Is this a good summary?

[Cli-Fi]

I believe *Fingers Crossed* that I found the beginning of my WIP in part thanks to @Loren. So is this a good summary for it? Do you understand the conflicts? The characters and what it will be about? I'm just trying to get a feel and opinions for the story as it is developing so far.

If you couldn't tell I'm sort of modelling it off star wars. Funny I didn't realize how much Star Wars has influenced this until I re-watched the movies this weekend. Though I do wonder if it sounds action-packed enough. I also hope it's not too controversial. Also I wonder does the summary focus too much on the beginning that I now love?

Dynasty Roots of an Empire Working Summary​

Chaos grips the temporal congress. First set up as a way to keep a lid on various new and emerging ways to travel through time. Their incompetence is exposed when young fourteen year old Juliet Carpenter reveals a disturbing new law that was slipped into the latest budget deal. The law essentially legalizes pedophilia in America!

Allowing her boyfriend, thirty year old Henry Wilson the mastermind behind a new nanotechnology process, to seize upon the controversy in order to marry the young heiress at literally the same time. Thus resulting in the merger of two trillion dollar corporations Wilson Technologies and Carpenter INC. Setting a new and unprecedented course for the country.

While Congress endlessly debates these alarming new developments, a secret religious group calling themselves the Temporal Consortium believes that time travel may have played a much larger role here. Dispatching the eccentric investigator Dorian Black in order to get to the bottom of this mystery and what it means for the future of this new industry…

 

[Brian G Turner]

Usually these take the form of: protagonist + antagonist = conflict and stakes. I think if you re-phrase what you have to follow that standard industry formula, what you mean should be clearer. HTH.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I'll just try to list my initial reactions to this. I don't see at all how this has been influenced by Star Wars, which is a good thing. Better to be original.

Dynasty Roots of an Empire

This is a very confusing working title. Should I read it as "Dynasty: Roots of an Empire"?

Chaos grips the temporal congress.

Not a bad beginning; implying chaos sets up the idea of conflict right away. Should this be "Temporal Congress"? In other words, is the Temporal Congress an actual body of lawmakers? Without the capital letters, it seems to imply something metaphoric rather than literal.

First set up as a way to keep a lid on various new and emerging ways to travel through time.

OK, here it seems to be literal. I'd like more details on what they do. Controlling time travel seems to be an immense challenge. What power does the Time Congress have? How do they enforce their laws?

Their incompetence is exposed when young fourteen year old Juliet Carpenter reveals a disturbing new law that was slipped into the latest budget deal. The law essentially legalizes pedophilia in America!

This seems very odd. I'd need some clue as to how laws dealing with time travel could have this effect. (By the way, if you say "fourteen year old," you don't have to say "young.")

Allowing her boyfriend, thirty year old Henry Wilson the mastermind behind a new nanotechnology process, to seize upon the controversy in order to marry the young heiress at literally the same time.

The notion of the fourteen-year-old with the adult boyfriend is going to raise the creepiness factor of this story greatly. You need to somehow deal with this problem, or the reader is going to be repulsed. Is this strictly a marriage of convenience? I can see this story going in that way, with the two zillionaires taking advantage of the loophole for financial reasons, but raising controversy because of the unpleasant implications of their marriage. If the two are really romantically involved, well, you're going to have a serious challenge in making this acceptable to the reader.

Thus resulting in the merger of two trillion dollar corporations Wilson Technologies and Carpenter INC. Setting a new and unprecedented course for the country.

In what way? What does this new super-corporation want?

While Congress endlessly debates these alarming new developments, a secret religious group calling themselves the Temporal Consortium believes that time travel may have played a much larger role here. Dispatching the eccentric investigator Dorian Black in order to get to the bottom of this mystery and what it means for the future of this new industry…

Why is this religious? What is the mystery? What is the industry?

We could use more clarity here.

 

[Cat's Cradle]

Sorry, Cli-Fi, but I'm very confused from the start because I cannot fathom how an incompetent organization whose chartered purpose is to keep track of new time travel technologies can have a law hidden in its budget (a law in a budget?) that has the power to create legalized pedophilia in so large and powerful a country as the United States. So, has the Temporal Congress supplanted the constitutional government of the US?
But to be honest, I am also greatly thrown by the writing style. I remember from past critiques that you've mentioned you dislike long sentences, so you (kind of randomly) break them into separate sentences. Here this creates the effect of having three paragraphs full of what are either sentence fragments, or at the least individual sentences that are borderline fragments because the thoughts are not really completed properly. I'm not sure if you see what I mean? It's a fair bit of work to try and sort out the sentence fragments (it's very disruptive to the flow of the piece), and then attempt to sort out the plot lines you are trying to relay.
I would suggest clarity would benefit from some additional story details, and your working on syntax.

edit - didn't mean to sound harsh, but pedophilia is a horrible thing, and would have to be handled with remarkable tact, and insight...I do not like the thought of it being used simply as a plot line; perhaps you have an insightful approach to the topic that you'll explore in your work. CC

 

[Brian G Turner]

Just thought I'd mention something raised above for the benefit of @Cli-Fi - the way the summary is written, it suggests that Juliet Carpenter is the story protagonist, implying that the novel is about her inappropriate relationship with a 30-year old. Dorian Black is mentioned at the end, implying that he's a secondary character - when I think you actually mean to infer him to be the protag. That's why I mentioned about stating the protag first.

 

[tinkerdan]

Legalizing pedophilia is somewhat similar to saying we could legalize alcoholism.

Granting that this is from Wikipedia and must be considered with a grain of salt: You should read the article.
Pedophilia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pedophilia is not a legal term,[8] and having a sexual attraction to children is not illegal in itself.[5] In law enforcement circles, the term pedophile is sometimes used in a broad manner to encompass a person who commits one or more sexually-based crimes that relate to legally underage victims. These crimes may include child sexual abuse, statutory rape, offenses involving child pornography, child grooming, stalking, and indecent exposure. One unit of the United Kingdom's Child Abuse Investigation Command is known as the "Paedophile Unit" and specializes in online investigations and enforcement work.[116] Some forensic science texts, such as Holmes (2008), use the term to refer to offenders who target child victims, even when such children are not the primary sexual interest of the offender.[117] FBI agent Kenneth Lanning, however, makes a point of distinguishing between pedophiles and child molesters.[118]

Unless this novel or story of yours is about pedophiles or how pedophilia becomes acceptable in the future: or the past future: or present future or: alternate future future, I'd leave that off because it really isn't much of a selling point unless your book is going under erotica. Either way you want to get the laws correct because it is not illegal to be a pedophile it is illegal to molest children (which might read illegal to act upon feelings of pedophilia).

If these two are boyfriend and girlfriend, that's a large enough leap in suspension of disbelief; but now okay to molest children? (which I highly doubt happening-but suspension of disbelief takes a larger leap and all...).

That much said; I personally know a a case where the age was closer to 16 and the person who had feelings for her was thirty years older and that was ridiculous. So you need a compelling case for that. Incidentally the young woman wanted nothing to do with him although she'd known him since she was a child; and yes when she found out she was creepy-ed out about the whole thing .

What I'm suggesting here is that the pedophile part of this should not be here in the summary unless it is truly the main plot point.

Unfortunately when I remove that and read the rest it is left with some sort of hole in the whole so maybe even if it is not a major plot point it acts the part in this summary.

Still it doesn't strike me until we get to the boyfriend part and the creepiness factor.

The only possible way to turn that on it's head enough to gain my interest would be to say something like this::
::
Their incompetence is exposed when fourteen year old Juliet Carpenter reveals an intriguing loophole in their latest legislation. Something that if exploited would allow her to marry her boyfriend, thirty year old Henry Wilson, and mastermind behind a new nanotechnology process. Thus resulting in the merger of two trillion dollar corporations Wilson Technologies and Carpenter INC. Setting a new and unprecedented course for the country.

(You could move her age to 16 or 17 and his to thirty-three.)
But here we have a problem because I know nothing about your story.

You make it difficult in the start with the pedophilia thing and turning pedophilia something illegal (by allowing it to become legal) goes beyond the definition of what pedophilia is while creating an image of molestation. But then you say he is her boyfriend, which puts a spin on the whole thing. Does she love him? Is marriage what she wants? Does she want this merger? Because of the confusion caused by the first paragraph it becomes uncertain except he shouldn't be called a boyfriend based on the setup above unless you remove the more volatile portions pertaining to pedophilia.

Also as pertaining to the law or loophole; why is she the one to discover it? Is this a surprise and does it terrify or frighten her; or is she happy about the discovery? This is important to know because it helps the reader place the correct conflict in the correct place; as it is the conflict is extremely ambivalent.

This whole thing gets muddied up with the introduction of the religiously inclined Temporal Consortium.

Are they up in arms about the legalized pedophilia? This could be a problem here. If it's something else then what is it because the implication by these paragraphs is that it might be the pedophile thing.

Certain things are illegal that fall into a realm that might include pedophiles but not exclusively.

Collecting and disseminating sexually explicit images of children is illegal.
Molestation of children is illegal including acts while obtaining sexually explicit images.

Being a pedophile does not necessarily include the illegal activity as much as being an alcoholic does not automatically mean that illegal activity is taking place.

On the other hand the moral end of things would certainly be considered and many religious groups do try to discourage thoughts about drinking alcohol and other activities. But I think that they would only come into effect here at the point that an older person marries what they consider is an underage person. So they might have objections to laws that lower the legal age for marriage.

I hope in all my ramblings there is something that helps. I too sometimes object to child molestation with a knee jerk reaction.

 

[Cli-Fi]

1. I don't see at all how this has been influenced by Star Wars, which is a good thing. Better to be original.


2. What power does the Time Congress have? How do they enforce their laws?

3. This seems very odd. I'd need some clue as to how laws dealing with time travel could have this effect.

4. The notion of the fourteen-year-old with the adult boyfriend is going to raise the creepiness factor of this story greatly. You need to somehow deal with this problem, or the reader is going to be repulsed. Is this strictly a marriage of convenience?

5. In what way? What does this new super-corporation want?

6. Why is this religious? What is the mystery? What is the industry?

I'm not going to address all your grammar points but let's just say you're right on them so I'll leave it at that.

1. Ah I thought it sounded very similar to phantom menace scroll text.

2. Well this is a summary. Does that really need to be in the summary. Ok trying to keep it short lol.

3. Basically it's like an instant thing. As Juliet announces the loophole. She is also getting married at the same time.

4. Pretty much. They say they love each other for public appearance but it's really just to merge the corporations.

5. It will basically last until the end of time and become the driving force behind all tech in the next few centuries.

6. That would take another couple paragraphs to outline. But it has to do with how time travel works and if there are points that are not able to be changed. No matter what you do.

Thanks for your insights and questions.

 

[Cli-Fi]

1. Legalizing pedophilia is somewhat similar to saying we could legalize alcoholism.

2. Unless this novel or story of yours is about pedophiles or how pedophilia becomes acceptable in the future: or the past future: or present future or: alternate future future, I'd leave that off because it really isn't much of a selling point unless your book is going under erotica. What I'm suggesting here is that the pedophile part of this should not be here in the summary unless it is truly the main plot point.

3. Their incompetence is exposed when fourteen year old Juliet Carpenter reveals an intriguing loophole in their latest legislation. Something that if exploited would allow her to marry her boyfriend, thirty year old Henry Wilson, and mastermind behind a new nanotechnology process. Thus resulting in the merger of two trillion dollar corporations Wilson Technologies and Carpenter INC. Setting a new and unprecedented course for the country.

4. (You could move her age to 16 or 17 and his to thirty-three.)

5. But then you say he is her boyfriend, which puts a spin on the whole thing. Does she love him? Is marriage what she wants? Does she want this merger? Because of the confusion caused by the first paragraph it becomes uncertain except he shouldn't be called a boyfriend based on the setup above unless you remove the more volatile portions pertaining to pedophilia.

6. Also as pertaining to the law or loophole; why is she the one to discover it? Is this a surprise and does it terrify or frighten her; or is she happy about the discovery? This is important to know because it helps the reader place the correct conflict in the correct place; as it is the conflict is extremely ambivalent.

7. This whole thing gets muddied up with the introduction of the religiously inclined Temporal Consortium. Are they up in arms about the legalized pedophilia? This could be a problem here. If it's something else then what is it because the implication by these paragraphs is that it might be the pedophile thing.

I hope in all my ramblings there is something that helps. I too sometimes object to child molestation with a knee jerk reaction.

Wow that was quite a reaction. Thank you and I am glad that this is generating some interest.

1. Understand all your legal points and I did put on the very first page of the story that the law was the underage marriage act (working law title, of course)

2. I'm not sure either but I think response number 5, below will address even more of this. It's just something I thought the characters could fight for especially since with time travel and in later chapters a form of immortality. Should age really be a factor? The fact that the young girl brings these topics before Congress and not Henry, is frieghtening and shocking to the country.

3. I really like that underlined line. It makes more sense and in line with your issues about the legalise. Thanks
4. If the 14 year old is too hard to stomache for most readers, I can definately change the ages to make it more appropriate.

5. She wants the merger more than anything. She is tasked with cleaning up Carpenter INC after her father is outed. In my world kids are learning at an even faster rate than their parent's generation thanks to technological advances and more and more responsibilities are given to them, thanks in a large part to her somewhat idealistic forward ways of thinking. She's kind of the Rosa Parks of kid's rights. Her largest accomplishments are getting kids as young as tweleve equal salaries in corporations and lowering the marriage/driving age dramatically.

6. What it is, is basically a time travel scheme concoted by those two to undermine the Congress and the boards of their companies, ruled by both their families. Their families do not want to merge, but they know it must happen if they want to thrwat out competition and really leave lasting legacy on the world.

7. Sorry if this wasn't clear but the Consortium are concerned about how their marriage could have happened at the same time as Juliet was announcing the loophole. Therefore they think time travel is in play, directly under the nose of the Congress.

Hope this clears some things up for you and thanks for trying to figure it out!

 

[Cli-Fi]

Sorry, Cli-Fi, but I'm very confused from the start because I cannot fathom how an incompetent organization whose chartered purpose is to keep track of new time travel technologies can have a law hidden in its budget (a law in a budget?) that has the power to create legalized pedophilia in so large and powerful a country as the United States. So, has the Temporal Congress supplanted the constitutional government of the US?

edit - didn't mean to sound harsh, but pedophilia is a horrible thing, and would have to be handled with remarkable tact, and insight...I do not like the thought of it being used simply as a plot line; perhaps you have an insightful approach to the topic that you'll explore in your work. CC

Please read my other responses to the other posters as they address some of your concerns.
But yes, you are right that the Temporal Congress is a new body set to replace the US Government. I'm not sure how it will when all is said and done, but it will lol.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

I'm going to have to agree with the others. It's confusing. Disjointed.

"Chaos grips the temporal congress." Good opening line, could be a complete opening para in itself.

"First set up as a way to keep a lid on various new and emerging ways to travel through time." And? It's like you started a thought and then gave up half way through.

"Their incompetence is exposed when young fourteen year old Juliet Carpenter reveals a disturbing new law that was slipped into the latest budget deal. The law essentially legalizes pedophilia in America!" Ok - what's the big deal - other than to America of course? How does this affect the TC?
"Allowing her boyfriend, thirty year old Henry Wilson the mastermind behind a new nanotechnology process, to seize upon the controversy in order to marry the young heiress" What young heiress? "at literally the same time. Thus resulting in the merger of two trillion dollar corporations Wilson Technologies and Carpenter INC. Setting a new and unprecedented course for the country." And? Bring it back to the TC and their concerns.
"While Congress endlessly debates these alarming new developments, a secret religious group calling themselves the Temporal Consortium believes that time travel may have played a much larger role here."

"Dispatching the eccentric investigator Dorian Black" Who despatched him? TC or the other TC - the consortium? "in order to get to the bottom of this mystery and what it means for the future of this new industry…"

And now what? Whats the risk to the congress? To time? To America?

It's as though you're writing for yourself. You know the plot, the players etc. So you don't need to fill in the blanks for yourself. But everyone else is left guessing.

Also who is this summary aimed at? It's too long for the blurb at the back of a book, and probably not full enough for submission to an agent etc.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[tinkerdan]

It's beginning to make more sense and considering I recently read a book where 8 years was the age of maturity I could run with the 12 year as an age of maturity in the future and the notion that this is about lowering the marriage laws to allow a 14 year old to marry. But I think somehow some of this might need to show up in the synopsis. And that might include the equal pay for underage workers.

Also considering some other discussions around here (can't recall which one) you might consider changing::

Setting a new and unprecedented course for the country

To:: Setting a new unprecedented course for the world.

Giving it higher stakes and a larger scope.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

notion that this is about lowering the marriage laws to allow a 14 year old to marry.

It's only recently in some Western Countries that the marriage raised from 14 and it was still 14 in most of the West in 19th and into 20th C. It was often lower for a girl than boy, without parental consent! Still technically 16 for boy and 14 for girl for Catholic Church, but the law of the local state takes precedence if it specifies a higher age.

The 55 parties to the 1962 Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage, and Registration of Marriages have agreed to specify a minimum marriage age by statute law‚ to override customary, religious, and tribal laws. When the marriageable age under a law of a religious community is lower than that under the law of the land, the state law prevails. However, some religious communities do not accept the supremacy of state law in this respect, which may lead to child marriage or forced marriage. The 123 parties to the 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery have agreed to adopt a minimum age for marriage.

Marriageable age - Wikipedia

It's now 18 without parental consent and 15 or 16 with Parental Consent in most of Europe.

 

[Cli-Fi]

Hi,

It's as though you're writing for yourself. You know the plot, the players etc. So you don't need to fill in the blanks for yourself. But everyone else is left guessing.

Also who is this summary aimed at? It's too long for the blurb at the back of a book, and probably not full enough for submission to an agent etc.

Cheers, Greg.

Thanks for your feedback as well. Seems like everyone liked the first line. So I'll stick with that and work on everything else first. I sort of have a synopsis already written so I guess I just wanted to see what people thought of the idea. But you are right, it's hard to look at my work through someone else's eyes. I've been working on the story and the characters and the outline for roughly six years now, and it's gotten to the point where it's really complex and there is a lot going on. Obviously if you read my other responses you'll see that there is much more to the story and I'm not quite sure how to make trim it well enough so that anyone else could understand the issues. So it's hard to keep it small and concise. Looks like this was too concise. lol.

 

[Cli-Fi]

It's beginning to make more sense and considering I recently read a book where 8 years was the age of maturity I could run with the 12 year as an age of maturity in the future and the notion that this is about lowering the marriage laws to allow a 14 year old to marry. But I think somehow some of this might need to show up in the synopsis. And that might include the equal pay for underage workers.

Also considering some other discussions around here (can't recall which one) you might consider changing::

Setting a new and unprecedented course for the country

To:: Setting a new unprecedented course for the world.

Giving it higher stakes and a larger scope.

Thanks I will take a look at your suggestions. Was the book scifi?

 

[Cli-Fi]

Just thought I'd mention something raised above for the benefit of @Cli-Fi - the way the summary is written, it suggests that Juliet Carpenter is the story protagonist, implying that the novel is about her inappropriate relationship with a 30-year old. Dorian Black is mentioned at the end, implying that he's a secondary character - when I think you actually mean to infer him to be the protag. That's why I mentioned about stating the protag first.

He is the most likely protag. I may try to work on the summary more with that in mind. Although, I'm not sure I want him as the MC!

 

[Loren]

Wow that was quite a reaction. Thank you and I am glad that this is generating some interest.

5. She wants the merger more than anything. She is tasked with cleaning up Carpenter INC after her father is outed. In my world kids are learning at an even faster rate than their parent's generation thanks to technological advances and more and more responsibilities are given to them, thanks in a large part to her somewhat idealistic forward ways of thinking. She's kind of the Rosa Parks of kid's rights. Her largest accomplishments are getting kids as young as tweleve equal salaries in corporations and lowering the marriage/driving age dramatically.

In the real world responsibility is much more than simply knowledge. You need emotional maturity and that is something the biological brain doesn't fully reach until young adulthood (usually the early 20s).

The brain before that age is still wiring itself, so it's not a learned response, but a biological process. This doesn't mean that young adolescents can't do things more like adults, but the emotional maturity factor is still an issue. Even the minimum age to become a US president is 30 years. This is because young adults still have a lot hormonal biology going on.

I agree with others that 14 is simply too young. 16 would be a more believable age. The problem is that you need buy-in from your intended audience and much of what you are touting is going to alienate most people because you are going against long established cultural norms.

Lastly, why would families have to marry for a corporate merger? That is usually managed by governing antitrust bodies that vote yea or nay. For the US it is the Federal Trade Commission. Europe has its own EU laws as part of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

I would have a hard time believing that the world reverts back to the feudal system and also possess the technology of time travel. Seems a stretch to me.

Even in the times of kings and queens, young kings often had regents that would technically manage the realm.

I think you have good elements for some excellent intrigue, but the way you are lacing them together seems shaky.

 

[Cli-Fi]

I have made some more clearer changes to the summary. Hopefully this makes it seem more clearer and the risk is explained better.

Chaos grips the Temporal Congress. First set up as a way to keep a lid on various innovative and emerging ways to travel through time. The once new and promising political body is now plagued with scandal and corruption. A secret religious faction inside Congress calling themselves the Temporal Consortium has emerged and they believe that time travel is at fault for the mess.

While Congress endlessly debates these alarming new developments, the infamous investigator Dorian Black convinces the Temporal Consortium to let him get to the bottom of the mystery, instead. He never expected anything to come from troubling accusations that the Temporal Congress are being bought and paid for by the powerful future bloodlines of the Wilson Dynasty.

Yet Congress’ incompetence is exposed when Child Activist and newly minted CEO of Carpenter INC, sixteen year old Juliet Carpenter reveals an intriguing loophole in their latest legislation. The Underage Marriage Act allows thirty-three year old industrialist Henry Wilson the power to wed the young heiress. In a controversial marriage ceremony two trillion dollar corporations become one, setting a new and unprecedented course for the very future of mankind.

As the Wilson Dynasty manages to make its mark on many pages throughout history, Dorian is tasked with the impossible mission of keeping them in line. What he finds through future history is a paradoxical conspiracy one thousand years in the making that will change our understanding of the universe and what it means to be human…

 

[Loren]

This seems better and more believable.

I'm still stuck on the marriage law. Maybe something else could be blocking the family merger that they overcome. Power struggles can get complex and a simple law may not be compelling in my mind. What else might she discover that is keeping the families apart? Internal power struggles in the family? Perhaps someone from outside the family high in government?

I would wonder if making the religious organization external to the government would make it a better and more mysterious idea. It is a little easier to cloak their activities than if it was under the same roof as Congress. It also gives them that Illuminati-like presence if some dark world-wide organization emerges from the shadows...

Money is usually at the root of everything, but the corruption process should rely on the old CIA M.I.C.E tradecraft principles (Money, Ideology, Coercion, and Extortion). You can play all four aspects of MICE depending on the characters and it will just deepen the intrigue. Everyone has their weakness. For some it's money, some ideology, physically coerced or intimidated, or they can be extorted.

The more Dorian and Juliet peel back the onion, the more vermin come squiggling out.

 

[Cli-Fi]

This seems better and more believable.

1. I'm still stuck on the marriage law. Maybe something else could be blocking the family merger that they overcome. Power struggles can get complex and a simple law may not be compelling in my mind. What else might she discover that is keeping the families apart? Internal power struggles in the family? Perhaps someone from outside the family high in government?

2. I would wonder if making the religious organization external to the government would make it a better and more mysterious idea. It is a little easier to cloak their activities than if it was under the same roof as Congress. It also gives them that Illuminati-like presence if some dark world-wide organization emerges from the shadows...

3. Money is usually at the root of everything, but the corruption process should rely on the old CIA M.I.C.E tradecraft principles (Money, Ideology, Coercion, and Extortion). You can play all four aspects of MICE depending on the characters and it will just deepen the intrigue. Everyone has their weakness. For some it's money, some ideology, physically coerced or intimidated, or they can be extorted.

The more Dorian and Juliet peel back the onion, the more vermin come squiggling out.

1. The thing about the law that is so shocking because at the beginning of the story time travel is still relatively new and undefined, so this is the first time that someone changed the timeline in two spots at the same time in the same moment. If that makes sense. It's a more advanced form of the regular linear time travel and viewing experiences that are already available in that world. Basically Henry is marrying Juliet the same time she is talking with Congress, although, I could have her talking about something different and Dorian finds this out later...

2. HaHa I thought the opposite as it reminds me of the various factions breaking off the two political parties in America today.

3. We think alike here, no worries as there is plenty of mythology I have already outlined.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

The thing about the law that is so shocking

How?
Many countries allow marriage at 16 now with Parental Consent. Some without.

Unless this is an alternate reality, not our Earth, none of it makes sense.