Page:The Legal Subjection of Men.djvu/74

 into marriage, and the attainment of title and fortune by her inducements to lead him astray.

The male minor in France has some protection. The consent of cooler heads is required to his marriage. In England he has no protection from the terrible consequences of succumbing to the wiles of a female seducer.

Contrast the law of England on the seduction of the female, minor or adult. Vindictive damages are to be had for the asking from the indignant jury. Legal fictions of "loss of service" by parents, are laid under requisition to prevent the operation of the maxim "volenti non fit injuria."

No action, civil or criminal, lies against a woman who induces a married man to have illicit relations with her. She may succeed in stripping the man of all his fortune, blackmail him for years, break up his home, cause him to be deprived of the custody of his children, and cap the climax of her crimes by appearing as a willing witness for his wife in the Courts. No penalty awaits her.

A man who seduces or is seduced by a wife has the satisfaction of being held up to public odium as a traitorous scoundrel, and at the same time of paying enormous costs and damages—the latter being settled on the delinquent wife.

For some mysterious reason a woman is supposed to be incapable of insulting a man. She may use most insolent language in a public assembly, waylay him at his office, or place of business, and adopt any other method of annoyance that malignity can devise, and the law refuses to protect him, and sends him to hard labour if he is goaded into retort.

Jeremy Bentham proposed a century ago that women insulting other citizens should be punished by being