At my Yahoo account................I Was perplexed to read the following........

First of all, let me say that I don't condone rape and nor do I wish to minimise the seriousness of it. The act is ALWAYS, at the time, a violation of a human right and nothing can mitigate that. What I am going to say may seem like a justification of rape. It is not ... and I apologise to anyone, especially any rape victim, if they think it is. Rape is NEVER justified. It is possible, however, to forgive, though expecting or constraining someone to 'forgive' would be simply compounding the violation of freedom of choice. I can see that, under certain circumstances, the man might be genuinely sorry and that he could have acted 'out of character'. He might, in fact, go on to be a loyal, loving and good husband and, as such, might be forgiven and even accepted as a partner. Such a marriage might work - but only through the grace and forgiveness of the woman and the contriteness and acceptance of the man. It would be very much up to the individual circumstances and you could NEVER say, as a generality, that "The right thing to do would be for the woman to marry him." Rape is regarded differently in different cultures. It is not that it is thought of as less serious in some cultures than in others but that the definition of what is considered rape can vary. In the West, we have long considered love to be the only criterion for marriage. We don't (or we no longer) have arranged marriages, as a rule. As such, the West see the system of arranged marriages which is common in some cultures as very open to abuse. I am quite sure that some (but, of course, not all) arranged marriages constitute actual and licensed rape, though the rapist is officially married to his unwilling bride beforehand. A marriage like that, it seems to me, is actually a worse crime than an individual and unpremeditated rape because it involves the collusion of the girl's own family (who should be there to protect her, not to sell her as if she were an animal to be mated). The passage you quote actually says nothing about State or social involvement, though you imply that it mentions that later. To ask or expect the rapist to offer marriage to the victim (and to expect or pressure the woman to accept the proposal) as a 'solution' would be entirely wrong. It would simply be another violation of freedom and, though I can envisage a society where such pressure would be seen as the 'morally correct' solution, I could not possibly accept being a part of it. Your topic is a complicated and interesting one. Thank you for posting it. It raises many questions about the ways in which the crime of rape is viewed by different societies - it is not always as clear-cut everywhere in the world as some people think. I expect - or, rather, hope - to see a number of different views here and I am quite sure that some of them will violently disagree with mine.

This discussion brings to mind a legal matter where someone I know was called to jury duty in a case where a teacher in his forties had seduced one of his former students, a girl of fourteen which in the US constitutes statutory r*pe but as it took a long time for the criminal case to go to trail, by the time they got there, the girl was old enough and expressed the desire to stay with this man who had by then married her and they had a baby. But the girl's mother insisted the prosecution go forward as she wanted custody of the child (her grandchild) for herself. There is no question but that the law was broken there, but it is a very different situation than when someone breaks violently into a home and attacks another human being, or if the girl had been much younger, say 8 or 9 years old instead of 14. Certainly, a woman should not be forced to marry someone she does not wish to marry. It should be the woman's free choice.

So, what was the context of the comment? Who wrote it? Not knowing who I am talking about, I will just say that if they were serious in that comment, they are of a very simple mind. Such a marriage could happen, but more than likely it would be like combining a blow torch with a can of gasoline, for the rest of their lives.

That's just nuts. I watch a soap where a girl did marry her rapist and I find it disgusting. I just don't see it ever happening. Sure it might be possible to forgive the rapist but I really doubt that anyone out there would marry their rapist.