A woman's true sphere is within the shelter of a home which she adorns with the fair lustre of her virtues, supported and protected by her husband, and in the full enjoyment of the sacred delights of maternity. But all of them cannot be so fortunate; and it is those very women who are in the greatest need of consideration, and who must face the world alone, whom men, as a rule, do not treat deferentially. Disadvantages are always heaped upon them; they are insulted in the streets if unprotected; their wages are less for equal work done; little thought is taken by their employers as to how they can subsist honorably; and diabolically inclined men are always about, striving to lure them to their ruin by arts which sometimes deceive and sometimes compel.
Men rarely boast of having accomplished the ruin of a girl; but if she has taken a single false step, or even departed in the slightest degree from the proprieties of womanhood, their hands are against her to prevent her from rising or recovering from her error.
Society maintains that a lapse from virtue on a woman's part is unpardonable, because of the risks peculiar to her; but the man who is her partner is morally blameworthy to a far greater degree, since he, as the principal, is the aggressor. Not necessarily realizing his vileness, he nevertheless is corrupt, untrue and debased. In fact, he is on a moral plane below that of the tatoways.
Men have always controlled the laws as well as literature, and have invariably legislated to their own advantage regarding women as the weaker sex and unfit to have any voice in government. But men have demonstrated that they are not truly gallant or kind toward women and the weaker members of society; for they have heaped the most unfair restrictions upon them, and have plainly shown the insincerity of their professed respect for womanhood.
Within the recollection of the present generation the condition of women has changed enormously for the better since they have taken the higher education; and therein lies their promise of safety; for if they trust to the uninfluenced generosity of men to grant them even decent rights, they will be disappointed. Until women began to take an interest in affairs of state, all laws which aimed to better their condition invariably met with effectual opposition, and whatever improvements have taken place in legislation regarding public morals are attributable almost solely to women and their influence.
Because women have been silent, men have been led to believe that they are indifferent to public morals; but, though it is characteristic of women to close their eyes and avert their heads at the sight or suggestion of horrible things, yet many noble ones among them have bravely fought for the betterment of their social condition with the grandest results. Women are at bottom the real authors of the recent laws which have been enacted in many of our States raising the "age of consent" from eight or ten years to fourteen, sixteen, and in some instances eighteen years of age.
The technical term "age of consent" denotes the age at which a girl can consent to her own seduction without incrimination of the violator. These statutes vary in the different civilized countries, but) in all of them carnal knowledge of a girl under statutory age is punishable as rape, even though she consent.
It is a strange anomaly that a girl cannot make contracts or marry without parental consent until she is eighteen years of age, and that a man, though not permitted by law to make her his wife, may yet with impunity make her his mistress before she has attained that age.
In some States the "age of consent" was formerly fixed by law at seven years (Delaware); in many others at ten years, and in others at varying ages up to eighteen years. At the earlier ages the unsuspecting child does not, of course, at all appreciate the significance of the sexual act, or the shame and physical injury to which she is subjected.