The bad news is, dozens of states still have old laws on the books that regulate all kinds of personal behavior, particularly for women, and particularly relating to sex. The good news is, these laws are, slowly but surely, disappearing.
Florida has struck down a law forbidding unmarried women from parachuting on Sundays. Michigan has done away with a law making it illegal to swear in front of women and children. Texas women no longer face 12 months in prison for adjusting their stockings in public. And the ladies of Maine can now legally tickle a man under the chin with a feather duster.
But here in Washington, in 2005, it is still illegal, under a 1909 law, to bring a woman’s virtue into question publicly, to call her a hussy or a strumpet.
And now, a state senator from Seattle – who is not saying she supports attacking the chastity of Washington women – is, nevertheless, trying to overturn the state’s “Slander of a Woman” law.
We’re also seeing progress in Virginia, which has seen its 200-year-old ban on “fornication” get struck down in court.
Last week, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that, given the precedent of [Lawrence v Texas], the state’s criminal ban on fornication could not survive. Thus, in Martin v. Ziherl, the Virginia court invalidated the law, which, although it dated back nearly 200 years, had not been enforced criminally against a consenting adult since the middle of the nineteenth century.
Don’t worry, you neo-puritans out there, the news isn’t all bad.
At least you still have federally-funded public school abstinence curricula that offers a nineteenth-century view of sex roles to impressionable children.
The curriculum also teaches: “The father gives the bride to the groom because he is the one man who has had the responsibility of protecting her throughout her life. He is now giving his daughter to the only other man who will take over this protective role.”
One book in the “Choosing the Best” series presents a story about a knight who saves a princess from a dragon. The next time the dragon arrives, the princess advises the knight to kill the dragon with a noose, and the following time with poison, both of which work but leave the knight feeling “ashamed.” The knight eventually decides to marry a village maiden, but did so “only after making sure she knew nothing about nooses or poison.” The curriculum concludes: “Moral of the story: Occasional suggestions and assistance may be alright, but too much of it will lessen a man’s confidence or even turn him away from his princess.”
So, the antiquated and unenforced laws are finally falling by the waste side, but we can still count on the Bush administration to advance a puritanical gender-role worldview.