You also have to take the text in context of the times in which it was written though Sonist. Back then the eldest son stood to inherit the major part of the family goods and if a girl wasn't still a virgin she could conceivably (pardon the pun) be already with child by another man. There was no certain way to be sure of such things back then (There had been a test that involved a plant whose name I forget that could tell if a woman was with child, but the plant was hunted to extinction by human gathering). And there was no DNA paternity testing back then either. So there was good reason for them to want to make sure things were as they should be. Plus it was a patriarchial society as well.
I'd guess the same thing that goes for homosexuality and crimes against children in Russia also applies to serial killers. I know there have been a few but I wager people were shocked when the crimes of each came to light. Of course I think that happens the world over to an extent. It's the "it can't happen here" syndrome. No one thinks that such a thing can occur in their own backyard 'so to speak' but only in other places.
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Originally Posted by Sonist
While I agree with much of what you say, technically, most of us live in common law countries (even most states of Europe have evolved local code variations).
Also, as someone who grew up in Eastern Europe, I would guess that Russia has at least as much child abuse as the West, but it is much less discussed in the open, and often taken less seriously (Russia and parts of Asia seemed to be be in the news a few years ago as the major sources of child pornography).
The media in the West goes into feeding frenzy on some topics, and child abuse is one of them. In Russia, as in much of Eastern Europe, child abuse rarely made the news, just as homosexuality barely existed 
There is also a significant divergence as to what is considered a child: in some states in the US a 19 year old can be convicted for sleeping with his 17 year old girlfriend, while in Spain the age of consent is 13, according to Wikipedia. I remember when Roman Polanski was in the news, someone mentioned that at the time when he raped the 12 year old girl, the age of consent in France was 12 - thus he could not be extradited back to the US (have not looked this up to verify).
Anyway, I do agree that a book should not be banned, period. Amazon was in the right for defending the right to sell the book, and is in the wrong for taking it down.
BTW, I doubt the book in question advocated anything as violent as this:
" If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her ... and say, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a maid: Then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel's virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate: And the damsel's father shall say ... these are the tokens of my daughter's virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. ... But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die." Deuteronomy 22:13-21 |