nl_e17

"The Age of Consent," June 1886
therefore held equally guilty with the man of twenty, forty, or eighty
years of age. This last is not exaggeration, the present writer having
learned of a case where the girl was twelve and the man eighty, with
all the difference of knowledge and design on the one hand and
ignorance and innocence on the other that this implies.
What we desire is that, in the law relating to violence, the age at
which the girl may "consent" and still be legally held a victim, and not a
criminal, shall be raised to at least thirteen. Also, in addition to this,
that a new law shall be passed by which girls shall be protected from
thirteen to eighteen (not to twenty-one), by making seduction a crime
on the part of the man, with a lighter penalty than that for violence, but
one which shall be sufficient to discourage the prostitution of children
and the traffic, on the part of middle-aged and old men, in girls under
eighteen. At present, seduction in itself is not a crime and is not
punished. When the two "have sinned conjointly," the act itself
becomes a crime, and is punished by equal penalties. But all that
which comes before the act, and which makes the vast difference
between the aggressor and the victim, is not taken into account in the
law. The fact we want recognized is that, in the majority of cases of
seduction, the girl is not a criminal, but a victim, and needs not
punishment, but protection. The design of the petitioners is not to
excuse girls of profligate habits, nor to protect them in their evil ways,
but to protect children and young girls of pure lives from the many men
whose chief pleasure it seems to be to go about, and with devilish
insinuations, promises of marriage, and words of so-called "love," to
persuade good girls to do wrong.
This brings me to the third point necessary to be taken into
account; and that is the vast difference in the case of the man on the
one hand, and the case of the girl on the other. In the first place, it is
well known that almost all girls are brought up in ignorance of the wiles
of men, while almost all boys are fully equipped with the knowledge,
and in the majority of cases, commit the sin with their eyes wide open.
It is also well known that, while the social penalty for boys and men is
almost nothing, that for girls and women it is damning. Also, that the
sorrow from and the effects of the sin fall almost entirely upon the
woman, while except in the sight of God, and under the righteousness
of his equal penalties, the man goes scot free.
Mr. Higginson urges that the boys also need protection; and to
this no one can object, although a careful reading of the laws
concerning houses of ill-fame and night-walking will show that men
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