D3T0X :
🇬🇧 England (Post-Reformation Protestant Influence)
* 1576 (Common Law, Protestant era):
Age of consent for sexual intercourse was set at 10 years old under English common law.
This was not canon law, but it reflected societal norms that emerged after England became Protestant during the Reformation under Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.
* Civil Marriage Age:
Girls could legally marry at 12, and boys at 14, under both civil and ecclesiastical law — consistent with medieval canon law even post-Reformation.
* Key Reference:
* Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765) affirms the age of 10 as age of consent for girls.
* See: William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book 1, Chapter 17.
⸻
🇺🇸 United States (18th–19th Century, Protestant Majority)
* Colonial and early U.S. states (based on English common law):
The age of consent in many U.S. states was also set at 10 years old, inherited from English law.
* Delaware (1880s):
Notoriously, Delaware had the lowest documented age of consent in the U.S. at 7 years old.
* Protestant Church Role:
While churches didn’t always set civil law, Protestant-dominated societies (like Puritan New England) generally accepted early marriage and low ages of consent as long as marriage occurred, especially with parental approval.
* Key References:
* Mary Odem, Delinquent Daughters: Protecting and Policing Adolescent Female Sexuality in the United States, 1885–1920
* Jocelyn Pollock, Crime and Justice in America: An Introduction to Criminal Justice
* Stephen Robertson, Age of Consent Laws and the Campaign against Child Sexual Abuse
2026-06-16 21:10:38