ABSTRACT
With the Infant Life Protection Act safely passed, Charley now introduced his ‘Bill to Amend the Bastardy Laws and for the Better Protection of Girls’ 1 in furtherance of the 1871 Select Committee’s recommendations. The first part broadened the affiliation process and removed some legal anomalies; the second, and unrelated, part provided for raising the age of sexual consent to 14, but this was dropped from the final Bastardy Act which passed without controversy in 1872. 2 Under its terms a woman retained her independent right to initiate affiliation proceedings, but the Boards of Guardians were also now empowered to do so on her behalf. The maximum maintenance was raised to 5 shillings a week until the child was 16, instead of 13 as before, and it now remained payable even if the woman married another man; this removed, as Charley saw it, a blight to a ‘fallen woman’s’ marriage chances and a motive for abandoning her infant. The thirteen-week maximum arrears payment under the 1844 Act was abolished, but the ‘corroborative evidence’ rule, felt to be essential to protect men from blackmail, remained unaltered.
