The Spinster and Her Enemies - Feminish

‘HENPECKING’
evidence came from prison officers, sanitary officials, slum
clergymen and inspectors of schools. Mayhew and Acton both
connected incest with the path to prostitution, as did the Rescue
Society who were dedicated to rescuing girls and women who
were involved in prostitution. 9 The subject of incest stretched
the Victorian talent for euphemism to its limits with phrases
such as ‘promiscuous herding’ and ‘unnatural outrage and vice’.
Silence reigned in the media. Even the Lancet for 1885 stated,
There are things done in secret which should not so much as be
named in family circles or in newspapers which have entrance
into private houses.’ 10 The subject was introduced to the House
of Lords Select Committees on the ‘Protection of Young Girls’
(1882), and the ‘Sweating System’ (1888), but not followed up.
The Royal Commission on the ‘Housing of the Working Classes’
(1884–5) responded with detailed examination of witnesses and
a call for further investigation. Some of the reluctance to take
action seems to have been based on the idea of the sanctity of
the home and the desirability of domestic activities being safe
from state intervention. The idea of the sanctity of the family is
still used today to protect men from any interference in their
right to abuse women and girls within the family. 11 In the late
nineteenth century, government inspection of homes was seen
as a great vice. Shaftesbury said that physical cruelty to children
was too private and domestic and beyond the reach of legislation.
The NVA from its inception drew attention to father/daughter
incest and pressure for legislation built up from the foundation
of the NSPCC in 1889. The NSPCC and the NVA were both
involved in large numbers of prosecutions of fathers. In the
absence of incest legislation they had to prosecute offenders
under other statutes such as rape or age of consent. A Mrs
Heyworth, writing to the NVA in 1901, gave an example of
this process whilst offering help to the association in its campaign
around the Incest Bill:
She [Mrs Heyworth] stated that she had been informed on
good authority that in such cases, up to the age of 18, judges
hold and juries find, the outrage of a father on his child
amounts to rape, the parental authority being considered
equivalent to violence or threats, and that a mere assertion
by the girl that she submitted through fear, is practically
enough to secure a conviction for rape. 12
In 1887 a Bill was drafted to make incest a crime and was
submitted to the parliamentary committee of the NVA for
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