On April 22, 1886, Ohio passed a law that made seduction illegal. Any man over the age of 21, whose profession was teaching or instructing was prohibited from have consensual sex with any unmarried woman they were teaching. If broken, this law could net them 10 years in prison. These laws were passed by thirty-five states between 1848 and 1900, with New York being first.The suits were most often carried out by fathers suing in the name of their daughters. They were usually used as a means of redressing lost wages and damages suffered to the family (father's) finances due to a daughter's pregnancy or injury resulting from the encounter. Many times the suit was simply settled by marriage between the individuals. The female did have to prove that she had been a virgin beforehand and was coerced in some manner. This law did offer an alternative to a rape charge, since rape was harder to prove. It did nothing for married women.
Most scholars agree that the laws were used to protect, not the women, but those who had a vested interest in their chastity, like fathers and employers, but the original law, passed in New York, was actually a feminist stride forward. The New York Female Moral Reform Society railed against the "double standard" that praised men for promiscuity and punished the women for joining in on the fun. They were actually campaigning against prostitution and felt that such a law would give women a means of fighting against the "fact" that once a woman was no longer virginal and had lost her "reputation", she would be forced to prostitution as her sole means of support.
The laws started to die out in the early twentieth century. A modern attitude towards rape prosecution and the selfish realization that they could be used as extortion and as a way for an "unchaste" female to cover up her indiscretions led to their repeal; although, there is at least one still on the books. A case was brought to court in North Carolina in 2003. I couldn't track down the outcome of that case.
The History Channel
Seduction, Sexual Violence and Marriage in New York City, 1886-1955; Stephen Robertson
Is the Tort of Wrongful Seduction Still Viable?; Joanna Grossman
Criminalizing Seduction: Prostitution, Moral Reform and the New York Anti-Seduction Law of 1848; Kara Major (paper summary)
4 comments:
Interesting in light of the media blitz on the 'rape' case ensuing now. Pardon me, but what female stripper in her right mind would go without at least one big burly male bodyguard to check out the scene?
Sidebar: Congrats on your gardening prowess, Heather! You've inspired me to get busy outside here with some new annuals, perennials.
Cheers,
Robin
True, I guess.
However, if you notice something, the people talking about this incident, myself included, seem to be taking the tack that she should have known better, yadda yadda. Basically blaming the victim. If she had ben Christy Co-ed, Dean's List student with pefectly coiffed hair and make-up, who'd never had a drop of liquor in her life and had never even contemplated stripping (Oh, no, never that!) wouldn't we be coming down harder on the jocks?
The rumor floating around the pipe is that date-rape drugs were found in the woman's (I almost wrote stripper. See what I mean?.) system. That, if it's true, makes up my mind for me. If she did not have the mental capacity to say no OR yes, then she was raped.
"Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Oh, and by the way, this is your new cellmate. His nickname's The Reamer."
When I was in high school in NYC the soccer coach was sleeping with all the hot girls. Luckily for him, they didn't play soccer.
Was he at least fired eventually?
I just had a teacher who flirted with all of the guys and treated them like gold while basically ignoring the females. She even taught my favorite subject, WAH!
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