Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/251

 sons of women from the temptations of light women. Soliciting in the streets by women is now punishable by law. This principle might be extended in some way to bring within the serious condemnation of the law those girls and women who seek to entrap simple youths into marriage, or who, by light behaviour, provoke young men to acts of immorality. It is an extremely difficult question; but girls above the age of fourteen, who bring to the Courts complaints of the behaviour of youths under eighteen, should have their cases dismissed with contempt if it can be demonstrated quite clearly that they have contributed to their own undoing.

The law has been described by a great writer as an ass; but, interpreted in the light of common sense, the law can do much to improve public morals and at the same time protect boys and girls from the devastating consequences of their own uncontrolled passions. Let the Courts set up a sufficiently high standard of morality by protecting girls at the most difficult and impressionable period of their lives; but, in the interpretation of the law, let the justices and magistrates remember that there is only one thing as dear to the heart of a mother as the honour and well-being of her daughter, and that is the well-being and honour of her son.

If the profession of the law be thrown open