"Act Against the Seduction of His Majesty's Subjects by Means of Scents, Paints, and Cosmetic Washes."

[rever]

All women, of whatever age, rank, profession or degree who shall after this Act, impose upon, seduce, and betray into marriage any of His Majesty's subjects by virtue of scents, paints, cosmetic washes, artificial teeth or false hair, iron stays, bolstered hips, or high-heeled shoes, shall incur the penalty of the law now in force against witchcraft and like misdemeanours; and marriage under such circumstances, upon conviction of the offending parties, shall be null and void.

This act was passed and was proposed in 1770 in the British parliament . Predictably, like most sensible laws in the male interest, it is not known to have been ever enforced. It was probably a dead letter before it arrived on the statute books. Had it been enforceable, the cosmetics giants of the world would never have built a thriving industry. Nor would the advertising industry daily use the glamorous female body to raid the pockets of men on behalf of vendors of all manner of goods and services.


@Darth_aurelius Can you explain this act in detail and what punishments are given to women

[rever]

If men were smart enough to
act in their own interest, they would seek protection, in both law and
custom, from all public display of the female body-beautiful. They would
follow the example of the Ayatollah's Iran and ban from streets, beaches,
parties and other public gathering places all displays of the female body,
especially in cock-teasing outfits and provocative positions. They would
ban them, not because the displays "demean women", but because they
derange men, bewitch men, and put men's cocks into the manipulating
hands of women.

[Darth_aurelius]

All women, of whatever age, rank, profession or degree who shall after this Act, impose upon, seduce, and betray into marriage any of His Majesty's subjects by virtue of scents, paints, cosmetic washes, artificial teeth or false hair, iron stays, bolstered hips, or high-heeled shoes, shall incur the penalty of the law now in force against witchcraft and like misdemeanours; and marriage under such circumstances, upon conviction of the offending parties, shall be null and void.

This act was passed and was proposed in 1770 in the British parliament . Predictably, like most sensible laws in the male interest, it is not known to have been ever enforced. It was probably a dead letter before it arrived on the statute books. Had it been enforceable, the cosmetics giants of the world would never have built a thriving industry. Nor would the advertising industry daily use the glamorous female body to raid the pockets of men on behalf of vendors of all manner of goods and services.


@Darth_aurelius Can you explain this act in detail and what punishments are given to women

As far as I can tell from the plain language of the statute it seems to be proscribing acts of deceitful manipulation by way of cosmetic augmentation of aesthetic enhancement by foids to seduce men into some sort of relationship whereby there is a reliance interest on the pretense of appearance. In other words, women in this era that would have been subject to the application of this particular statutory language would have had to rely upon whatever intrinsic feminine charms they were prepossessed of and not supplement their appearance by way of any sort of cosmetic enhancements (fake-up, eyeliner, Botox, lip filler, breast augmentation, etc.). Obviously, most of those enhancements that I instanced were not around in the 18th Century but the principle is the same.