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"The Age of Consent," June 1886
Document 4: "The Age of Consent," Union Signal, 10 June 1886, pp. 2-3.
Introduction
The age-of-consent campaign relied upon a narrative of seduction in which an
older, middle- or upper-class man seduced a young, working-class girl for its appeal
to women activists, who viewed low legal ages of consent as evidence of male
privilege and female victimization. According to historian Mary Odem, this narrative
was not based on reality. Rather, although working-class girls were beginning to
form intimate and sometimes sexual relationships with men, their boyfriends were
usually young, unmarried, working-class youth, not older men or their employers.[8]
The following article, reprinted from the Boston Index, used the seduction narrative
to justify the proposed changes in Massachusetts law.
THE AGE OF CONSENT
__________
As we all know, Massachusetts is making a brave fight to have the
age of consent raised to at least thirteen years. This movement has
met with opposition from unexpected quarters, Mr. T. W. Higginson[A]
and other excellent men opposing it, seemingly from the fear that it will
work injustice to very young men in that it does not give them
protection against designing, dissolute women. Harriette R. Shattuck
replies to his structure at length in The Index. She makes some
excellent points which we give in full, because they will be helpful to
women in other states who are fighting the same battle. She says:
As the laws now stand in our Massachusetts statutes, cases of
violence (where the victim does not "consent") are punished by
imprisonment in the state prison for life or for a term of years. This
same penalty is prescribed when the offence is committed against a
girl-child under ten, when she does "consent." When the girl is over
ten, the offence becomes mutual, and is punished, in both parties, by a
small fine or by three months imprisonment in jail. In other words, no
matter what the age of the man is, the girl, a victim at nine, becomes a
criminal at ten; and a sin to which it is very easy to claim that she
"consents" (for no matter how ignorant or unsuspecting she may be, till
too late to save herself) is punished as a crime. The girl of ten years is
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