It’s not easy being a man these days. No matter what we do to try and shake it, bad press and negative publicity seem to follow us around like a Jeremiah Wright soundbite. And you know what? Frankly, we deserve a lot of it; there are times when we do some really crappy things to one another, and especially to girls and women. A recent news story is yet another example and it has got to be the most bizarre thing I’ve heard about in a long time......or at least since that whole Texas polygamy camp story broke a few weeks ago. Not exactly a shining moment for men then, either.
Back in 1984, Austrian Josef Fritzl (pictured left) decided that it would be cool to abduct his 18 year old daughter, Elisabeth, and keep her in the basement of his house. Josef had been sexually abusing Elisabeth since she was 11 years old, so I guess he saw abduction as a way to take their relationship to the next level. Josef liked his idea so much he, unbeknownst to his wife (Elisabeth's mother), kept Elisabeth captive for the next 24 years.
No, really…24 years.
Bizarre story, right? It doesn’t end there. With Elisabeth successfully imprisoned, Josef proceeded to father seven children, including twins, with her over the next two and a half decades. One child was stillborn. Josef permitted Elisabeth to raise three children and he took three others to raise with his wife, Rosemarie.
If you haven't figured it out by now, Josef was crafty. He had all the right moves: he reported his daughter as missing, told Rosemarie that their daughter had run off to join a religious cult, and somehow obtained a letter supposedly written by Elisabeth stating that she did not want to be found. When Elisabeth began bearing the children Josef would later take, he informed Rosemarie that Elisabeth had sent the three children to her parents to raise. The children Elisabeth raised were never permitted beyond the confines of their windowless cellar, a cellar behind a soundproof door with an electronic locking system. Escape, apparently, was an impossibility. It wasn't until Elisabeth's eldest child fell so ill he needed to be taken to the hospital by Josef that the truth of the horror Elisabeth and her children endured came to light. Sadly, a freelance journalist reported that one of the boys said he'd seen the moon for the first time when he was taken from his home by the police.
As they say on the show, "Loveline": Good times.
There are a great many things about this story that disturb me and a great many more things I hope I never come to understand. I don't get how a father could imprison his daughter in a cellar and keep her under lock and key for any period of time, let alone 24 years. I don't understand how he could commit sexual assault. Or take children to raise as his own, though maybe in Josef's mind, he saw this as an act of nobility. Whatever. Nor can I even begin to fathom the pain of a mother who realizes that the daughter she's worried, prayed, and fretted over for 24 years has been living under her roof the entire time, held captive by the man she married, the man her daughter called "Father". I can't imagine the thoughts that run through one's mind when the realization hits that the children you've been raising as your grandchildren are indeed your grandchildren...and also your stepchildren.
This whole thing is absolutely mind-blowing.
If Fritzl is convicted of rape in Austria, he faces up to 15 years in prison. Prosecutors say they are also considering whether to charge Josef with murder "through failure to act" for the stillborn child. That particular penalty could carry a maximum of 20 years.
Here's the truly mind-blowing part: even if convicted and given the maximum sentences (assuming the sentences run concurrently), Fritzl would likely end up spending less time in an Austrian prison than Elisabeth spent in his cellar. Of course, it's unlikely that 73 year old Josef would even live to serve out his full sentence, but still...come on.
Situations like this cause me to fervently hope that this man be banished to the deepest and most torturous recesses of hell. Satan should maybe even consider creating a brand new level just to accommodate Josef.
Just when you think men can’t sink any lower, we seem to find eerily disheartening ways to lower the bar even further.
