"Bergelson likewise discusses the role played by consent in the transformation of private contracts into public contracts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. She notes that whereas in the early modern period, consent was a catch all defense in penal legislation, “changes in the power of an individual to conenet to personal harm came in the seventeenth century. They were a natural consequence of the monopolization of the system of punishment by the state. While in the early ages of criminal justice the victim was the central figure in the prosecution and settlement of any non-public offense,in the normative and centralized juridical structure the victim became almost entirely excluded from the criminal process.” She continuied by noting that the right to consent was thus constrained, as the victims of crime became abstract concepts such as “public peace” or sovereingty."