Farmers sell wives after crops fail

Amateur sociobiologist/anthropologist (that I think I am) would point out to you the fact that their resource may indeed be that they are mature females, able to give birth. Next to that value comes their addition to household/farm labor. Together, the price of $100 is the equivalent of paying a year's wages.....in that famine stricken place. Notice also it is advancement for the women, NOT the men. The poor farmer who cannot grow his crops cannot afford the wife nor feed her or her children. Indeed, it may very well be the majority of farmer women saying they wish to be with a better more successful farmer who lives in a better rainier area. The poor farmer just gets a years pay, no children, no wife to help, and the chance that "next year may be better".

So may I remind everyone, that emotionally speaking, we do not know how the women feel about this... not you, not I, ... the article take the assumed Victim, and indeed perhaps SHE was but others where not. So we do not know collectively how ALL the woman feel themselves about being "sold", for being "sold" just may be a big advancement up.

Just 100 years ago woman in China took great pride in the Pride Price paid to be 2nd or 3rd or even the honorable position of 4th wife. Being a wife meant that one's children were to be born, fed, educated, and carry on.... being the consort, a woman could not expect her children to live or live better than her station. We in the West are not so very different. We watch on TV as the multi-millionaire Hugh Hefner lives with his 3 girlfriends in the same mansion, and they all seem so delighted with their good fortune to be "hefs girl". As i speak, the owner of a dozen car dealerships is having lunch with his wife and his mistress together. His wife and mistress of 9 years will then go shopping together and he will go check out an industrial lot of several acres to park his excess cars on. So, we are not so different is my point and we should not race to judgment.

And finally, let me say that human "love" is a product of evolution, both biologically and culturally. Human societies have long since solved the problem of the difference in value between Males and Females with Females being "worth" MORE than males. Males being the dispensable ones. While baby boys and girls are born at a perfect ratio of 1 to 1 (with some minor aberrations here and there), the competition for females is intense. The competition is not for (sorry to be rudely blunt) the vagina though street slang all over the world says its so, the competition is for access to wombs that are ripe. The competition amoung women is for access to men who have resources, and those men are always in short supply.

Above is a tragic story of human life, yet typical of human existence over the last 100,000 years. To find that a "husband" trades his valuable wife at a loss to a man with greater resources is what we would or should expect to happen --- if we have a broader and deeper understanding of human nature. Human cultures have sayings, moral codes, and situational ethics and even emotional systems in place to make these adjustments.... Today, Uyghu girls -- those of Gangis Kahn blood-- like to think "their man" will bravely ride up on a horse and snatch them away from their fathers...or proudly ride up and pay the bride price. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YckFpP9thFE Today Uyghu girls, who can never be seen with eligible boys and still rely on economic-recommendations and suggestions of who to marry from the parents, advertise themselves through friendly videos passed back to the parents and over again to prospective son-in-laws who try to choose and talk up their wealth prospects and good nature. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAtkYpQ6fZU&feature=related

Which is to say, its all very simple and yet very involved negotiations.. Most of all, the human mind is set up emotionally to "Fall in Love"....as an intensely as anyone of us in the USA or the West.

From a Ron Paul patriot point of view, we should notice that it was the "opposition party" who was making an issue about this. Its a political football issue. Of course if there are "Victims" who are FORCED to comply with the "sale" then we take issue with that. But I suspect its all too complicated, love and sex and money and quasi religious cultural norms and family and cousin expectations make the easy ONE SIZE solution fit all, impossible. Hence even the Indian government can't solve it.

The key 3 sentences where:

1) "The centre has been talking of creating a separate authority for Bundelkhand while some factions want a state. Nobody is helping these farmers."

2) Erratic rainfall in the region this year is one of the main causes of failing crops.

3) In India.

In Peace & Liberty,
Treg