While looking around online for something else, I came across this tidbit:
Statutory rape laws are based on the premise that until a person reaches a certain age, that individual is legally incapable of consenting to sexual intercourse. Statutory rape was codified into English law more than 700 years ago, when it became illegal “to ravish,” with or without her consent, a “maiden” under the age of 12. In 1576, the age of consent was lowered to 10.7
Statutory rape laws became part of the American legal system through English common law. As in England, early lawmakers in this country adopted 10 as the age of consent. However, during the 19th century, states gradually raised the age of consent, in some cases to 21.8 Today, the age of consent ranges from 14 to 18 years of age; in more than half of the states, the age of consent is 16 (see Table 1).
10???? With or without her consent???
Meanwhile, we’re told that young girls are hitting puberty at earlier ages than in the past… which sent me looking for historical input. Here’s a chart (hot-linked to the source page):
Polimom sees some incongruity here. If girls are maturing earlier now than they have historically, and at one time the age of consent was 10 (that boggles my mind), then what does all this say about society’s historical antecedants regarding children, adolescents, and pedophilia?
One can only go so far with the argument that there was more responsibility on the young, or that because of the higher infant mortality, families started sooner. It’s pretty obvious from the data that “consent” was totally disconnected from such explanations, but was more likely a disguise for what Polimom would consider to be overt sexual abuse.
And that brings me back around to what I was going to write about in the first place.
The debates surrounding the Foley scandal indicate (to me) that our society seems to have drawn some arbitrary age-lines in the sand. Perhaps we’d benefit from a bit of historical perspective, and a discussion of childhood itself: where it begins… and ends.
“10???? With or without her consent???”
Yes, Polimom – 10. It wasn’t about infant mortality – it was about the fact that people used to live a heck of a lot less long than they do now. Back in the Middle Ages, living until you were 18 meant you were elderly – if you were a female – and living past 30 wasn’t all that common. Disease, famine, childbirth (especially for women), all were reasons people tended to die young. This wasn’t just true for European societies: if I recall it was during the late tweener/early teenage years (when puberty hit and the menstrual cycle kicked off) that girls became marriage-eligible (also remember at that time, females were considered chattel property of their fathers, then of their husbands.)
At the same time, it wasn’t uncommon for a man to be significantly older than his wife – if I recall, Joseph (the husband of Mary, mother of Jesus) was in his 20s or 30s, while Mary was a “young woman” – maybe she had reached 14 when Jesus was born.
I don’t think it was about child sexual abuse – remember, girls getting married/having babies at a really young age was the norm back then! Of course, so was treating diseases by trepanning and applying leeches, burning witches at the stake, and putting entire towns to the sword for failing to convert to the deity preferred by the conquerors – to say nothing of the whole slavery thing. And, as late as Colonial times, a father could have his son (and maybe daughter, I am not sure) executed as early as age 14 for “disobedience” (how about that as a way to control AC when she throws a tantrum?) In fact, if I recall there was a 14 year-old executed during the 1900s, and they had to put a phone bood on the electric chair so he was high enough the electrodes could be attached to his head.
I suspect that the ‘line in the sand’ you mentioned was based on Victorian / neo-Puritan moral standards, and was probably instituted during the late 19th/early 20th Century.
~EdT.
The historical perspective is interesting but also remember that back in, say, 1576, a daughter (or son) was less a person than a piece of property that belonged not to her parents but to the king or the baron or whatever despot ruled the plot of land where the parents eked out a living. Furthermore, even the children of the overall ruler — king, emperor, whatever — were subject to political whims. Babies were routinely betrothed at birth to children or dirty old men in a neighboring (or far-away) political region not for love but for political or physical security. Their progeny were not ‘people’ but rather pawns in a political chess game of who would not just rule Europe but who would survive to spread language, customs — and genes. There was no ‘childhood’ back then: If you were not in the ruling class, you worked the land; if you were in the ruling class, you studied protocol, politics and self-preservation.
Children didn’t really experience what we middle-class Americans think of as ‘childhood’ until quiite recently in history. Many third-world children still don’t.
Childhood and particularly adolescence are, to some degree, cultural inventions. For most of human history, there has been no such thing as adolescence. You were a child until around puberty, then you were an adult.
Which is part of what’s so irritating about all the Mark Foley stuff: as inappropriate as his behavior was, a 16 year old is not a “child” in the sense that a 12-year old it. (Nor is he an adult as we think of adults.)
But in much of the world today, 16 is old enough to work 10 hour days and be married.
We forget sometimes how much of this we’ve actually invented as part of our culture. (I think they are reasonable inventions, given what we know about human development, though.)
Fun fact: the current age of consent in Spain is 13.
Another fun fact: I got the following straight from the UN “Convention on the Rights of the Child”
I think the minimum age of enlistment in the USofA is 17 (with parental consent) – though it was 16 some years ago, as my son thought about enlisting in the National Guard. Scary thought, 16-year olds carrying fully automatic weapons at airports (as I recall, when he turned 16 the NG was still doing some guard duty at the airports.)
~EdT.
Okay, you guys…. Bear with me, cuz I’m trying to get someplace with this post (and dialogue).
Let’s take this one step at a time:
Regardless of the status of women and children in the past, and leaving aside cultural changes:
— It seems to me that at one time, marriageable age equated, pretty much, with the onset of female puberty (and in some places, it still does).
— Also – because the age of consent for “ravishing” (bluntly: having sex) was 10 years of age one time, sex was not always directly, or necessarily, connected to procreation or marriage.
Do these two statements seem reasonable to you, and supported by the data / dialogue?
It has been a long time since I’ve studied archaic English but I’m pretty sure “ravishing” does not equal “having sex.” Today, like then, things didn’t take place in a vacuum.
Ancient European governments, when properly followed in the feudal system, placed responsibilities on the peerage, noblesse oblige, as well as the serfs. Of course the High Order Peerage of a given land owed vassalage to the Nobility above him. The serfs owed ‘all’ to their lord, including his option to “ravish” a 10-year child. Ravish then would be much like the lord taking at will the best or choice of tenant farmers. To have taken such action before her (the assigned age which varied) birthday, was criminal and even a member of the peerage could be brought before his upper Nobility.
Also as it’s been said, the father could rent, sell or trade a child for labor but, until a particular age, not for sexual use – male or female.
“Do these two statements seem reasonable to you, and supported by the data / dialogue? “
Somewhat.
…sex was not always directly, or necessarily, connected to procreation or marriage.
More than likely true. I suspect that some ‘alpha males’ took women (as someone said somewhere else) “BECAUSE THEY CAN.” Also, some saw it as a way of ‘tagging’ their females – sort of like cats marking their territory, buth with a higher “Ewwww….” factor. Also, that might help to explain why teachers in ancient Greece often had ‘relationships’ with their students – and, given that only males could be teachers or students, these relationships tended to be homosexual in nature.
~EdT.
I’m really glad you brought this topic up, PM, because a lot of the rhetoric around the Foley incident has bugged me. It’s difficult to say, “you know, this is not quite pedophilia, folks” without sounding like you’re excusing an inexcusable abuse of power and position.
Reading about age of consent laws is fascinating, because it reveals just how unclear our assumptions about what those teenage years really mean (and what capabilities we assume teens have) are.
Fascinating discussion and one that has been had around my house. I agree with John’s comment: It’s difficult to say, “you know, this is not quite pedophilia, folks” without sounding like you’re excusing an inexcusable abuse of power and position.
The line in terms of consent is so vague. We debate when a kid can be tried as an adult for a crime, when a kid can be executed for a crime, when a kid can give consent for sex, and it goes on and on. What’s interesting is that we always use the word “kid” in those sentences. Is the kid a kid or is the kid an adult? And our lines seem so arbitrary sometimes. We can incarcerate, execute or send off to war a “kid” who’s 18, no problem. But that same kid can’t have a beer. He can vote, we consider that he’s sensible enough to make a decision in the voting booth or battlefield but not in a bar. Some of these lines are just preposterous.
Oh yeah, and should we talk about how we hyper-sexualize 13-14 yr old girls on the covers of magazines, making them look like tantalizing 20-something sex kittens, but then are appalled when men view them as available for sex? “Isn’t she gorgeous in the Victoria’s Secret ad, but you can’t have her!”
We know from recent studies that the brains of teens/early twenties people are not the same as our old jaded, wrinkled ones. We know they have impulse control issues, that they don’t process things the same way we do. And yes, the historical info in the above statements is really interesting and so true—did brains develop sooner then than now? I doubt it.
I stand in front of a counter at a store manned (giggle) by a 16 yr old clerk who appears not to have a brain in his/her head. I get impatient these days. But I was 16 once. While not advocating any of the following, this is nonetheless what I was doing: I was protesting a war and being arrested, I was smoking pot and cigarettes, I was procuring horrid rose wine for the bong, I was consenting to sex, and it definitely was consenting. I was going over the Jersey state line to upstate NY where the drinking age was 18 at the time. I could go on, but won’t. Was I an idiot? Very definitely in some ways, and looking back now as a mother and grandmother I’m aghast. But I do remember that there felt like there was a more solid line between kid and adult than there is now.
I think we’ve so blurred the line between childhood (and how we define it) and adulthood (and how we define that) that there’s almost no way to make an across the board “line” for every possible event.
This is a very interesting dialogue. I really am appreciative, folks… lots of things to mentally chew on here.
So… specific to the age of consent, and moving into our present culture, does everybody agree with the following?
1. The age of consent, whether 15, 16, 17, or 18, is completely unrelated to procreation (which could begin today at more like 11 or 12). So it makes no sense in that context.
2. The age of consent (again, whatever it is at a state level) is also unrelated to when our society views the best age / time in life to marry. Myself, I see marraige as an event that should occur, for instance, at the very least after high school, and preferably after college (or a career is established).
Given the above, can anybody explain to me why we would have an age of consent that is removed from biological reality or societal norms, other than acknowledgment of hormones … which are driven by puberty… which today commonly starts as early as 11 or 12 years old?
PM writes: …marriageable age equated, pretty much, with the onset of female puberty….
If you were shipping your little princess from the wilds of England to the wilds of Germany for her marriage to the 5-year-old son of the Emperor, you might want to send her long before puberty set in, so she’d be there already in case she ‘accidentally ‘became pregnant before the little prince was ready for his wedding. (Stuff happens when a little girl’s heart is in one place but she’s already promised to someone across the sea who is barely out of diapers & doesn’t even speak her language…)
If something were to happen after she had been turned over to her new in-laws, you could start a war or demand some remuneration over it, whereas if she was naughty at home, you were stuck with one used princess/bastard combination and no eBay.
If you were less rich, you might consent to let your 10-year-old have a chance at a ‘better life’ by going off to the wilds of America as a playmate (e.g., servant) or an au pair to some child whose parents could afford to take her. Or even as a young wife to someone who promised to keep her ‘unused’ until she reached ‘an age…’ And maybe they would even marry before they left, but he’d promise to let her ‘flower’ before consummating the deal. If you know that her choice might be starvation, violent death by hanging/fire (because of your religion), rape and torture by a neighboring tribe, etc., you might see it as a good option, especially if you consider the person to be trustworthy. (sigh)
Methinks the definition of ‘marriageable age’ in history depended more on the bride price and the parents’ desperation than a girl’s physical maturity.
Okay, just cuz I read this yesterday I had to put the link in in response to Smukke’s astute comment re:marriageable age and bride price. Evidently one can marry off one’s dead daughter in China.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/world/asia/05china.html?em&ex=1160280000&en=0305a47f6fac0e1e&ei=5087
In many Muslim countries the age is younger still, 9 in Iran, after that the girl is considered a moral threat to men and must cover up. The age of consent is arbitrary and is based on cultural assumptions. In some tribal cultures there is no minimum age. The Anglo-American countries traditionally have the highest ages of consent, 18 in some US states. The age of consent reforms were based on the idea of social threat and rose after scandals about child prostitution. Unmarried girls were seen as a threat to the moral order. There is no real ‘scientific’ basis for a given age. Developmental psychology tells us that adolescencents show great variation in moral maturity with some 10-12 year-olds show higher scores than some 18-21 year-olds. And as children are maturing physically at an earlier age so too are they maturing cognitively and morally. Rigid laws do not take into account the individual capacity of the adolescent. Also, pedophilies are attracted to ‘children’ and the normal definition of a child is pre-pubertal. Foley could not be clinically considered a pedophile. However, he is a moral hypocrit.
Polimom- I am absolutely beside myself that I cannot find the articles and essays I wanted to add to this conversation. So I will leave one link to an essay and my pitiful attempt to relay the information I have read.
The age of consent being puberty was largely due to one thing and one thing only. Incest. Incest is a disease that is still rampant today but nearly to the degree it once was. While not every father, brother uncle, grandfather practiced it, many, many, many did. Once a female child came into her cycles and could bare children it became necessary to move her out of the home. While we may think ” these men could all have just lied when she got pregnant and called her a whore” the bottom line is that is was strongly believed, perhaps a myth perpetuated by the church?, a child bore between close relations, father and daughter, would be mutated or an abomination physically. This physical evidence would be enough to incarcerate men along with the girls testimony. In folklore it is said ” a beautiful girl has no kinsmen” meaning if she was a beautiful child, her fathers and brothers would bed her regardless of her age or being related. All of this was from a great womens studies course a long time ago. I do not have anything to back up my information. However it would be a great theory to pose against ” Occam’s razor” Of course, like the politics of today, men did not give their real reasons for making these laws. But as it is recorded in history books by men it has been perpetuated as fact that these laws were arbitrary, when they are in fact not. Amazing how naive we all are in this day and age. Here is the only link I have that is somewhat related to the topic. I imagine all men will disagree with my statements. That’s fine. Wouldn’t be the first or the last time.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/1497626