get laws passed that would forbid underage teenage marriage throughout the United States. These same two women care nothing about the say-so of everyday voters. Their own agenda has always been their main priority to them.
Nowadays the very few lawmakers who push back against these same two women's efforts design the marriage laws to pamper high-school sweethearts who wish to wed before 18 years of age and to treat age-gap marriages between underage teenage girls and adult men as some kind of societal aberration.
So many people have adverse opinions about couples like my cousin and his late wife without really knowing them personally. It's interesting how Americans will preach about how the world owes you nothing, but, on the other hand, those same Americans won't hesitate to pry and meddle into other people's lives for the most minute of things.
Elected officials who support Fraidy Reiss and Jeanne Smoot in their efforts to outlaw underage teenage marriage throughout the United States are usually psychotic men-hating femi-Nazis who wish to lock up every man behind bars that they can. They don't truly care about teenage girls, because they are envious of them.
It brings to mind this one interview I watched on television between a journalist and this one female state legislator down in Florida. I don't remember this woman's name, but she was dead set on outlawing all marriages in which one partner was a teenage girl too young to vote.
This same elected official had hatred in her face when she spoke, and she insisted that adult men were misusing these marriage laws that were on the books back then in Florida as bulletproof vests against statutory-rape convictions. She was adamant in her belief that marriages between teenage girls younger than 18 and adult men were either forms of legalized child rape or child trafficking.
This same elected official looked as though she belonged in an institution for the criminally insane. Did it ever occur to her that there are couples like my cousin and his late wife who each so happen to be on opposite sides of the legal age line and they simply wish to make their relationship legal?
Nevertheless, you can never hold such a discussion with someone like that female elected official, because in their mind they can never be wrong about anything. It's either their way or the highway. Also, they couldn't care less about what happens to men in prison who get wrongfully convicted of sex crimes and locked up for all eternity. It's usually better simply to vote these idiots out of office.
If this same female elected official really wanted to do something constructive with her legislative duties, she could fight to pass a law that would make prison rape punishable by the death penalty. Never mind the Coker ruling. Florida has already kicked the Supreme Court of the United States ("SCOTUS") to the curb in the form of recent laws they have passed to execute child molesters.
1. My Cousin's Moral Compass
No! My cousin, Derek, is not a pedophile. He is not sexually attracted to pre-pubescent children. My cousin is not a sexual predator. In fact, he protected a toddler from the evil clutches of an obvious pedophile.
Derek never groomed Elisa into doing anything she didn't want to do. He never gave her Stockholm Syndrome either.
Derek was never involved in human trafficking at the outset of his relationship with Elisa. Men-hating femi-Nazis absolutely love to make false accusations against men of human trafficking whenever an age-gap couple doesn't meet up to their expectations of age-appropriateness, which is almost always.
Elisa saw my cousin, Derek, as her salvation and as her way of getting her life together, and she was right. She found herself surrounded by her husband's family and people who cared about her after she met my cousin.
Derek may not be a Tony-Danza/Macaulay-Culkin centaur, but he is a decent man who has always held himself to reasonably high standards whenever it came to the well-being of his late wife and their kids. Self-proclaimed child advocates and radical feminists will likely say that he should have waited until Elisa was 18 years old to marry her.
Well, even when men who are involved in an age-gap relationship wait until their underage girlfriend turns 18, they still catch a load of hate from self-proclaimed child advocates and radical feminists. The reality of it all is that self-proclaimed child advocates and radical feminists want to turn the United States into some kind of make-believe world of age-appropriate perfection and wholesome purity.
It's as though these self-righteous know-it-alls are attempting to remold the United States into the kind of society it was back when it was still a British colony during the time of the Salem witch trials. These people do not have our best interests at heart no matter how well-meaning they present themselves to be.
My cousin, Derek, was in love with Elisa when she was 15 years old. I know that his being 30 years old back then may have been viewed as taboo by certain narrow-minded individuals, but they always had a true love.
Some may argue that his relationship with her could have made him vulnerable to the statutory-rape laws in certain state jurisdictions. However, he did the right thing by marrying her, and then their relationship was all good from a legal standpoint. There is nothing further to say about it as for whether it was right or wrong. They always belonged together.
2. The Question Of Elisa Being In A Same-Age Relationship Instead Of With Derek
Some of you out there who may be reading my article may still believe that back when Elisa was 15 years old, she would have been better off in a same-age relationship or close-in-age relationship. That is, instead of getting involved with my cousin, Derek, according to all the know-it-alls of society, she should have gotten involved with a 16- or 17-year-old boy.
Let me tell you something about these same-age high-school relationships that might get you to question your own biased judgment if you still hold the opinion that Elisa should have never gotten involved with Derek. High-school sweethearts are so overrated in American society. In fact, their lives can be toxic insofar as they can pose a danger to others around them.
So many years ago, a 17-year-old boy murdered a 98-year-old woman in her own home and then sexually violated her body after she was dead. Below is a video that provides a detailed account of all the events that led up to those same atrocities.
A 17-Year-Old Ohio Boy Murdered A 98-Year-Old Woman And Committed Acts Of Necrophilia Upon Her
Now, any of you out there who still choose to demonize my cousin's relationship with and marriage to Elisa, let me ask you to do this one thing. Try to convince me that back when Elisa was 15 years old, she would have been so much better off with a 16- or 17-year-old boy that was exactly like the one in the video above, and I will be the first to admit that I am wrong. You won't be able to do it successfully, because you know that such a boy would pose a danger to a teenage girl and you also know that I am right.
Some of you may argue, "Yeah, all 17-year-old boys are not like the one in the video above." I agree. However, all adult men who fit my cousin's description are not sexual predators who victimize teenage girls either.
YouTubers are constantly praising family vloggers Johnny and Sarah Tanner of The Tannerites on YouTube for being high-school sweethearts and having lived the American dream and the perfect life. However, they are no better people than Derek and Elisa. Those who condemn Derek and Elisa's relationship and marriage merely don't have the critical-thinking skills to give their relationship and marriage a fair assessment.
The trolls couldn't care less about what is fact and what is fiction. They have their own twisted agenda to serve, and they are severely detached from reality.
3. Final Thoughts
Elisa's untimely death was a tragedy. She was way too young to die. She will always be remembered, and she will always be missed.
Elisa and my cousin, Derek, may have not had the most conventional relationship and marriage at their outsets according to the so-called standards of society. However, as far as I'm concerned, societal norms are merely old habits and bad habits that die hard. They usually long outlive their purpose in the American culture.
The only important thing is that Elisa and Derek always loved each other from the time that they met. They shared a lifetime together. They procreated kids together, and those kids have gone on to live productive lives.
No self-proclaimed child advocate, no radical feminist, and no troll can take any of those positive points away from them. The truth always has a way of sneaking up on self-righteous do-gooders and hitting them exactly where it hurts the most. Derek's marriage to Elisa was never legalized pedophilia.
Rest in peace, Elisa. I have always been proud to call you my cousin-in-law. You brought happiness and joy to my cousin, and you were always a good mother to the three kids that you and my cousin procreated.
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