PHI LOS 0 P H Y . - Classic Works of Apologetics Online

20S
As a woman collects her virtue into this point,
the loss of her chastity is generally the destruction of
her moral principle ;. and this con~eq1Jence is to be
appreheIided, whether the criminal intercourse be
discovered or not.
2. The injury to the fanlily may be understood
by the application of that infallible rule, " of doing
to others what we would that others should do unto
us." Let a father or a brother say, for ~hat CODsideration
they would· suifer this injury in a daughter
oi a sister; and whether any, or even a total loss of
fortune could create equal affiiction and distress.
And when they reflect upon tbis, let them distinguish,
if they can, between a robbery. committed upon
their property by fraud or forgery, and the ruin of
their happiness by the treachery of a seducer.
s. The public at large lose the benefit of the woman's
servi-.in her proper ~Iace and de~tination, as
a wife and parent. This to the whole community
may be little; but it is often more t~an all the good,
which the seducer does to the community, can reconlp~nse.
M~reover, prostitution is Sllpplied by seduction;
and in proportion to the· danger there is
of the woman's betaking herself, after her first sacrifice,
to a life of public lewdness, the seducer is altswerable
for the multiplied evils to which his crime
gives birth.
Upon the whole, if we pursue the effects of seduction
through the complicated misery lfhich it occa ..
sions; and if it be right to estimate crimes by the
mischief they knowingly produce, it will appear
something more than nlere invective to assert, that
not one half of the crill1es, for which men suifer
death by the laws of England, are so flagitious as
this.· -
• ~ ct the law has provided no runishment for this offence beyond ~
pecuDlaroy satisfaction to the injured family; and. this can only be come at,
hy. one Of. the q.uainteat fictions in the world, by the father's bringing hia
actIon agalDst the seducer, for the loss of hi: dlhtCf'8 service, during her
prpgnancy and nurturing.