THE NEEDED CHANGE
IN THE
AGE OF CONSENT.
AN APPEAL
For the Better Protection
of Our Girls.
BY
RICHARD ARTHUR, M.A., M.D.
Sydney:
The Christian World Press,301 Pitt Street.
——
1896.
Good laws, as a great statesman has said, are for the purpose of makingit easy to do right and difficult to do wrong. Such laws protect theweak and ignorant who are unable to take care of themselves, and deterthe cunning and unscrupulous from injuring their fellows. When thestrong prey upon the weak in any community, without the law in any wayattempting to prevent it, such apathy points to a low moral sensibilityin the community in which it exists.
This moral indifference and tolerance of injustice, must be chargedagainst the people of New South Wales. Their representatives inParliament have so devoted themselves to the strife for office and theincidence of taxation, that the question of protecting by law, thechastity of young girls, has been ignored. And the people have beencontent to have it so. In New South Wales, at the present time, anygirl of fourteen[Pg 4] years and a day, may be outraged, and unless it canbe proved that actual violence was used, the law will do nothing tothe man who has ruined her. In other words, the law of New South Walesgives its sanction to the seduction of every girl above fourteen, ifthis can be done without the employment of brute force. And experienceshows that men are not slow to avail themselves of this license. InSydney, the Rescue Homes, the Lying-in Hospitals, and the lock wardsare filled with girls, some about to become mothers, others sufferingfrom loathsome diseases, all social outcasts, and with a future of woeand tragedy before them.
Is not this a foul blot on this colony? Are there no men withchivalrous feeling and pity for the weak, whose blood boils whenthey hear of these things, are there no women whose hearts go out tothese poor, fallen children to save them? And cannot all see that itis infinitely better and easier to try and prevent this fall, thanto remedy it after it has happened? For the means of doing this isat hand. It is to raise the age at which a girl can consent to herown seduction. The “Age of Consent” so-called, at present stands atfourteen years. Increase this age to at least eighteen, and thusgive the girl [Pg 5]protection during the four years of her life in whichexperience proves that danger threatens her most.
After this age, the girl must be the guardian of her own virtue, and itis most probable that increased knowledge and strength of will powerwould preserve her from moral ruin. It is a significant fact that whilethe law holds the child of fourteen capable of defending her honour, itdoes not allow any girl who may possess property to manage or disposeof it in any way till she is 21 years old, and anyone marrying herwithout the consent of her legal guardians, even though she may bewilling herself, is liable to severe punishment.
If the girl of fourteen is capable of being the guardian of her ownvirtue then we must concede that physically she is fitted to become