Age of Consent in Exalted

Ker'ion

Ker'ion

Primordial of Abstract Logic
Since the style of the second age suggests a view that would produce more offspring to offset diseases and other rampant means of death and the middle-ages and earlier periods typically went with the "puberty is old enough for consent" type of opinion, yet the modern opinion is normally eighteen years old.


I'm not sure this is condusive to the adult gaming environment, since seeing a thirteen year old in a bar hooking up is kinda disturbing, but it would be thematically correct for the Second Age.


How do you handle this in your games?
 
Depends on the place and the situation. In Nexus, yes, seeing a 13 year old in a bar is a possibility, as is seeing prostitutes of that age. In a farming community? Not so much. Sure, 13 year olds will be married, but they won't be whoring themselves out or trying to find a husband in a bar. If it's the Realm, unless it's House Cynis, in which case anything goes, Dynast children, especially, won't be 'available' when they're 13, unless it's with friends.


Is it important to the story to have a 13 year old in a position such as this? If so, the go for it. If not, then it's just gratuitous, unless you're trying to set a scene. In which case, it's appropriate.
 
So far, this topic has not come up in my game.  However, with the players that I have, if this comes up, I will portray the 'legal' age for a typical young woman as her early teens, with whatever marrige details determined by the parents if its an arranged marriage.  It does not fit in our society, but in the higher mortality rate of the world of Exalted (similar to the middle ages) it makes sense for a mortal woman to be expected to wed early.


For wealthy families or nobles, I can still see the arranged wedding.  In fact, some would be lined up when the children are just infants to make alliances between powerful families.


Dynast families (in my game) wait to see if the child Exalts before commiting to a betrothal.  The 'value' of the child being much higher as a DB than a mere mortal.  


This topic can cause problems, but if presented in a reasonable way to a group adult enough to understand the difference in fantasy and reality, I feel ok with it.  On a similar track, the topic of rape is dangerous.  Sadly, so long as men have power over women, it is going to happen.  Tales of the Lunar and the invading barbarian horde killing the men and taking the women and children make for a great story, so long as everyone in the group can deal with the topic.  In this kind of story, it does not need to be thrown into the faces of the players.  In real life, most of us have been touched by this somehow - either as a victim, or by knowing one or being related to someone that has had this happen.  When dealing with this subject extreme caution must be used to make sure that you are not dredging up painful memories.
 
Sherwood said:
This topic can cause problems, but if presented in a reasonable way to a group adult enough to understand the difference in fantasy and reality, I feel ok with it.
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Hopefully all roleplayers can already make this distinction, lest they end up running around with giant golden swords, trying to chop people's heads off.
 
Actually I personally kicked that realism off board for my games. Adjusting down the legal age to what is realistic for former times does not do anything for the stories I want to tell besides perhaps making players feel uncomfortable about something I don't want to feel them uncomfortable about right now. It was different for vampire dark ages.
 
It would change depending on culture, really. In barbarian cultures with a rite of passage, it wouldn't even be age, but whenever you passed it. Similarly, in the Realm, the age of consent for most mortal civilians is probably the late teens somewhere, as the Blessed Isle has better healthcare and people live longer. For Dragon-Blooded, though, they instantly become wiser when they Exalt and can (but likely don't) marry at around age 13 or so. I say don't because most DBs seem to want to adventure around the place a bit before settling down. And slaves wouldn't have any age of consent at all: their master decides.


In lawless places like Nexus, there wouldn't be an age of consent either. If a kid doesn't have anyone looking out for them personally, no-one will care what they do or what other people do to them.


The key thing to think about is young Exalts. It doesn't happen often, but it appears that there are at least some Exalts who start off very young, whether those are very well-bred DBs or Abyssals with some kooky Deathlord or just a Lunar who were just impressive enough that Luna exalted them right there. ("I don't usually exalt children..." "I did shoot you." "Touche! Go forth and kick ass in my name!") Child though they may be, a teenage Exalt can easily bend adults to their will. Do Exalted organizations like the Silver Pact hold any views on age of consent? For Lunars, it's probably after they're tattooed, but what about Sidereals? What was it like in the First Age?
 
Jukashi said:
Do Exalted organizations like the Silver Pact hold any views on age of consent?
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Considering that nearly every non-human species begins procreating as soon as physically possible, I doubt the Lunars would put much stock into any "age of consent" concept.
 
Flagg said:
Sherwood said:
This topic can cause problems, but if presented in a reasonable way to a group adult enough to understand the difference in fantasy and reality, I feel ok with it.
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Hopefully all roleplayers can already make this distinction, lest they end up running around with giant golden swords, trying to chop people's heads off.
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Or think they're mystical druids and threaten to kill people when they chase away forest dragons...
*FUCKPANTSED!!!!*
 
They're not just animals with brains, Flagg, foster that image though they may. If they'd throw out something like age of consent just because animals do, why do they have any prohibitions against retreat, honoring their word or killing each other? Animals don't.
 
Jukashi said:
They're not just animals with brains, Flagg, foster that image though they may. If they'd throw out something like age of consent just because animals do, why do they have any prohibitions against retreat, honoring their word or killing each other? Animals don't.
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Point. However, the Silver Pact does tend to eschew most "civilized" notions out of hand. Given that most pre-modern RL societies that I'm aware of had no "age of consent" concept, why should the Silver Pact, which takes an even looser view of personal rights?
 
That's part of what I was questioning. The theory I would put forward is that Lunars would judge people's capabilities individually, i.e. they'd have no objection to a particularly smart, mature 13-year-old having sex with whoever they like.


What they actually do about it is up to the Lunars. The Silver Way does encourage Lunars to look after their lessers. Do they extend this to looking after children? If so, a Lunar might prevent a child from having sex until they're wise enough to do it properly.
 
I think most "primitive" cultures followed the "it takes a whole village to raise a child" philosophy, so the biological mother's age and/or emotional maturity was not so much of an issue as it might be in our society.


I think the Silver Pact would "look out" for a young girl not by preventing her from having sex, but by helping her through the pregnancy and child rearing.
 
Yeah, you're probably right.


...


Y'know, I was trawling through wikipedia one day, and apparantly, Incan men weren't allowed chew coca leaves until they had given a woman an orgasm.
 
Something makes me suspect it was a woman who made up that rule.
 
In my own group, we have made some mention of the unlikelyhood of a tehcnical limit...one Lunar character even starting as a mortal concubine of 13ish. Have we dwelled on such? Not really. But none of the societies of Creation seem likely to have a true age of consent...save perhaps Lookshy, and that would be primarilly to keep anyone getting pregnant in training... and the right herbs can certainly be supplied, if Realm primary schools can do it. Since even the Realm generally views someone as an adult around 15ish...at least that's the age when a Dynast or Patrician usually graduates from primary school, I figure the age of consent, if the concept even exists, is pretty low. Then again, certain groups in Creation...Cynis, some Lunars, etc...don't really care about consent of any form in the first place...
 
True enough. Even true just between different states here in the U.S...muchless over a broader area. At least so far as actual laws go...after all, some places you still can marry around 13ish with parental permission...
 
Hell, the age of consent is still an issue in the USA.  Until 2001, it was legal for a girl of 12 to get married with her parent's consent in NC.  In SC, it is still legel for a girl of 12 to be marry off to a man with her parent's consent.  It might actually be ethical for a man to marry a young girl to get her away from parents who were willing to marry her at that age, but it would be unethical for him to have sex with her until she reached age 18.


THe ago of consent is a relatively modern concern.  In pre-19th century Christian Europe, having sex outside of marriage was illegal.  The age of marriage did not matter.  Contrary to popular belief, the peasants of Europe did not reproduce as soon as possible.  A young man had to have a job and a house before he could marry and young women were not usually going to have sex with a man without prospects.  As pre-19th century Europe had a high population density and opporated by the law of promigenator, meaning that only the oldest son or, generally if there were no sons, the husband of the eldest daughter would inherit the house, the land and sometimes the job, in the case of a guild franchise, so a man had to wait until his father died until he was able to marry.  This delayed marriage until the peasant was in their thirties.  


They might marry a twelve year old girl, but a pre-modern girl below the age of 18 was usually unable to reproduce, due to the fact that, until estrogen mimics and other industrial poisons were introduced into the environment, most girls did not enter puberty until age 16 and were biologically unlikely to reproduce until age 18.  Additionally, a woman had to have a dowry to marry and, unless her parents were wealthy, she had to accumulate it herself.  The woman would start working at age 12 or so and, within 12 or so years, would have enough of a dowry to attract a suitable man.


Of course, a man could marry a woman without a dowry, which did happen with women of extraordinary traits, but he was generally considered to be a fool by his community and his peers.  A woman could be given permission to be married to a man without assets, but her father or guardians, if her father was dead, were considered to be horrible people for marrying her to such an unsuitable person and condeming her and her children to poverty.  This started to change with the industrial revolution and completely broke down by the middle 19th century.
 
Two things: I have a hard time believing that just because extramarital sex was illegal that it didn't occur. Also, just because a girl hasn't hit puberty, doesn't mean you can't have sex with her.
 
History is actually quite messed up. If you take your opinions from a broad spectrum of sources, you'd have to conclude that medieval folk were very clean people wallowing in their own filth who lived to a ripe old age and died in their twenties while farming peacefully amidst hundreds of battles. Different historians say different things, and it's really quite hard to prove who's really right.


Or so my friend the history student tells me. But he might be lying.
 
going on this vein . . . wanna make your head hurt, I had this assignment in an historiagraphy class


prove an event happened


That simple.  I had to prove that the bombing of Pearl Harbor occurred.  As far as true, unbiased history, I could say that several ships had sank, but couldn't tell who did it, how it was done, or when.  


It was a very frustrating but enlightening lesson on 'the victors make/write the history'


I mean, turn things around and it could be Dec 7, 1944 a day of glory where the first step was made in liberating the Americas from the maniacle oligarchy that was ruling and oppressing the people. . .
 
Of course nonmarital sex happened.  Humans are mammals, after all, and mammals have a very strong reproductive urge.  There were prostitutes everywhere, and they sold themselves very cheaply.  In the Victorian age, for instance, the average working girl spent at least a few night as a streetwalker to make ends meet, as they made so little and expenses were so great.  In the farming villages of the High Middle Ages there were women who were supported by all of the men of the village, be they married or unmarried.  Eventually, such a woman would accumulate enough assets to get married and another young woman, from outside of the village of course, would take her place.  Abortificants were quite common in the High Middle Ages and while the Church opposed such things, the parish priests were usually ruthlessly pragmatic.  It was either have the fetus aborted or find an unwanted baby drowned in a local stream or lake.  This changed with the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, as idealists on both sides stomped down on the practice of abortion.


Of course there were people who had sex with prepubescent girls.  Young men and young women have always experimented, and there were abortificants if need be.  Older men having sex with young women were looked down upon not because they were perverts but because they were getting the milk without buying the cow, so to speak.  There was at least one woman in the village, after who would have sexual relations with the men for a small compensation.


Was it ideal?  Hell no.  One-third to one-half of the children died before their sixth birthday, which is why life expectancy numbers are so low (before certain people say that child mortality numbers aren't counted in life expectancy numbers, go to the WHO or CDC sites and get a clue).  People with poor immune systems died young and those that lived past the age rarely had to worry about disease unless it was a waterborn disease, like cholera, or a new plague that no one had immunity to, like the Black Death.  


Unfortunately, our current health care system keeps people alive who have substandard immune systems and they will pass on their bad immune system to their children and so on.  It will eventually catch up with us.  I believe in universal health care, but we have to be preparred for a killer plague that wipes out the people with weak immune system within the next century.  Such a plague may kill up anywhere from thirty percent of humanity, similar to the first occurance of the Black Death in Europe, to ninety percent of humanity, similar to Smallpox when it first went through the Native American and Australian Aborigine populations.
 
Obsidian, your claims are actually quite easy to refute


The Catholic Church, which held most of the politiacal power at the time, listed the marriage ages ad 12 for females and 14 for males


the numbers were chosen because 12 was the age at which a christian became an adult, and the boy man was expected to spend a couple of years getting a trade established.


In addition to this:


Juliet was 13 and already being looked to be married off. Before you refute it as fiction, remember the fiction had to be realistic and reasonable to both the noble and common audience of the time. Be honest, if you saw a modern story about a 16-17 year old boy seducing a 13 year old girl, you would not sympathise with the young lovers, you would call for the male to be locked up.


Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII, gave birth to him when she was only 13.


Further back in English history, Mary de Bohun--the first wife of the man who became Henry IV-- also had their first child at 13 or 14, and was dead before she reached 24, after bearing about five or six children (one of whom grew up to become King Henry V).


In addition to this, In countries such as Chile, where modern medical advantages are rarer and the diet is more like 300 years ago. The age of consent is 12. It is based on the age of puberty there.


The theory that puberty ages were later in historical times was an incorrect outgrowth of Victorian era prudishness.
 
Personally, puberty nonwithstanding, I'd say it's more up to the PCs in the group as to how it should be handled more than the DM. If the players can't handle the idea of 13 year old prostitutes trying to come on to their heroes, don't put it in. If they can and it'd happen at some point, do it. I personally go for the realism, but don't detail the bedroom scenes...and hey, if the bad guys actually captured a dead sexy character of mine and it would be appropriate for them to take horrible advantage of them, I say go with it...but don't tell me what they do in detail...my imagination is vivid enough, and I don't enjoy actually hearing (or reading, for that matter) graphic descriptions of sex.
 
I would say that the early puberty figures that you give for medieval times are because the upper classes of Europe had a diet superior to the lower classes, allowing for earlier puberty.  If I remember correctly, lead poisoning also leads to early puberty in women, among other things, and as lead was used to sweeten wine and as cooking and eating utensils were usually lead glazed, lead contamination was rife in the upper classes.  The Catholic Church at the time only cared about the upper class, as they had power and money, and I doubt that they frequently interfered with any earlier marriages amongst the peasantry.


Anyway, men had to accumulate assests before they married and women had to have a dowry before they married.  The assets were usually either a farm and a house or a guild franchise and a house, both of which were inherited by the oldest son from their father when he died, which typically delayed marriage until the thirties.  Most peasant families did not have the wealth to provide a dowry for their daughters, so the daughters had to provide one for themselves, and that took between one and two decades of work, depending on the local economy and the skills of the daughter.  That meant that, among the peasantry, sensable people did not marry until they were thirty.  This meant that the woman had a short breeding period, no more than ten to fifteen years, and might have only four children due to the natural contraceptive effect of breastfeeding, as children among the peasantry were breastfeed until they were two or three.  One or two who would die before they reached puberty and the rest would continue the cycle.    


Interesting that you mention Chile, as my mother lived there as a child.  My grandfather was a member of the US embassy, though he thankfully left before Pinnoche got into power (may he burn in hell forever).  Let's just say that lead contamination is not unknown in Chile.  My mother remembers how beautiful the locally produce lead glazed cups and plates were.  Chile is also one of the largest nitrate producers in the world and those are usually processed into fertilizers before they leave the country or before they are used on Chilean crops.  These contaminate the water table with estrogen mimics that bring on early puberty among women.  Abortion is also illegal in Chile, which makes early pregnancy more apparent than in the US or Europe, where people sensibly take care of the problem, so to speak, before it becomes visible.


It has been proven that the age of unset of puberty has been decreasing rather dramatically over the last fifty years.  The women of my mother's generation reached puberty around age fourteen, the women of my generation reached puberty around age thirteen, the young girls of my cousin's generation are reaching puberty around age twelve.  This is a reduction of two years, or 14%, in less than fifty years.  This has been linked to both improved nutrition, which accelerates the maturing process to take in account available resources, and chemical contamination, which confuses the hormonal system of the animal body.  I can only hope that this is the limit to the reduction, but there have been reports of girls as young as eight getting pregnant.  Unfortunately, due to their small size, they have to be given an abortion, or a C-Section if carried to term, as their pelvises are too small to push through a baby.
 
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