§ 604. An unmarried female may prosecute, as plaintiff, an action for her own seduction, and may recover therein such damages as shall be assessed in her fa

vor.

The purpose of this section and the next is to wipe away from our law a reproach, to which it has long been subject, that of giving no adequate remedy for one of the greatest offences against society, which a man can commit, that of seduction. At present the law gives only an action to the parent, or to one who stands in his relation, founded upon the notion, that he has suffered a pecuniary injury by the loss of service of the person seduced. Now the seduction of a woman, by which is meant inducing her, by persuasion, threats, or fraud, to consent to the sacrifice of her virtue, is an injury to herself and to her relations, of the gravest character. For this injury the law should provide a remedy, not by means of a fiction, but open and direct, in favor of the person injured.

The objection, that will be made to an action by the woman, is that she has consented to the act. That however does not

seem to us an answer, for two reasons.

First, there are many

other cases, where the law does now give an action for an injury to a party consenting; or for example, in the case of property obtained by false representation or other fraud, money lost upon stocks, at play, or borrowed upon usury. Secondly, the woman and her seducer do not stand upon equal grounds; she is the weaker party, and the victim of

his arts.

With this short statement of our own views, and the following passage from Paley, we submit these sections to the judgment of the legislature.

"The seducer practices the same stratagems to draw a woman's person into his power, that a swindler does to get. possession of your goods or money; yet the law of honor, which abhors deceit, applauds the address of a successful intrigue; so much is this capricious rule guided by names, and

with such facility does it accommodate itself to the pleasures and conveniency of higher life.

Seduction is seldom accomplished without fraud; and the fraud is by so much more criminal than other frauds, as the injury effected by it is greater, continues longer, and less admits reparation.

This injury is threefold; to the woman; to her family; and to the public.

1. The injury to the woman is made up of the pain she suffers from shame, or the loss she sustains in her reputation and prospects of marriage, and of the depravation of her moral principle.

1. This pain must be extreme, if we may judge of it from those barbarous endeavors to conceal their disgrace, to which women, under such circumstances, sometimes have recourse; comparing also their barbarity with their passionate fondness for their offspring in other cases. Nothing but an agony of mind the most insupportable can induce a woman to forget her nature, and the pity which even a stranger would show to a helpless and imploring infant. It is true, that all are not urged to this extremity; but if any are, it affords an indication of how much all suffer from the same cause. What shall we say to the authors of such mischief?

2. The loss which a woman sustains by the ruin of her reputation, almost exceeds computation. Every person's happiness depends in part upon the respect and reception which they meet with in the world; and it is no inconsiderable mortification, even to the firmest temper, to be rejected from the society of their equals, or received by them with neglect and disdain. But this is not all, nor the worst. By a rule of life, which it is not easy to blame, and which it is impossible to alter, a woman loses with her chastity the chance of marrying at all, or in any manner equal to the hopes she had been accustomed to entertain. Now marriage, whatever it be to a man, is that from which every woman expects her chief happiness. And this is still more true in low life, of which condition the women are, who are most exposed to solicitations of this sort. Add to this, that when a woman's maintenance depends upon her character, (as it does in a great measure, with those who are to support themselves by service,) little

sometimes is left to the forsaken sufferer, but to starve for want of employment, or to have recourse to prostitution for food and raiment.

3. As a woman collects her virtue into this point, the loss of her chastity is generally the destruction of her moral principles; and this consequence is to be apprehended, whether the criminal intercourse be discontinued or not.

II. The injury to the family may be understood, by the application of that infallible rule," of doing to others, what we would that others should do unto us." Let a father or brother say, for what consideration they would suffer this injury to a daughter or sister; and whether any, even a total loss of fortune, could create equal affliction or distress. And when they reflect upon this, let them distinguish, if they can, between a robbery, committed upon their property by fraud or forgery, and the ruin of their happiness by the treachery of a seducer.

III. The public at large lose the benefit of the woman's service in her proper place and destination, as a wife and parent. This to the whole community may be little; but it is often more than all the good, which the seducer does to the community, can recompense. Moreover prostitution is supplied by seduction; and in proportion to the danger there is of the woman, betaking herself, after her first sacrifice, to a life of public lewdness, the seducer is answerable for the multiplied evils to which his crime gives birth.

Upon the whole, if we pursue the effects of seduction through the complicated misery which it occasions, and if it be right to estimate crimes by the mischief they knowingly produce, it will appear something more than mere invective to assert, that not one half of the crimes, for which men suffer death, by the laws of England, are so flagitious as this.

Yet the law has provided no punishment for this offence, beyond a pecuniary satisfaction to the injured family; and this can only be come at, by one of the quaintest fictions in the world; by the father's bringing his action against the seducer, for the loss of his daughter's service, during her pregnancy and nurturing." Paley's Moral Philosophy, p. 199. § 605. A father, or in case of his death or desertion of his family, the mother, may prosecute as plaintiff

for the seduction of the daughter, and the guardian for the seduction of the ward, though the daughter or ward be not living with, or in the service of, the plaintiff, at the time of the seduction or afterwards, and there be no loss of service.

§606. A father, or in case of his death or desertion. of his family, the mother, may maintain an action for the injury or death of a child, and a guardian for the injury or death of his ward.

To settle a question of some doubt.

§ 607. When a husband and father has deserted his family, the wife and mother may prosecute or defend, in his name, any action which he might have prosecuted or defended, and shall have the same powers and rights therein as he might have had.

To provide for cases of great hardship, that sometimes happen.

§ 608. All persons having an interest in the subject of the action, and in obtaining the relief demanded, may be joined as plaintiffs, except when otherwise provided in this title.

Amended Code, § 117.

§ 609. Any person may be made a defendant, who has or claims an interest in the controversy, adverse to the plaintiff, or who is a necessary party to a complete determination or settlement of the question involved therein.

Amended Code, § 118.

§ 610. Of the parties to the action, those who are united in interest must be joined as plaintiffs or defendants; but if the consent of any one,' who should have been joined as plaintiff, cannot be obtained, he may be made a defendant, the reason thereof being stated in the complaint: and when the question is one of a common or general interest of many persons, or when the parties are numerous and it is impracticable to bring them all before the court, one or more may sue or defend for the benefit of all.

Amended Code, § 119.

§ 611. Persons severally liable upon the same obligation or instrument, including the parties to bills of exchange and promissory notes, and sureties on the same or separate instruments, may, all or any of them, be included in the same action, at the option of the plaintiff.

Amended Code. § 120, amended.

§ 612. An action does not abate by the death, marriage or other disability of a party, or by the transfer of any interest therein, if the cause of action survive or continue. In case of the death, marriage, or other disability of a party, the court on motion, may allow the action to be continued by or against his representative or successor in interest. In case of any other transfer of interest, the action may be continued in the name of the original party; or the court may allow the per