That was indeed a sad story. I've no doubt that the late journalist Netty Mitchell is a nice woman, but experience has taught me that nice people are generally duplicitous and insincere. She claims the woman in her story couldn't have known the impact of the choice she had made as a girl to lay with the mill worker, yet the girls actions implies the opposite. She knew what she'd done, but Netty Mitchell reveals the duplicity of journalists by lying for the sake of her narrative.
Tolerance is not a Christian virtue, but patience is.
You make a good point. But.
That was a 14 year old child.
THE MOMENT that I heard the old lady say the parents allowed the daughter to go away and work and send money back I already knew the rest of the story. 14 year old children cannot make choices about engaging in relationships or having children of their own. As far as I am concerned, the child was raped.
While I've no doubt 19nth century American country folk would rationalize it as proper to shun a lonely woman for having had a child out of wedlock and later entering into an incestuous marriage with that child. She was shunned because for nearly two decades she lied by omission and didn't confess her actions until they'd been discovered. If she'd been raped, I strongly suspect the man responsible would've been promptly lynched or found himself in a chapel with a rifle to his back. However, the reality of the matter is that for nearly two decades she kept it secret, never made penance, and that's why they shunned her. They had no confidence that she could be trusted anymore if she'd refused to repent her sins and it explains why they didn't forgive her until her death.
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