The record-union., 1899-02-01
THE AGE OF CONSENT.


A Legislature of California, it would
seem, cannot close session without
being driven by persistent application
on the part of misguided women and
mistaken men, to consider and debate
propositions to raise the age of consent
the age under which it shall not by
the law be deemed competent for a
young woman to consent to her own
dishonor.
This age has been raised twice al
ready, and now it is proposed to give
1t another lift and make it Is. A we'll
known worker and officer of the So
ciety for the Prevention Of Cruelty to
Children ON hearing of this proposition
the other day, remarked: IF that be-
comes 5the law I will need in this little
city alone half dozen additional Off
GERS, sand they will be over busy then ;"
Which may not speak well for the
morals of youth, but they are neither
better nor worse here than in other
CllA6S VI the SIdle.
The age of consent should not be
raised, because it will give us law
unequal IL it's operation, and therefore
unjust 1t will punish one sex at a low
age and hold guiltless those of the other
sex of greater age. A woman Of IL,
of full matured age under the law, is
to be held incapable of yielding to i'm
morality, while the lad Of IA, who is
her junior not only in years but in in
tellect, and probably in moral stamina,
who has Illicit relations with her, must
fstraightway go to the State Prison and
be branded as the most disreputable,
the meanest, the most cowardly of con-
victs, one despised by men, abhored by
his fellow felons and despised by the
very dogs because of the infamy the
law attaches to him Yet the woman
of Is or of II years, IL months and 80
days may be, oft is, the more guilty
creature, but goes free to pose as
man being.
The subject is disagreeable one to
debate, but we reflect that it is not of
our seeking and that sickly sent-
mentalists and too soft-hearted women
have brought it into the forum of dis
cussion and made it matter for pub
lie consideration. The simple truth Is,
and it is known to every person having
hi, -
work in the Humane Societies that as
many boys, susceptible and poisoning
lads, are led astray by girls of superior
age as girls of that age led to ruin by
Junior males. We appeal on this point
to the records of every Humane Society
and police register in the State.
But we are told that the proposed
Law is intended to meet the cases of
'matured men upon whom womanly vir-
tue is a rchivalric charge for its defense;
men who deliberately WOO girls to ruin
who practice the arts of the accom-
plished libertine, and playing upon the
susceptibilities, ignorance and passion
of young womanhood, commit the most
infamous of crimes, for which no father
ever has been punished for Staying the
betrayer of his innocent female child.
If that is the purpose of the law, let
1t so be specified. Let it be made dis
tinct and unambiguous that the applica-
ton is to matured men alone and not
to lads the juniors of the women who,
1t Is sought to be provided, cannot le-
gally consent to their ruin. But that
Will not be sufficient after all. For it
is simple fact sad though it may be
to relate it, that such an act as is pro-
posed will prove a positive license for
immortality and RIGHTEOUSNESS. It will
tend to the greater corruption of girls,
since it affords them protection from
their own wrong doing, while Furnishing
their juniors physically, intellectually
and mentally. 1t puts into the hand of
every vicious woman and professional
prostitute of bare Is years whip with
which to lay the lash of blackmail on
every man who may fall under her dis
pleasure.
1t will arm vicious girls with shield
under which they can practice licen-
tiousness with impunity. For testimony
on that head we again refer to the Of
ficers of Humane Societies, and we sim
cerely trust that these will be consult
ed by the legislative committees to
whom the bills in question have been
referred We undertake to say, that
the members Of the committee will be
greatly Informed and vastly instructed
by examining these officers.
If the lawmakers of the State are sin
cerely DESTROYS of reducing the crime by
consent, that is, the crime without vio-
lence-and we will not insult them by
a thought that they are not--then let
them enact that the female over JIG and
under IS shall be held equally guilty
with the male of like age or junior
age. But even with that we can see
no good to result from raising the age
of consent to is. even as against rela-
lions with men of superior age. The
young woman Of IS who goes wrong
must be assumed to have knowledge of
her duty to herself and to society, and
to be wholly conscious OF, and freely
conserving to her undoing Any other
assumption flies in the face OF human
experience and common reason.
We are perfectly well aware that lugu-
brious signs and floods OF tears win be
shed BY the emotional women who are