But as England codified its statutory rape law in the
Statute of Westminster of 1275, “The King prohibiteth that none do ravish . . .
any Maiden within age.”5 This newly drafted law constructed the crime as sex-
ual intercourse with a female under 12, who was regarded as unable to con-
sent. The offense was made a capital one in 1285,6 and the age was lowered to
10 in 1576, “if any person shall unlawfully and carnally know and abuse any
woman-child under the age of ten years, every such unlawful and carnal
knowledge shall be a felony.”7
www.linkedin.com/pulse/rape-law-early-history-bj-cling-2004-stephanie-d-hurseyThe laws thus stated, as they still do today, that no crime
has been committed if the female is the wife of the perpetrator. Justice Brennan
noted in Michael M. v. Superior Court of Sonoma County, the only Supreme Court case
having to do with statutory rape law, that “because their chastity was considered
particularly precious, those young women were felt to be uniquely in need of the
state’s protection” (450 US 464 [1981] at 494–495). Females, in other words,
were seen as “special property in need of special protection” (McCollum 1982:
355) and thus “statutory rape was a property crime” (Eidson 1980: 767).
This, in practice, only applied to white females. Black females were gen-
erally formally enslaved, and for a variety of political, economic, social, and
cultural reasons their sexuality was not deemed to be in need of legal protec-
tion. This manifested itself in several myths about the “natural” state of black fe-
male sexuality as being the opposite of the “natural” state of white female
sexuality. While the latter were “chaste [and] pure” and on a “moral pedestal,”
the black female was promiscuous, impure, and lascivious. “This construct of
the licentious temptress served to justify white men’s sexual abuse of black
women” (Roberts 1997: 11).9 While black female bodies were commodified,
along with their childbearing capacity, their chastity was not.
At first in the United States, the crime was one of strict li
books.google.fr/books?id=eLSfxOiTsTkC&pg=PA14&lpg=PA14&dq=Greeks+considered+rape+of+males+as+well+as+females,+and+punished+the+crime+more+humanely,+mostly+with+fines&source=bl&ots=huO4cJu2aB&sig=ACfU3U2NcGYVP0GkLzy6gv9bMK_wlY4Gvw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwik6JOU_YroAhUJmBQKHZsPBpcQ6AEwAHoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=Greeks%20considered%20rape%20of%20males%20as%20well%20as%20females%2C%20and%20punished%20the%20crime%20more%20humanely%2C%20mostly%20with%20fines&f=false