Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Do the Math

It may be true that the FLDS fiasco is no longer breaking news, but why is it that nobody is talking about the proportion of girls vs. boys removed from the compound?

"Authorities began blocking roads to the YFZ ranch Thursday, then raided the compound and began busing women and children off the property. Most were girls, and most wore hand-sewn prairie dresses."

'MOST were girls?'...

I admit my logic isn't always sound, but it seems there's only a couple of possibilities here. One is that the authorities didn't think the boys (themselves victims of forced mental compliance) were in any grave danger, and so left them on the compound-without their parents. Another, more disturbing, option would beg the question-what have they done with the bodies of those boys that would have grown up to compete for wives? Lastly, there's the option that Roald Dahl was on to something in his ribald and satirical short story: 'Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life'.

I'm not holding my breath.

That the ratio of men to women is 1:1 in the world is as good an argument as any that hetero-monogamy is natural, and, well, I don't need to spell it out.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I also was curious about where all the boys are. However, your data was slightly off. Out of the total human population, there are 101.3 men for every 100 women. Per Wiki. So there actually should be more boys than girls found at the compound.
Your Bro
fazpools

The Vitruvian Duck said...

Ok, so gender ratio is historically at 1.05:1 at birth. This is generally equalled out by the fact that women live longer than men.

Besides, your point actually reinforces mine...that there were more girls is even more strange when you'd expect to see more boys by gender ratio.

But this gives me an idea for another post.

Thanks, bro.