Something About the "Runaway Bride" (Gratuitious Soviet Union Reference Edition)

Before Jennifer Wilbanks disappears completely down the memory hole–and before she shows up on season eight of The Surreal Life–ponder what "ifeminist" Wendy McElroy has to say about the whole thing over at Fox News:

A sea change is occurring in how our culture regards and deals with those who make false accusations and police reports. Five years ago, it was commonplace to hear in the media that victims—especially women and children—never lie. Skeptics who doubted a victim's story, even in the presence of questionable evidence, were accused by victims' rights advocates of re-victimizing the person and, so, silenced. Today, it is clear that false reports occur with some frequency and there is an increased willingness to treat those who file them as criminals….

Until she made [false statements to police in New Mexico]–an act that occurred at the tail end of the police investigation–Wilbanks had done nothing wrong in a legal sense.

The foregoing statement is not an expression of sympathy. As far as I am concerned, Wilbanks should be disowned by her parents, shunned by friends, and bitten by the family dog.

But she is a free human being. Except for the purpose of fraud or other crime, she has a legal right to disappear, to run out on a wedding. The alternative is to require people to inform authorities about their whereabouts and movements, as they were required to do in the Soviet Union.

Whole thing here.