In conclusion, I may remark that penal law should be combined, like civil law, with administrative measures, to protect both the individual and society in sexual matters, at the same time watching over the interests of future generations. But it should only do this as far as the weakness and eroticism of men hinder a similar or better result from being obtained by moral education, combined with rational intellectual instruction.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XIII
A MEDICO-LEGAL CASE
The following case occurred in 1904 in the Canton of St. Gall, in Switzerland, and confirms my opinion:
Frieda Keller, born in 1879, was the daughter of honest parents. Her mother was mild-mannered and sensible, her father loyal, but harsh and sometimes violent. Frieda was the fifth of eleven brothers and sisters. She was a model scholar. At the age of four years she had meningitis which left her with frequent headaches. In 1896-97 she learnt dressmaking and helped at home in the household work. When she was free, she did embroidery to help her family. Afterwards she obtained a situation in a dressmaker's shop at St. Gall, where she got sixty francs a month.
To increase her income she worked on Sundays as a waitress at the Café de la Poste. The proprietor, a married man, began to persecute her with his affections, which she had great difficulty in avoiding. She then entered another shop where she got eighty francs a month. One day, in 1898, when she was then nineteen, the proprietor of the café succeeded in seducing her, and on May 27, 1899, she gave birth to a boy at the Maternity of St. Gall. She had confessed her misfortune to her parents, and her mother had pity on her. Her mother had also been seduced and rendered pregnant at the age of fifteen; abandoned by her seducer she committed infanticide, and was sentenced to six years' imprisonment; as she had always been well-behaved, the tribunal had recognized that she acted "less by moral depravity than by false sentiment of honor." Frieda, who was fond of her mother, knew nothing of this history. The father was very hard toward his daughter and refused her all help and pity. Twelve days after her confinement she took her child to the Foundling Hospital at St. Gall.
Her seducer then promised to maintain the child, but never paid more than eighty francs. After a time he left the town and was seen no more. The circumstances under which Frieda became pregnant were not fully inquired into and her seducer was ignored. It was not absolutely a case of rape, but of taking a poor, weak and timid girl by surprise.
Frieda Keller felt nothing but disgust for her seducer. Later on the latter would no doubt deny the fact of his paternity; but he had tacitly admitted this by the payment of eighty francs.