The Wrongs of Woman

THERE is no crime, not even murder, which entails upon the offenders as horrible a punishment as that which falls upon the unhappy girl who is driven, it may be the error of one unguarded moment, into a life of prostitution – a life which is worse than death! –a life whose average duration is computed by some at three, by none at more than seven years, every moment of which is embittered by the sense of overwhelming degradation, and by every physical evil which can render existence hateful and miserable. And how monstrously disproportioned is the punishment to the crime!

A young girl of sixteen or seventeen, in ignorance and inexperience of the ways of the world, a mere child, at a period of life when reason is feeble, but when the new passions of her being have sprung into sudden sway, the stronger for their novelty, is subjected to the studied temptations, the deliberate and systematic arts of the seducer; and in this most unequal contest what wonder that the poor young creature falls – falls where? Down, deep down, into the very darkest and foulest abyss of society. Nurtured tenderly in her lost parental home, and in consequence of that tenderness the less prepared to resist the spoiler when he came appealing to the affections of her nature, she is now an outcast from social life, cut off from every tie of relationship, abandoned by every friend, the helpless and merciless slave of every reproach – cursed, scoffed at, trampled upon every side – and at last sinks exhausted into the grave. And meanwhile, what has become on the primary cause of all these horrors? The seducer, where is he? TO what pandemonium has society consigned him? Surely the community, which had so little mercy on the tempted, will find some new extremity of torture, some still more exquisite refinement of long protracted agony, to inflict upon the tempter? Not so. He has nothing to fear from society. Just, humane, immaculate society, anxious for the purity of its morals, stamps its inexorable victim of seduction, crushing her into the mire, and at the same time holds out its friendly hand to the crafty and profligate seducer in token on undiminished esteem.