That’s Illegal?!?!?!?

A few days ago, my students and I read the story of Daphne and Apollo. In the story, Cupid is mad that his uncle, Apollo, won’t take him hunting because Apollo thinks that Cupid is too small. So, to get back at him, Cupid shoots Apollo with an arrow. After Apollo is shot, he sees Daphne, daughter of the river god Peneus. Daphne, who is scared of people and lives alone in the forest, is horrified when Apollo starts chasing her and telling her that he loves her. As she is being chased, Daphne gets tired and calls out to her father to save her from Apollo and his scary love. Daphne is then turned into a laurel tree and Apollo is heartbroken. He ends up adopting the laurel tree as his special tree and decides to wear a wreath of laurel branches on his head.

After we read the story, we started to discuss it. I then asked the kids “What should Apollo have done differently?” When I asked this, I was expecting something along the lines of ask her to dinner, ask her for her phone number, get a friend to introduce them, etc. Basically, I was expecting a normal answer. The answers I got, however, were far from normal.

One student, MinJae, had an idea as to what Apollo could have done. MinJae, in all seriousness, said that Apollo should have kidnapped Daphne and locked her in his basement until she learned to love him.

I was very disturbed by this answer. I was even more disturbed that several boys nodded in agreement. I had to explain to MinJae why this was a bad solution. It was big news to these boys that it is illegal to kidnap women and it is illegal to lock them in your basement. It was also a shock to them that a woman locked in your basement will never learn to love you. She will simply tell you what you want to hear so that you will let her out of your basement. Then, she will either run or away or kill you.

I asked the class again what Apollo should have done differently. I thought that since we explored the issue of what it legal and illegal in dating, that I would get a more logical and less criminal answer. I was wrong.

DongJoon raised his hand. So, I called on him and was all ready to hear something vaguely courtship like. Instead, DongJoon essentially proposed that Apollo should have stalked Daphne. Now, he didn’t phrase it that way but, that was the idea. DongJoon felt that Apollo should have followed Daphne around and stood outside of her house, her work, her school, anywhere that she was. He was to keep doing this until she agreed to marry him.

Once again, I blew their little minds by declaring this action illegal. At least they were slightly more surprised that this was illegal than they were about the kidnapping and locking in the basement. So, they did feel that the basement stunt was more aggressive.

After this, we had a nice long chat about what it legal and illegal in the dating world. I like to think that I helped avert a few criminal cases in the future.

My students in about 10 years.