Wrong and Right Methods of Dealing with Social Evil/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
THE REPRESSIVE SYSTEM, IN REFERENCE TO NATIONAL LAW.
The foregoing measures provide the necessary-means of checking social vice from the outside.[1]
But the measure which more than any other will attack the sources of evil, and produce radical and permanent improvement, is the protection of the young. This must be the work of National Law. The protection of the young from corruption destroys licentiousness itself. Whenever the young are educated in self-respect, and into the true human strength of virtue, then the unimpaired force of sexual passion remains as a powerful source of individual vigor, until it flows into its legitimate channel of parentage. Then the devastating disease of licentiousness gradually disappears.
The first imperative duty of every community, therefore, is to say, with authoritative command, to the vicious adult, "Hands off our children," and to punish with the utmost severity any corruption of minors.
The obligation of a nation to protect inexperienced youth, necessarily ignorant of the far-reaching effects of individual action, has been widely recognized in past ages by the Common Law of all civilized countries. It is only the modern decline of Christian civilization which violates this dictum of Common Law. According to French and other Continental Common Law, no minor boy or girl, up to the age of twenty-one, can legally consent to his or her own corruption—i.e., the adult who debauches is held responsible, is subject to punishment, and can not plead the consent of the minor as a fact in justification.
Notwithstanding the efforts always made under the Female Regulation System, to evade the Common Law by municipal ordinance, the Common Law exists, and it is owing to its existence that some of the actors in the Brussels and Bordeaux infamies were condemned to punishment.
But in England, at this day, a child of thirteen years old can give legal consent to debauchery. The vicious adult can plead this consent, and escape punishment.
The necessity of bringing in new and efficient force to compel wise legislation on this weighty subject will be evident from the following facts:
In 1875, a bill was introduced into Parliament to secure legal protection to girls up to the age of fourteen. This bill was cut down in Committee to the age of thirteen, and thus mutilated, was accepted by Parliament. It will be observed that a law which protects up to the age of thirteen, only guards children of twelve years of age. Children thirteen years old are therefore capable of giving legal consent to corruption.
The same mutilation of a Bill called "Assaults on Young Persons Bill," occurred again in 1880, a measure then introduced to protect children until the age of fourteen, being again cut down in Committee to the age of thirteen.
It is of the highest importance, therefore, at the present time, in relation to future action, to understand two points: first, what arguments were used by the representatives—English Members of Parliament—to refuse protection to children up to the age of fourteen, when the Common Law of Continental nations nominally protects them to the age of twenty-one; secondly, in what way was this mutilation of the bill originally introduced, accomplished?
The following record of facts and arguments, as seen in Hansard, will show that the thought and active terest of women must join with the efforts of enlightened men in guarding children:
Firstly.—These important bills were not debated in the House of Commons. They were examined in the privacy of Committees, and run through in an almost empty House. At the passing of the bill of 1880 so little interest was felt in a measure vitally affecting womanhood, viz., the protection of girls—a bill which, if enforced, would strike the most powerful possible blow at licentiousness—that of the 650 gentlemen who compose the House of Commons, only eighty-six were present. The age of protection was lowered from the age of fourteen to thirteen by a majority of only forty-one in this small House, and without debate.
Secondly.—In examining the scanty record of the private Committees in which these bills were mutilated, it is seen that two arguments were used for lowering the age of protection. Let women and men weigh these arguments. The first argument put forth, is the fear that fraudulent representation might trouble men. That is, that if a vicious man commits fornication with a young girl, she may be, or may pretend to be, under the legal age of fourteen and so try to extort hush money from him.
The second argument is this: that as a girl may legally marry at twelve, and as she may actually become a mother at eleven years of age, or under, that therefore she can perfectly understand the consequences of her actions, and should be held legally responsible for consenting to debauchery. That thus marriage and fornication should stand on the same footing in the eye of the law.
These appear to be the only arguments used for lowering the age of protection.
Thus we find the bill for protection to fourteen, introduced April 14, 1875, was lowered on the second reading to the age of thirteen by a vote of 65 to 21. In the House of Lords, June 8th, Lord Coleridge says it is lawful, by the Common Law of England, for a woman to marry at twelve years, and he uses this as an argument for refusing protection against seduction at that age.
The Lords finally reduced the age of protection to twelve years, but the Commons restored it to the age of thirteen.
August 6, 1880. The Assaults on Young Persons Bill was introduced to raise the age of protection from twelve to thirteen.
August 12th, in Committee. Mr. Hastings (Chairman of Quarter Sessions) "trusted that the age of ten would be inserted instead of thirteen." "A child not quite twelve was actually pregnant when she came into the witness-box." "It would be very hard that a charge of this kind should be brought by a girl sufficiently developed in body to become pregnant, and that a man should not be allowed to plead in his own defence, that the act was done with her consent." "Again, a child of eleven had been a prostitute under training of her mother. Was a man to be placed in peril by the evidence of such persons, and prohibited from pleading consent?" "He had had before him a number of cases, in which the children concerned in them were of an exceedingly tender age. In one case a child of six was concerned, and the counsel raised the defence that the child did not resist. He overruled that defence."—(But)—"He was convinced that the limit of age in the bill was fixed too high, and that the age of ten would be quite as high as it ought to be." "His argument was, that if children of eleven or twelve years of age were capable of prostitution, they were capable of understanding the nature of the Act, and it was unreasonable that a man should not be allowed to plead the girl's consent."
Mr. Warton "felt it his duty to support the amendment." He was in favor of even a lower age than that named in the amendment of the Member for East Worcestershire." "He had only obtained one acquittal." "It was scarcely possible to get an acquittal when a little girl was in the witness box. One reason was that there were Societies maintained by bringing charges of this description. He believed that these Societies, under the pretence of protecting women and children, wickedly tampered with medical evidence." "Among the lower classes acts of indecency were very common, and children became familiarized with those acts at a very tender age. He regarded the age of thirteen as much too high."
Such are the arguments used in a Christian nation, by the people's representatives in Parliament, to prevent the protection of the law being given to poor, ignorant, exposed girlhood!
Although the instinct of every affectionate parent will instantly detect the cruel cynicism of the foregoing opinions, yet it is necessary here to point out clearly the false physiology, as well as the destructive morality, on which these arguments are based.
First.—The physiological statement that mental capacity corresponds with physical growth is entirely false.[2] The true physiological doctrine is, that precocious physical development hinders moral development.
Consequently, the earlier the physical possibility of becoming a parent in the boy or girl, the more carefully law and education should protect this important parental function from early abuse and ruinous exercise. This moral incapacity, to judge of the results of their own actions in relation to sexual intercourse, is not only true of ignorant little girls of thirteen and fourteen, who sell themselves for the offer of a few shillings or a pretty dress, but such moral incapacity belongs to all youth. From the age of sixteen to eighteen, thoughtless ignorance, or the blind impulse of physical sex, are generally stronger than the intellectual and moral faculties. Youth at that age are quite unable to weigh or comprehend the very grave and powerful reasons which make early debauchery so destructive to a nation. At that age they have not acquired habits of sexual self-control, unless they have been surrounded early by exceptionally wise human influences. Our youth, until the age of eighteen, most imperatively require the guardianship and help of law and custom. It is the most cruel injury that we can do to childhood and youth to allow the vicious adult to trade upon impulsive inexperience; or to suffer corrupt age to plead that ignorant youth tempted it to evil. The physiological plea, urged in opposition to the protection of the young girl, is false, for the physical woman is a moral child, in the great mass of minor girls.
The second argument, viz., that fornicators must be protected from fraud, is equally false. Law is made for the protection of human beings in right-doing, not for the protection of the vicious in wrong-doing. The argument that a fornicator must be protected in his evil-doing against a young girl who offers to lead him astray, is the most cowardly instance of moral obliquity that can well be brought forward.
There are, alas! too many adult women ready to supply the demands of vice, making broad and easy the road for the unmanly fornicator. Such persons require no exceptional protection from the law. But our children we are bound to protect. Christian society is imperatively called on to demand that the young shall be guarded by law—the more defenceless the more carefully guarded—until age and experience give them the power of distinguishing between good and evil.
The future education of the young into respect for their own human bodies, and into mutual reverence, can only be effectually accomplished when the vicious adult is prevented by heavy punishment from corrupting minors—boys equally with girls.
The protection of minors is, therefore, the first and most important of the legitimate functions of law, and the foundation of every radical method of dealing with this tremendous evil.
The efficient protection of minors from the corrupting influence of vicious adults by just and severe law, and the energetic execution of such law, will destroy the chief root of licentiousness. It will prove the true radical method which law should adopt for checking disorder and disease. It is on this central ground that the great fight between, virtue and vice must be fought out. All the forces of evil will rise in opposition to such protection, knowing well that the corruption of youth is the stronghold of vice. But in the defence of their children the mothers of the race must be heard; their right to act in such a cause is indisputable, and when women call on men to support them in this sacred duty of motherhood—the guardianship of the young—men will rally to their aid, and no power of ancient or modern evil custom can withstand their united energy.
The great and urgent need of our civilization is the united action of men and women in the mighty contest with social evil which is now beginning. The conflict will be tremendous; but this age is full of promise.
A new force has appeared upon the scene of action. Never before in the world's history have women of trained intelligence, large experience, and religious faith, broken through the bonds of hypocrisy, and, in united and increasing numbers, recognized the possibility, and maintained the necessity, of the great permanent law of national progress, viz., the equal purity of men and women. This is the new force born into the world, and it is hailed with joy by all far-sighted and large-hearted men.
A great work is before our Anglo-Saxon race, which leads the van of human progress. The immediate practical step to be taken is organization.
It must always be remembered that the law which introduces a new code of morality into England—teaching women that disease, not vice, is a crime—was made by a Liberal Government; also that this same destructive law was accepted and confirmed by a Conservative Government. To neither of these parties, therefore, can we look for just moral legislation.
But it is not necessary to wait for the granting of the Parliamentary franchise, for England to carry on a strong moral warfare in a practical shape.
In the municipal vote women possess an aid whose power they have not yet realized. It is a power which, if organized into a moral municipal league, would prove more permanently efficient than even the Parliamentary franchise, for the election of councilmen is the first link in the great chain of free government. It is the first step taken in either a right or a wrong direction. It is the education of the municipalities which will ultimately determine the action of the General Government. Free, enlightened, representative municipalities furnish the elements out of which a future wise State must be built up. The future action of the municipalities, therefore, will decide whether the Government of England shall grow into representation of a strong, free, and virtuous nation, or sink into a corrupt, centralized, military despotism.
We now observe that every year the strife of political parties increases in bitterness and unscrupulousness. Every municipal election is determined by party spirit, and candidates are recommended because they are Conservatives or Liberals—not because they are fitted by character and intelligence to govern a town righteously. Even School Board elections are beginning to share in this false issue.
A grand opportunity is now presented to English women. They have the power of rallying to the aid of those noble men who have vainly sought to stem the flood of political passion and prejudice, and there are signs that the opportunity will not be lost. Englishwomen as well as Englishmen are beginning to demand that at the municipal elections the first qualification required from candidates shall be intelligent morality, not political partisanship; that Watch Committees shall be held to their duty; that Town Councils shall be taught that they are responsible for that moral order of towns which is the foundation of permanent material prosperity.
It can not fail to be of service to us here in America, thus carefully to consider the progress of thought and experience in the older world. The same questions that have become of such vital importance in Europe are of equal import with us.
Here, also, it is becoming evident that the "Let alone system" in regard to social evil can not continue. We are being summoned even now to decide whether "Regulation" or "Repression" shall be the course which we, as a nation, shall pursue. The broad, downward path which leadeth to destruction, vitiating the strong and treading underfoot the helpless and the weak, or the steep, up-hill path, which shall lead us to a higher and purer national life,—a path needing courage and vigilance and devotion to pursue, but leading to assured success—the path of Christian morality—of salvation for one and all.
Let us take courage by perceiving that the struggle is not a hopeless one. It is as a light shining upon us that an example is even now set before us indicating that vice may be restrained; that a way is open to us consistent with morality and religion.
A right national choice, made now and consistently carried out, will rescue from unspeakable evil thousands of helpless children just coming forward into life, and myriads as yet unborn, and shall save our national life and civilization from that sure and swift destruction that inevitably follows from a wrong decision on a matter of vital import.[3]
thus carefully considering—the Mother land, whose course of thought runs parallel with our own—has taken another step in the right direction. The animated debate in the House of Commons on the 20th of April, leading to the adoption, by an overwhelming majority, of a resolution clearly recognized as the first step toward the abolition of the Regulation Acts, is thought by many to plainly foreshadow their future fate; and the great moral and religious uprising, evinced by the multitude of petitions pouring in from the various religious bodies, from the laboring population, from societies of earnest men and women devoted to Moral Reform, show an intensity of feeling throughout the country which will probably render such measures impossible for the future.
The practical good sense, as well as the moral and religious feeling of England, is arraying itself against immoral legislation. What England casts out with indignation and contempt, America will never stoop to pick up.
Let us not be behindhand, then, in resolutely striving for the extinction of evil by the wiser method of united and vigilant repression, and careful guardianship of the young. Let us feel that we have individually and collectively a duty laid upon us, in regard to this matter. Every child in our midst will be to us a source of danger and disgrace if abandoned to evil, or a bulwark of safety and honor if rightly educated and protected as a wise government should protect the children upon whom its future welfare depends.
- ↑ The religious, educational, and economic reforms, which can alone destroy the evil relation of the sexes, are not touched upon in this work. Co-operation, in its widest sense, includes the Land Question, and is the true form of practical Christianity.
- ↑ False physiology which strives to throw the blame of vice upon the Creator, lies at the root of every evil system. This, however, is not the place to call attention to the errors which abound in physiological and medical books owing to imperfect observation of the tacts of human nature.
- ↑ Even as these words are in press there comes to us the cheering news that England, whose experience we have been