Bianca's age?

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

On Sun, 25 Sep 2005, Ben Johnson wrote:
> after the age of ten the "woman-child" apparently legally turns into an
> adult woman in Hale's mind.
> http://www.shaksper.net/archives/2001/2259.html


Hi, found also these:

"'Age of consent' referred in the late nineteenth century
to the legal age at which a girl could consent to sexual
relations. Men who engaged in sexual relations with girls
before they reached the legal age of consent could be
found guilty of statuatory rape. American reformers were
shocked to discover that the laws of most states set the
age of consent at ten or twelve. Women reformers and social
purists initiated a campaign in 1885 to petition legislators
to raise the legal age of consent to at least sixteen in
all states in the nation, although their ultimate goal was
to raise the age to eighteen."
http://womhist.binghamton.edu/aoc/doclist.htm

"[H]istory [does not] suggest that the distinctive feature
of today's changing care-giving patterns involves children's
premature exposure to adult roles and knowledge. I have
already noted the prevalence of child labor, both in and
out of the home, in the past. In preindustral societies,
youths were integrated into - or at least intimately exposed
to - most adult activities. In colonial America, children were
often in the same room (sometimes the same bed) in which adult
sexual activity took place. During the 19th century, middle-class
and 'respectable' working-class families increasingly sheltered
their girls from sexual knowledge, but prostitution was much
more widespread than it is today. As late as 1896, the 'age
of consent' was 12 or under in the majority of states[--]."

Stephanie Coontz, "Historical Perspectives on Family
Studies". _Journal of Marriage and the Family_ 62
(May 2000): 283-297. Pp. 289-290.


Heikki