D. Defenses

• Library: Elements of Civil Causes of Action (SCBar) (2021 Ed.)

D. Defenses

The statute of limitation for an action for seduction arising or accruing on or after April 5, 1988, is three years.⁴⁴

In a criminal prosecution for seduction, marriage between the defendant and the woman allegedly seduced is a defense.⁴⁵ Whether it is also a defense to a tort action for seduction is unclear. Interspousal immunity would bar the right of the wife to sue her husband for seduction, but South Carolina has abolished that immunity.⁴⁶ A strict reading of the elements of the action suggest that a man who entices a previously unmarried, chaste woman into premarital sexual intercourse using a promise to marry or "some other device" would be guilty of seduction even if he subsequently marries that woman. Therefore, the subsequent marriage should be no defense.

When the woman who was seduced has attained the age of majority and a parent brings the action, it should be a defense that she either lives independently, apart from the parent, or provides no "services" to the parent as the South Carolina Supreme Court said in an early case that where a daughter is over 21, "some slight evidence of actual service rendered by her must be given."⁴⁷

In the traditional formulation of the tort, the defendant must be male and the person seduced must be female, therefore, it would be a defense that the defendant is female or the...