Review of Sharon Romeo "Criminal Seduction and Women's Citizenship in Iowa, 1865-1879,"The Annals of Iowa V79 I1(2020): 35-55.
By Anthony Valadez and Jacob Martin
In the article, “Criminal Seduction and Women's Citizenship in Iowa, 1865-1879”which was published in the Annals of Iowa journal in 2020, Sharon Romeo examines the impacts of legislation on women in post-Civil War Iowa. These seduction laws prosecuted men for coercing unmarried women into sexual relationships. Romeo argues that the state of Iowa criminalizing seduction framed women as morally vulnerable to men’s persuasion. This in turn justified the continuation of limiting women’s political participation during a time where suffrage debates intensified.
In her article, Romeo examines several seduction cases from this period. One that stands out is the 1871 case of State v. Shean, where a major change to the seduction convictions by the Iowa Supreme Court was implemented. Before this case, Iowa law would consider women over the age of 21 fully capable of marrying without their parents’ consent. Andrew Shean proposed marriage to Catherine Cavenaugh. Shean was a farmer and lived close to Catherine, and in the later court case, Cavenaugh explained that she agreed to have sex with Shean because he believed they would get married.“Cavenaugh would later testify that, on December 1, 1868, she ‘Permitted him to have intercourse with me, because I expected him to marry me.”. Cavenaugh ended up pregnant, and Shean gave the child his name, visited frequently, and continued to tell Cavenaugh they would marry. A jury in Clinton County ended up convicting Shean of seduction, and he appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court. According to Romeo, in this case “the court defined all chaste women as a class of citizens who could be seduced from ‘a path of virtue”. The court determined that Shean ruined her ability to be able to have a legal marriage.
The promise of marriage was common throughout several seduction cases. Many women agreed to relationships because of these false promises. The subsequent court cases had major impacts on these women’s lives. In theory, seduction laws would protect women, but in a society that valued women’s sexual purity, these cases hurt the victims’ societal image. These laws would also justify limitations on women’s suffrage. Romeo writes, “As Iowans debated the meanings of capacity and consent for female citizens, seduction convictions implied that it would be inappropriate to enfranchise women as political voters.” In general, seduction laws not only solidified a social disconnect between the sexes in post-Civil War Iowa, but they also fostered political discrimination against women.
In her other work, Sharon Romeo analyzes African American struggles with voting and citizenship during the reconstruction era. By 1868, Black men in Iowa were able to participate politically. This predates the ratification of the 15th Amendment in 1870 which allowed all American male citizens the right to vote regardless of race. Despite this, Iowan legislatures failed to grant women the right to vote until the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. A major influence of this decision was the state’s overprotection of women that can be seen in the criminal seduction laws.