Rob Glasser
History 249
October 25, 2012

Until the early twentieth century, the age of consent, the legal age at which a girl could consent to sexual relations, was in most states the age of ten or twelve. In one state, Delaware, the age of consent was as low as seven years. In the late nineteenth century, women reformers sought to raise the age of consent to sixteen years. The campaign consisted of mostly white middle class women who believed male sexual privilege was dangerous toward the young girls who men took advantage of. In the late nineteenth century, women were increasingly becoming more involved in society, getting hired for more and more jobs. As opposed to earlier in the century when women were strictly working around the house, many women had jobs in factories, office buildings, and schools. This put them in a situation where male co-workers and employers would seduce them into having sex. Reformers believed that wage-earning girls, lacking protection of the home, were often lured into “White Slavery.” White slavery, as described in the text, is a system of “prostitution in which women were bought and sold, while other girls were left to suffer a fate worse than death: the loss of their virtue.” Since women were often brought up in ignorance to sex and relationships, men were able to take advantage of them. While white middle class women were the bulk of the campaign, other activist groups shared concern over the age of consent. The suffrage movement supported the cause because they believed male sexual privilege contributed to women’s second-class citizenship. Many of these suffrage activists, including Emily Blackwell, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Helen Gardener argued that until women received the right to vote, they would not be able to achieve their goals of raising the age of consent. Since many of the victims were working women, activists who fought for improving women’s working conditions also supported the movement. Harriette R. Shattuck brought up the fact that seduction in itself is not a crime. At the time, when both the man and the underage girl had consented to sexual relations, both parties are subject to penalties. What she argued was that in most cases of seduction, the girl is not in fact a criminal but a victim who does not deserve to be punished, but protected instead. Therefore raising the age of consent would protect children and young girls from 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.” Shattuck continued to say it is well known and understood that almost all girls are brought up in ignorance, lacking understanding of the situation, while boys are brought up understanding the sin they aim to commit. Furthermore, the social penalties for girls is much more severe as opposed to the boys’ penalties, which is almost nothing. Finally, she stated that the effect of the sin almost completely falls on the girl, while the man feels no sorrow and is barely affected. Vie H. Campbell, president of the Wisconsin Women Christian Temperance Union, believed that age of consent laws should be abolished altogether, and that instead, seduction of a woman of any age should be a crime. She stated age of consent laws “are a disgrace to America’s boasted civilization, a menace to the peace of our homes and the safety of our children.” She went on to talk about how the laws are very unequal when the punishment a man receives for stealing a women’s honor is less than that of a man stealing her purse. She questions the fact that while America has laws to protect libertines, no laws protect little girls. She asked “Is there a man, worthy of being called a man, who believes that a little girl twelve years of age is so well versed in the world’s villainies that she is able to protect herself against the wiles of designing and unscrupulous lust?” Campbell explains that the age of consent law not only is cruel towards women, but criminally indulgent towards men, as they have made it too easy for men to do wrong. The age of consent law creates a double standard because while a man commits this awful crime, he can take an oath that his partner consented to it. The National Colored Woman’s Congress did not support the raise of the age of consent. They feared that tighter laws would cause African American men to be aimed at and that a much smaller effort would take place to protect young black girls in the south from white men. They made many general statements about support for purity and education of women. They stated “We require the same standard of morality for men as for women, and that the mothers teach their sons the social purity as well as their daughters.” The documents provide much detail and facts of the movement to raise the age of consent. However, the authors of these documents are assuming that in every case, the man was the initiator of sexual relations with underage women. While that was the case most of the time, situations did exist in which women initiated it as well. The campaign of raising the age of consent ultimately reached its goals in the early twentieth century. By 1920, almost every state had changed the age of consent to sixteen or eighteen years. Women once again were able to come together for a common goal and make a difference for the better of our country.

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[ 1 ]. Melissa Doak, Rebecca Park and Eunice Lee, “How Did Gender and Class Shape the Age of Consent Campaign Within the Social Purity Movement, 1886-1914?” in Kathryn Kish Sklar and Thomas Dublin, eds., Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000, accessed through SUNY Oswego at http://asp6new.alexanderstreet.com.ezproxy.oswego.edu:2048/wam2/wam2.object.details.aspx?dorpid=1 000677657 on October 22,2012
[ 2 ]. "The Age of Consent," Union Signal, 10 June 1886, [whatever page or pages you used/pp. 2-3] accessed through SUNY Oswego at http://asp6new.alexanderstreet.com.ezproxy.oswego.edu:2048/wam2/wam2.object.details.aspx?dorpid=1 000690326 on October 22, 2012
Subsequent reference to document 4: “The Age of Consent,” page 2.
[ 3 ]. Vie H. Campbell, "Why an Age of Consent?" Arena, 69 (April 1895), [whatever page or pages you used/pp. 285-88] accessed through SUNY Oswego at http://asp6new.alexanderstreet.com.ezproxy.oswego.edu:2048/wam2/wam2.object.details.aspx?dorpid=1 000690739 on October 22, 2012
Subsequent reference to document 15: Campbell, page 1.
[ 4 ]. Vie H. Campbell, "Why an Age of Consent?" Arena, 69 (April 1895), [whatever page or pages you used/pp. 285-88] accessed through SUNY Oswego at http://asp6new.alexanderstreet.com.ezproxy.oswego.edu:2048/wam2/wam2.object.details.aspx?dorpid=1 000690739 on October 22, 2012
Subsequent reference to document 15: Campbell, page 2.
[ 5 ]. "The National Colored Woman's Congress," Woman's Era, 2 (January 1896), [whatever page or pages you used/pp 3-4] accessed through SUNY Oswego at http://asp6new.alexanderstreet.com.ezproxy.oswego.edu:2048/wam2/wam2.object.details.aspx?dorpid=1 000688438 on [whatever date you accessed it]
Subsequent reference to document 18: “National Colored Women’s Congress,” page 2.