McCulloch’s Work for Raising the Age of Consent

In 1905 the Illinois House and Senate passed a bill raising the legal age of consent from 14 to 16 years old. Catharine Waugh McCulloch had led the charge on this issue as it directly related to her other efforts to enhance women’s legal rights. On the surface, age of consent applied to all sexes, but advocates’ intent for raising these laws in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was for the protection of young women and girls. 

In 1899 the age of consent in some jurisdictions in the U.S. was as low as 9 years old. Advocates of raising the age of consent argued that adult men often took advantage of young girls, but since the girls, if over 14, were viewed as adults they had few legal avenues to seek justice. Raising the age of consent meant that lawyers could potentially increase punishments on cases of sexual assault and rape, since the severity of those crimes was higher when the victim was a minor. By the late nineteenth century most legislators conceded the need to raise the age of consent. In Illinois, the age of consent was 10 years old in 1874; in 1887 it increased to 14; and then McCulloch succeeded in raising it to 16 in 1905.

Tied into McCulloch’s rationale for the age of consent was a larger call to action to increase women’s legal rights. Early in her career, when she practiced law in Rockford, IL, women survivors of assault came to her for legal help. She later used their stories to build her case for a higher age of consent and stricter laws against rape. She knew that the American legal and welfare systems did not provide many avenues for supporting young women who had “fallen” from society. In her Master’s Thesis she argued that increasing welfare services for young women was necessary for this very reason. 

Her work on the subject did not end in 1905. In 1909, McCulloch wrote a pamphlet on "Illinois Laws Concerning Women" which addressed the ways legislators tried to reduce the impact of laws that protect women. She said that two amendments had been added to the 1905 law making them less effective, and that legislators had inserted these additions without consulting her or the other advocates of the law. She saw this as backhanded, adding that “voteless” women should view this as a slight against them by lawmakers. Later she also wrote that convictions for rape were equivalent to “the theft of fifteen dollars worth of property” emphasizing the lack of care legislators had for women’s safety.

McCulloch also connected the issue of age of consent directly to the need for women’s suffrage. In pamphlets for the National Women’s Suffrage Association (NWSA) and the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association, McCulloch noted that in states that had already passed suffrage legislation, the age of consent was higher. She wrote: “We do not give a girl the right to dispose of her property until she is 18, but two years earlier is the age when she may consent to her own ruin. In the states where women vote, the age of consent is 18 or higher. In the majority of the states where women do not vote it is 14.” McCulloch made the argument that it was hypocritical for legislators to believe that a 14 year old could consent to sexual activity but could not yet make a will, pay taxes, or collect her own wages. While McCulloch was an expert in legal tactics and always chose to take legal pathways to strengthening women’s status, she was very direct with her male peers about their failures as legislatures and lawyers. She believed that women were needed to create better laws, hence they needed the vote. 

Sources:

"Catharine M'Culloch: Work of a Chicago Woman Leader." Evanston Daily News, 1895. Evanston History Centre Subject Files.

Freund, Ernst. “The Status of Child Welfare Legislation in Illinois.” Social Service Review 2, no. 4 (1928): 541–54. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30009238.

Kourany, R F et al. “The age of sexual consent.” The Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law vol. 14,2 (1986): 171-6.

Waugh McCulloch, Catharine. “Chronology of the Woman’s Rights Movement in Illinois” the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association, date unknown, Evanston History Center Subject Files.

Waugh McCulloch, Catharine. “Illinois Laws Concerning Women” February 1909, Evanston History Center Subject Files.

Waugh McCulloch, Catharine. “Illinois Laws Need Women’s Votes,” Illinois Equal Suffrage Association (date unknown), Evanston History Center Subject Files.

Waugh McCulloch, Catharine. “Woman’s Wages” Part III: Remedies, Master’s Thesis for Rockford College, 1888, Evanston History Center Subject Files.