the average life expectancy back the was 35
Around 40 actually (mostly due to high infant mortality) but close enough.
and even Genesis 1:28 states the ideal time for a woman to get married is between the ages of 12 and 20.
Bloody hell, you couldn't have been more wrong if you tried. Did you even check that before you posted it, or did you just blindly copy/paste it from somewhere? I'm guessing the latter!
Genesis 1:28
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the earth and subdue it! Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that moves on the ground.”
Well, that was embarrassing.
BTW, the Bible never specifies an 'ideal time for a woman to get married.'
You seem to be making out that in Ancient Near East times people were better than today and didn’t get married or have sex until they were 18.
I never said that. I've said the opposite; that they were often betrothed and married early. However, due to the strictly controlling nature of the culture, it was uncommon to sleep with your wedding partner before marriage because you simply weren't given the opportunity. In many cases, you never even met them before you were married.
Arranged marriages were a complex socio-economic transaction between two families. Love and mutual attraction had nothing to do with it, so you often ended up with someone you didn't even like. Not only that, but if you were caught having sex without marriage you were typically punished with death, so there wasn't much inventive unless you could safely elope (which was also extremely difficult, and left you entirely bereft of social support).
It’s only very recent times that western civilisation and Christianity have decreed that marrying and have sex under 16 is wrong.
Western civilisation, yes. But Christianity? I don't recall any official decision by the entire Christian church to specify an age of consent. The general rule of thumb in Christianity has always been 'no sex before marriage', not 'no sex before you're 16.'
Not only that, but the general norm within Christian communities has been marriage between two people of comparable age. This is radically different to the case of Muhammed and the 9 year old Aisha.
I will repeat again that up until 1929 it was legal for girls of 12 to be married.
This has no relevance whatsoever to the age of Joseph and Mary when they were married, nor does it mitigate the deliberate decision of a local police force to turn a blind eye to paedophilia in the Asian community because they were afraid of appearing prejudiced. Which is the issue that certain people in this thread are doing their best to avoid.
There is nothing moral white Christian love more than bashing Muslims by claiming their whole religion is based on being a pedo while ignoring that until recent times they had similar views to what ages girls could have sex and doubly ignore it’s still accepted in certain Christian communities in the western world. That’s the kind of double standards I object to.
Nice straw man! If that's the kind of double standard you object to, you must really hate moral relativism.
By the way, which Christian communities in the western world believe it's OK for kids to have sex at the age of 12, and where is the evidence that the wider Christian community simply ignores this? Any such community would be marginal to say the least, and not remotely representative.
