As a more spiritual conception of religion developed, and as the growth of civilization tended to deprive sexual intercourse of its sacred halo, religious prostitution in Greece was slowly abolished, though on the coasts of Asia Minor both religious prostitution and prostitution for the purpose of obtaining a marriage portion persisted to the time of Constantine, who put an end to these ancient customs.[140]Superstition was on the side of the old religious prostitution; it was believed that women who had never sacrificed to Aphrodite became consumed by lust, and according to the legend recorded by Ovid—a legend which seems to point to a certain antagonism between sacred and secular prostitution—this was the case with the women who first became public prostitutes. The decay of religious prostitution, doubtless combined with the cravings always born of the growth of civilization, led up to the first establishment, attributed by legend to Solon, of a public brothel, a purely secular establishment for a purely secular end: the safeguarding of the virtue of the general population and the increase of the public revenue. With that institution the evolution of prostitution, and of the modern marriage system of which it forms part, was completed. The Atheniandikterionis the modern brothel; thedikteriadeis the modern state-regulated prostitute. The freehetairæ, indeed, subsequently arose, educated women having no taint of thedikterion, but they likewise had no official part in public worship.[141]The primitive conception of the sanctity of sexual intercourse in the divine service had been utterly lost.
A fairly typical example of the conditions existing among savages is to be found in the South Sea Island of Rotuma, where "prostitution for money or gifts was quite unknown." Adultery after marriage wasalso unknown. But there was great freedom in the formation of sexual relationships before marriage (J. Stanley Gardiner,Journal Anthropological Institute, February, 1898, p. 409). Much the same is said of the Bantu Ba mbola of Africa (op. cit., July-December, 1905, p. 410).Among the early Cymri of Wales, representing a more advanced social stage, prostitution appears to have been not absolutely unknown, but public prostitution was punished by loss of valuable privileges (R. B. Holt, "Marriage Laws and Customs of the Cymri,"Journal Anthropological Institute, August-November, 1898, pp. 161-163).Prostitution was practically unknown in Burmah, and regarded as shameful before the coming of the English and the example of the modern Hindus. The missionaries have unintentionally, but inevitably, favored the growth of prostitution by condemning free unions (Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle, November, 1903, p. 720). The English brought prostitution to India. "That was not specially the fault of the English," said a Brahmin to Jules Bois, "it is the crime of your civilization. We have never had prostitutes. I mean by that horrible word the brutalized servants of the gross desire of the passerby. We had, and we have, castes of singers and dancers who are married to trees—yes, to trees—by touching ceremonies which date from Vedic times; our priests bless them and receive much money from them. They do not refuse themselves to those who love them and please them. Kings have made them rich. They represent all the arts; they are the visible beauty of the universe" (Jules Bois,Visions de l'Inde, p. 55).Religious prostitutes, it may be added, "the servants of the god," are connected with temples in Southern India and the Deccan. They are devoted to their sacred calling from their earliest years, and it is their chief business to dance before the image of the god, to whom they are married (though in Upper India professional dancing girls are married to inanimate objects), but they are also trained in arousing and assuaging the desires of devotees who come on pilgrimage to the shrine. For the betrothal rites by which, in India, sacred prostitutes are consecrated, see,e.g., A. Van Gennep,Rites de Passage, p. 142.In many parts of Western Asia, where barbarism had reached a high stage of development, prostitution was not unknown, though usually disapproved. The Hebrews knew it, and the historical Biblical references to prostitutes imply little reprobation. Jephtha was the son of a prostitute, brought up with the legitimate children, and the story of Tamar is instructive. But the legal codes were extremely severe on Jewish maidens who became prostitutes (the offense was quite tolerable in strange women), while Hebrew moralists exercised their invectives against prostitution; it is sufficient to refer to a well-known passage in the Book of Proverbs (see art. "Harlot," by Cheyne, in theEncyclopædia Biblica). Mahomed also severely condemned prostitution, though somewhatmore tolerant to it in slave women; according to Haleby, however, prostitution was practically unknown in Islam during the first centuries after the Prophet's time.The Persian adherents of the somewhat asceticZendavestaalso knew prostitution, and regarded it with repulsion: "It is the Gahi [the courtesan, as an incarnation of the female demon, Gahi], O Spitama Zarathustra! who mixes in her the seed of the faithful and the unfaithful, of the worshipper of Mazda and the worshipper of the Dævas, of the wicked and the righteous. Her look dries up one-third of the mighty floods that run from the mountains, O Zarathustra; her look withers one-third of the beautiful, golden-hued, growing plants, O Zarathustra; her look withers one-third of the strength of Spenta Armaiti [the earth]; and her touch withers in the faithful one-third of his good thoughts, of his good words, of his good deeds, one-third of his strength, of his victorious power, of his holiness. Verily I say unto thee, O Spitama Zarathustra! such creatures ought to be killed even more than gliding snakes, than howling wolves, than the she-wolf that falls upon the fold, or than the she-frog that falls upon the waters with her thousandfold brood" (Zend-Avesta, the Vendidad, translated by James Darmesteter, Farfad XVIII).In practice, however, prostitution is well established in the modern East. Thus in the Tartar-Turcoman region houses of prostitution lying outside the paths frequented by Christians have been described by a writer who appears to be well informed ("Orientalische Prostitution,"Geschlecht und Gesellschaft, 1907, Bd. ii, Heft 1). These houses are not regarded as immoral or forbidden, but as places in which the visitor will find a woman who gives him for a few hours the illusion of being in his own home, with the pleasure of enjoying her songs, dances, and recitations, and finally her body. Payment is made at the door, and no subsequent question of money arises; the visitor is henceforth among friends, almost as if in his own family. He treats the prostitute almost as if she were his wife, and no indecorum or coarseness of speech occurs. "There is no obscenity in the Oriental brothel." At the same time there is no artificial pretence of innocence.In Eastern Asia, among the peoples of Mongolian stock, especially in China, we find prostitution firmly established and organized on a practical business basis. Prostitution is here accepted and viewed with no serious disfavor, but the prostitute herself is, nevertheless, treated with contempt. Young children are frequently sold to be trained to a life of prostitution, educated accordingly, and kept shut up from the world. Young widows (remarriage being disapproved) frequently also slide into a life of prostitution. Chinese prostitutes often end through opium and the ravages of syphilis (see,e.g., Coltman'sThe Chinese, 1900, Ch. VII). In ancient China, it is said prostitutes were a superiorclass and occupied a position somewhat similar to that of thehetairæin Greece. Even in modern China, however, where they are very numerous, and the flower boats, in which in towns by the sea they usually live, very luxurious, it is chiefly for entertainment, according to some writers, that they are resorted to. Tschang Ki Tong, military attaché in Paris (as quoted by Ploss and Bartels), describes the flower boat as less analogous to a European brothel than to acafé chantant; the young Chinaman comes here for music, for tea, for agreeable conversation with the flower-maidens, who are by no means necessarily called upon to minister to the lust of their visitors.In Japan, the prostitute's lot is not so degraded as in China. The greater refinement of Japanese civilization allows the prostitute to retain a higher degree of self-respect. She is sometimes regarded with pity, but less often with contempt. She may associate openly with men, ultimately be married, even to men of good social class, and rank as a respectable woman. "In riding from Tokio to Yokohama, the past winter," Coltman observes (op. cit., p. 113), "I saw a party of four young men and three quite pretty and gaily-painted prostitutes, in the same car, who were having a glorious time. They had two or three bottles of various liquors, oranges, and fancy cakes, and they ate, drank and sang, besides playing jokes on each other and frolicking like so many kittens. You may travel the whole length of the Chinese Empire and never witness such a scene." Yet the history of Japanese prostitutes (which has been written in an interesting and well-informed book,The Nightless City, by an English student of sociology who remains anonymous) shows that prostitution in Japan has not only been severely regulated, but very widely looked down upon, and that Japanese prostitutes have often had to suffer greatly; they were at one time practically slaves and often treated with much hardship. They are free now, and any condition approaching slavery is strictly prohibited and guarded against. It would seem, however, that the palmiest days of Japanese prostitution lay some centuries back. Up to the middle of the eighteenth century Japanese prostitutes were highly accomplished in singing, dancing, music, etc. Towards this period, however, they seem to have declined in social consideration and to have ceased to be well educated. Yet even to-day, says Matignon ("La Prostitution au Japon,"Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle, October, 1906), less infamy attaches to prostitution in Japan than in Europe, while at the same time there is less immorality in Japan than in Europe. Though prostitution is organized like the postal or telegraph service, there is also much clandestine prostitution. The prostitution quarters are clean, beautiful and well-kept, but the Japanese prostitutes have lost much of their native good taste in costume by trying to imitate European fashions. It was when prostitution began to decline two centuries ago, that the geishas first appeared and wereorganized in such a way that they should not, if possible, compete as prostitutes with the recognized and licensed inhabitants of the Yoshiwara, as the quarter is called to which prostitutes are confined. The geishas, of course, are not prostitutes, though their virtue may not always be impregnable, and in social position they correspond to actresses in Europe.In Korea, at all events before Korea fell into the hands of the Japanese, it would seem that there was no distinction between the class of dancing girls and prostitutes. "Among the courtesans," Angus Hamilton states, "the mental abilities are trained and developed with a view to making them brilliant and entertaining companions. These 'leaves of sunlight' are calledgisaing, and correspond to the geishas of Japan. Officially, they are attached to a department of government, and are controlled by a bureau of their own, in common with the Court musicians. They are supported from the national treasury, and they are in evidence at official dinners and all palace entertainments. They read and recite; they dance and sing; they become accomplished artists and musicians. They dress with exceptional taste; they move with exceeding grace; they are delicate in appearance, very frail and very human, very tender, sympathetic, and imaginative." But though they are certainly the prettiest women in Korea, move in the highest society, and might become concubines of the Emperor, they are not allowed to marry men of good class (Angus Hamilton,Korea, p. 52).
A fairly typical example of the conditions existing among savages is to be found in the South Sea Island of Rotuma, where "prostitution for money or gifts was quite unknown." Adultery after marriage wasalso unknown. But there was great freedom in the formation of sexual relationships before marriage (J. Stanley Gardiner,Journal Anthropological Institute, February, 1898, p. 409). Much the same is said of the Bantu Ba mbola of Africa (op. cit., July-December, 1905, p. 410).
Among the early Cymri of Wales, representing a more advanced social stage, prostitution appears to have been not absolutely unknown, but public prostitution was punished by loss of valuable privileges (R. B. Holt, "Marriage Laws and Customs of the Cymri,"Journal Anthropological Institute, August-November, 1898, pp. 161-163).
Prostitution was practically unknown in Burmah, and regarded as shameful before the coming of the English and the example of the modern Hindus. The missionaries have unintentionally, but inevitably, favored the growth of prostitution by condemning free unions (Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle, November, 1903, p. 720). The English brought prostitution to India. "That was not specially the fault of the English," said a Brahmin to Jules Bois, "it is the crime of your civilization. We have never had prostitutes. I mean by that horrible word the brutalized servants of the gross desire of the passerby. We had, and we have, castes of singers and dancers who are married to trees—yes, to trees—by touching ceremonies which date from Vedic times; our priests bless them and receive much money from them. They do not refuse themselves to those who love them and please them. Kings have made them rich. They represent all the arts; they are the visible beauty of the universe" (Jules Bois,Visions de l'Inde, p. 55).
Religious prostitutes, it may be added, "the servants of the god," are connected with temples in Southern India and the Deccan. They are devoted to their sacred calling from their earliest years, and it is their chief business to dance before the image of the god, to whom they are married (though in Upper India professional dancing girls are married to inanimate objects), but they are also trained in arousing and assuaging the desires of devotees who come on pilgrimage to the shrine. For the betrothal rites by which, in India, sacred prostitutes are consecrated, see,e.g., A. Van Gennep,Rites de Passage, p. 142.
In many parts of Western Asia, where barbarism had reached a high stage of development, prostitution was not unknown, though usually disapproved. The Hebrews knew it, and the historical Biblical references to prostitutes imply little reprobation. Jephtha was the son of a prostitute, brought up with the legitimate children, and the story of Tamar is instructive. But the legal codes were extremely severe on Jewish maidens who became prostitutes (the offense was quite tolerable in strange women), while Hebrew moralists exercised their invectives against prostitution; it is sufficient to refer to a well-known passage in the Book of Proverbs (see art. "Harlot," by Cheyne, in theEncyclopædia Biblica). Mahomed also severely condemned prostitution, though somewhatmore tolerant to it in slave women; according to Haleby, however, prostitution was practically unknown in Islam during the first centuries after the Prophet's time.
The Persian adherents of the somewhat asceticZendavestaalso knew prostitution, and regarded it with repulsion: "It is the Gahi [the courtesan, as an incarnation of the female demon, Gahi], O Spitama Zarathustra! who mixes in her the seed of the faithful and the unfaithful, of the worshipper of Mazda and the worshipper of the Dævas, of the wicked and the righteous. Her look dries up one-third of the mighty floods that run from the mountains, O Zarathustra; her look withers one-third of the beautiful, golden-hued, growing plants, O Zarathustra; her look withers one-third of the strength of Spenta Armaiti [the earth]; and her touch withers in the faithful one-third of his good thoughts, of his good words, of his good deeds, one-third of his strength, of his victorious power, of his holiness. Verily I say unto thee, O Spitama Zarathustra! such creatures ought to be killed even more than gliding snakes, than howling wolves, than the she-wolf that falls upon the fold, or than the she-frog that falls upon the waters with her thousandfold brood" (Zend-Avesta, the Vendidad, translated by James Darmesteter, Farfad XVIII).
In practice, however, prostitution is well established in the modern East. Thus in the Tartar-Turcoman region houses of prostitution lying outside the paths frequented by Christians have been described by a writer who appears to be well informed ("Orientalische Prostitution,"Geschlecht und Gesellschaft, 1907, Bd. ii, Heft 1). These houses are not regarded as immoral or forbidden, but as places in which the visitor will find a woman who gives him for a few hours the illusion of being in his own home, with the pleasure of enjoying her songs, dances, and recitations, and finally her body. Payment is made at the door, and no subsequent question of money arises; the visitor is henceforth among friends, almost as if in his own family. He treats the prostitute almost as if she were his wife, and no indecorum or coarseness of speech occurs. "There is no obscenity in the Oriental brothel." At the same time there is no artificial pretence of innocence.
In Eastern Asia, among the peoples of Mongolian stock, especially in China, we find prostitution firmly established and organized on a practical business basis. Prostitution is here accepted and viewed with no serious disfavor, but the prostitute herself is, nevertheless, treated with contempt. Young children are frequently sold to be trained to a life of prostitution, educated accordingly, and kept shut up from the world. Young widows (remarriage being disapproved) frequently also slide into a life of prostitution. Chinese prostitutes often end through opium and the ravages of syphilis (see,e.g., Coltman'sThe Chinese, 1900, Ch. VII). In ancient China, it is said prostitutes were a superiorclass and occupied a position somewhat similar to that of thehetairæin Greece. Even in modern China, however, where they are very numerous, and the flower boats, in which in towns by the sea they usually live, very luxurious, it is chiefly for entertainment, according to some writers, that they are resorted to. Tschang Ki Tong, military attaché in Paris (as quoted by Ploss and Bartels), describes the flower boat as less analogous to a European brothel than to acafé chantant; the young Chinaman comes here for music, for tea, for agreeable conversation with the flower-maidens, who are by no means necessarily called upon to minister to the lust of their visitors.
In Japan, the prostitute's lot is not so degraded as in China. The greater refinement of Japanese civilization allows the prostitute to retain a higher degree of self-respect. She is sometimes regarded with pity, but less often with contempt. She may associate openly with men, ultimately be married, even to men of good social class, and rank as a respectable woman. "In riding from Tokio to Yokohama, the past winter," Coltman observes (op. cit., p. 113), "I saw a party of four young men and three quite pretty and gaily-painted prostitutes, in the same car, who were having a glorious time. They had two or three bottles of various liquors, oranges, and fancy cakes, and they ate, drank and sang, besides playing jokes on each other and frolicking like so many kittens. You may travel the whole length of the Chinese Empire and never witness such a scene." Yet the history of Japanese prostitutes (which has been written in an interesting and well-informed book,The Nightless City, by an English student of sociology who remains anonymous) shows that prostitution in Japan has not only been severely regulated, but very widely looked down upon, and that Japanese prostitutes have often had to suffer greatly; they were at one time practically slaves and often treated with much hardship. They are free now, and any condition approaching slavery is strictly prohibited and guarded against. It would seem, however, that the palmiest days of Japanese prostitution lay some centuries back. Up to the middle of the eighteenth century Japanese prostitutes were highly accomplished in singing, dancing, music, etc. Towards this period, however, they seem to have declined in social consideration and to have ceased to be well educated. Yet even to-day, says Matignon ("La Prostitution au Japon,"Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle, October, 1906), less infamy attaches to prostitution in Japan than in Europe, while at the same time there is less immorality in Japan than in Europe. Though prostitution is organized like the postal or telegraph service, there is also much clandestine prostitution. The prostitution quarters are clean, beautiful and well-kept, but the Japanese prostitutes have lost much of their native good taste in costume by trying to imitate European fashions. It was when prostitution began to decline two centuries ago, that the geishas first appeared and wereorganized in such a way that they should not, if possible, compete as prostitutes with the recognized and licensed inhabitants of the Yoshiwara, as the quarter is called to which prostitutes are confined. The geishas, of course, are not prostitutes, though their virtue may not always be impregnable, and in social position they correspond to actresses in Europe.
In Korea, at all events before Korea fell into the hands of the Japanese, it would seem that there was no distinction between the class of dancing girls and prostitutes. "Among the courtesans," Angus Hamilton states, "the mental abilities are trained and developed with a view to making them brilliant and entertaining companions. These 'leaves of sunlight' are calledgisaing, and correspond to the geishas of Japan. Officially, they are attached to a department of government, and are controlled by a bureau of their own, in common with the Court musicians. They are supported from the national treasury, and they are in evidence at official dinners and all palace entertainments. They read and recite; they dance and sing; they become accomplished artists and musicians. They dress with exceptional taste; they move with exceeding grace; they are delicate in appearance, very frail and very human, very tender, sympathetic, and imaginative." But though they are certainly the prettiest women in Korea, move in the highest society, and might become concubines of the Emperor, they are not allowed to marry men of good class (Angus Hamilton,Korea, p. 52).
The history of European prostitution, as of so many other modern institutions, may properly be said to begin in Rome. Here at the outset we already find that inconsistently mixed attitude towards prostitution which to-day is still preserved. In Greece it was in many respects different. Greece was nearer to the days of religious prostitution, and the sincerity and refinement of Greek civilization made it possible for the better kind of prostitute to exert, and often be worthy to exert, an influence in all departments of life which she has never been able to exercise since, except perhaps occasionally, in a much slighter degree, in France. The course, vigorous, practical Roman was quite ready to tolerate the prostitute, but he was not prepared to carry that toleration to its logical results; he never felt bound to harmonize inconsistent facts of life. Cicero, a moralist of no mean order, without expressing approval of prostitution, yet could not understand how anyone should wish to prohibit youths from commercewith prostitutes, such severity being out of harmony with all the customs of the past or the present.[142]But the superior class of Roman prostitutes, thebonæ mulieres, had no such dignified position as the Greekhetairæ. Their influence was indeed immense, but it was confined, as it is in the case of their European successors to-day, to fashions, customs, and arts. There was always a certain moral rigidity in the Roman which prevented him from yielding far in this direction. He encouraged brothels, but he only entered them with covered head and face concealed in his cloak. In the same way, while he tolerated the prostitute, beyond a certain point he sharply curtailed her privileges. Not only was she deprived of all influence in the higher concerns of life, but she might not even wear thevittaor thestola; she could indeed go almost naked if she pleased, but she must not ape the emblems of the respectable Roman matron.[143]
The rise of Christianity to political power produced on the whole less change of policy than might have been anticipated. The Christian rulers had to deal practically as best they might with a very mixed, turbulent, and semi-pagan world. The leading fathers of the Church were inclined to tolerate prostitution for the avoidance of greater evils, and Christian emperors, like their pagan predecessors, were willing to derive a tax from prostitution. The right of prostitution to exist was, however, no longer so unquestionably recognized as in pagan days, and from time to time some vigorous ruler sought to repress prostitution by severe enactments. The younger Theodosius and Valentinian definitely ordained that there should be no more brothels and that anyone giving shelter to a prostitute should be punished. Justinian confirmed that measure and ordered that all panders were to be exiled on pain of death. These enactments were quite vain. But during a thousand years they were repeated again and again in various parts of Europe, and invariably with the same fruitless or worse than fruitless results. Theodoric, king of theVisigoths, punished with death those who promoted prostitution, and Recared, a Catholic king of the same people in the sixth century, prohibited prostitution altogether and ordered that a prostitute, when found, should receive three hundred strokes of the whip and be driven out of the city. Charlemagne, as well as Genserich in Carthage, and later Frederick Barbarossa in Germany, made severe laws against prostitution which were all of no effect, for even if they seemed to be effective for the time the reaction was all the greater afterwards.[144]
It is in France that the most persistent efforts have been made to combat prostitution. Most notable of all were the efforts of the King and Saint, Louis IX. In 1254 St. Louis ordained that prostitutes should be driven out altogether and deprived of all their money and goods, even to their mantles and gowns. In 1256 he repeated this ordinance and in 1269, before setting out for the Crusades, he ordered the destruction of all places of prostitution. The repetition of those decrees shows how ineffectual they were. They even made matters worse, for prostitutes were forced to mingle with the general population and their influence was thus extended. St. Louis was unable to put down prostitution even in his own camp in the East, and it existed outside his own tent. His legislation, however, was frequently imitated by subsequent rulers of France, even to the middle of the seventeenth century, always with the same ineffectual and worse results. In 1560 an edict of Charles IX abolished brothels, but the number of prostitutes was thereby increased rather than diminished, while many new kinds of brothels appeared in unsuspected shapes and were more dangerous than the more recognized brothels which had been suppressed.[145]In spite of all such legislation, or because of it, there has been no country in which prostitution has played a more conspicuous part.[146]
At Mantua, so great was the repulsion aroused by prostitutes that they were compelled to buy in the markets any fruit or bread that had been soiled by the mere touch of their hands. It was so also in Avignon in 1243. In Catalonia they could not sit at the same table as a lady or a knight or kiss any honorable person.[147]Even in Venice, the paradise of prostitution, numerous and severe regulations were passed against it, and it was long before the Venetian rulers resigned themselves to its toleration and regulation.[148]
The last vigorous attempt to uproot prostitution in Europe was that of Maria Theresa at Vienna in the middle of the eighteenth century. Although of such recent date it may be mentioned here because it was mediæval alike in its conception and methods. Its object indeed, was to suppress not only prostitution, but fornication generally, and the means adopted were fines, imprisonment, whipping and torture. The supposed causes of fornication were also dealt with severely; short dresses were prohibited; billiard rooms and cafés were inspected; no waitresses were allowed, and when discovered, a waitress was liable to be handcuffed and carried off by the police. The Chastity Commission, under which these measures were rigorously carried out, was, apparently, established in 1751 and was quietly abolished by the Emperor Joseph II, in the early years of his reign. It was the general opinion that this severe legislation was really ineffective, and that it caused much more serious evils than it cured.[149]It is certain in any case that, for a long timepast, illegitimacy has been more prevalent in Vienna than in any other great European capital.
Yet the attitude towards prostitutes was always mixed and inconsistent at different places or different times, or even at the same time and place. Dufour has aptly compared their position to that of the mediæval Jews; they were continually persecuted, ecclesiastically, civilly, and socially, yet all classes were glad to have recourse to them and it was impossible to do without them. In some countries, including England in the fourteenth century, a special costume was imposed on prostitutes as a mark of infamy.[150]Yet in many respects no infamy whatever attached to prostitution. High placed officials could claim payment of their expenses incurred in visiting prostitutes when traveling on public business. Prostitution sometimes played an official part in festivities and receptions accorded by great cities to royal guests, and the brothel might form an important part of the city's hospitality. When the Emperor Sigismund came to Ulm in 1434 the streets were illuminated at such times as he or his suite desired to visit the common brothel. Brothels under municipal protection are found in the thirteenth century in Augsburg, in Vienna, in Hamburg.[151]In France the best knownabbayesof prostitutes were those of Toulouse and Montpellier.[152]Durkheim is of opinion that in the early middle ages, before this period, free love and marriage were less severely differentiated. It was the rise of the middle class, he considers, anxious to protect their wives and daughters, which led to a regulated and publicly recognized attempt to direct debauchery into a separate channel, brought under control.[153]These brothels constituted a kind of public service, the directors of them being regarded almost as public officials, bound to keep a certain number of prostitutes, to charge according to a fixed tariff, and not to receive into their houses girls belonging to the neighborhood. The institutions ofthis kind lasted for three centuries. It was, in part, perhaps, the impetus of the new Protestant movement, but mainly the terrible devastation produced by the introduction of syphilis from America at the end of the fifteenth century which, as Burckhardt and others have pointed out, led to the decline of the mediæval brothels.[154]
The superior modern prostitute, the "courtesan" who had no connection with the brothel, seems to have been the outcome of the Renaissance and made her appearance in Italy at the end of the fifteenth century. "Courtesan" or "cortegiana" meant a lady following the court, and the term began at this time to be applied to a superior prostitute observing a certain degree of decorum and restraint.[155]In the papal court of Alexander Borgia the courtesan flourished even when her conduct was not altogether dignified. Burchard, the faithful and unimpeachable chronicler of this court, describes in his diary how, one evening, in October, 1501, the Pope sent for fifty courtesans to be brought to his chamber; after supper, in the presence of Cæsar Borgia and his young sister Lucrezia, they danced with the servitors and others who were present, at first clothed, afterwards naked. The candlesticks with lighted candles were then placed upon the floor and chestnuts thrown among them, to be gathered by the women crawling between the candlesticks on their hands and feet. Finally a number of prizes were brought forth to be awarded to those men "qui pluries dictos meretrices carnaliter agnoscerent," the victor in the contest being decided according to the judgment of the spectators.[156]This scene, enacted publicly in the Apostolicpalace and serenely set forth by the impartial secretary, is at once a notable episode in the history of modern prostitution and one of the most illuminating illustrations we possess of the paganism of the Renaissance.
Before the term "courtesan" came into repute, prostitutes were even in Italy commonly called "sinners,"peccatrice. The change, Graf remarks in a very interesting study of the Renaissance prostitute ("Una Cortigiana fra Mille,"Attraverso il Cinquecento, pp. 217-351), "reveals a profound alteration in ideas and in life;" a term that suggested infamy gave place to one that suggested approval, and even honor, for the courts of the Renaissance period represented the finest culture of the time. The best of these courtesans seem to have been not altogether unworthy of the honor they received. We can detect this in their letters. There is a chapter on the letters of Renaissance prostitutes, especially those of Camilla de Pisa which are marked by genuine passion, in Lothar Schmidt'sFrauenbriefe der Renaissance. The famous Imperia, called by a Pope in the early years of the sixteenth century "nobilissimum Romæ scortum," knew Latin and could write Italian verse. Other courtesans knew Italian and Latin poetry by heart, while they were accomplished in music, dancing, and speech. We are reminded of ancient Greece, and Graf, discussing how far the Renaissance courtesans resembled the hetairæ, finds a very considerable likeness, especially in culture and influence, though with some differences due to the antagonism between religion and prostitution at the later period.The most distinguished figure in every respect among the courtesans of that time was certainly Tullia D'Aragona. She was probably the daughter of Cardinal D'Aragona (an illegitimate scion of the Spanish royal family) by a Ferrarese courtesan who became his mistress. Tullia has gained a high reputation by her verse. Her best sonnet is addressed to a youth of twenty, whom she passionately loved, but who did not return her love. HerGuerrino Meschino, a translation from the Spanish, is a very pure and chaste work. She was a woman of refined instincts and aspirations, and once at least she abandoned her life of prostitution. She was held in high esteem and respect. When, in 1546, Cosimo, Duke of Florence, ordered all prostitutes to wear a yellow veil or handkerchief as a public badge of their profession, Tullia appealed to the Duchess, a Spanish lady of high character, and received permission to dispense with this badge on account of her "rara scienzia di poesia et filosofia." She dedicated herRimeto the Duchess. Tullia D'Aragona was very beautiful, with yellow hair, and remarkably large and bright eyes, which dominated those who came near her. She was of proud bearing and inspired unusual respect (G. Biagi, "Un' Etera Romana,"Nuova Antologia, vol. iv, 1886, pp. 655-711; S. Bongi,Rivista critica della Letteratura Italiana, 1886, IV, p. 186).Tullia D'Aragona was clearly not a courtesan at heart. Perhaps the most typical example of the Renaissance courtesan at her best is furnished by Veronica Franco, born in 1546 at Venice, of middle class family and in early life married to a doctor. Of her also it has been said that, while by profession a prostitute, she was by inclination a poet. But she appears to have been well content with her profession, and never ashamed of it. Her life and character have been studied by Arturo Graf, and more slightly in a little book by Tassini. She was highly cultured, and knew several languages; she also sang well and played on many instruments. In one of her letters she advises a youth who was madly in love with her that if he wishes to obtain her favors he must leave off importuning her and devote himself tranquilly to study. "You know well," she adds, "that all those who claim to be able to gain my love, and who are extremely dear to me, are strenuous in studious discipline.... If my fortune allowed it I would spend all my time quietly in the academies of virtuous men." The Diotimas and Aspasias of antiquity, as Graf comments, would not have demanded so much of their lovers. In her poems it is possible to trace some of her love histories, and she often shows herself torn by jealousy at the thought that perhaps another woman may approach her beloved. Once she fell in love with an ecclesiastic, possibly a bishop, with whom she had no relationships, and after a long absence, which healed her love, she and he became sincere friends. Once she was visited by Henry III of France, who took away her portrait, while on her part she promised to dedicate a book to him; she so far fulfilled this as to address some sonnets to him and a letter; "neither did the King feel ashamed of his intimacy with the courtesan," remarks Graf, "nor did she suspect that he would feel ashamed of it." When Montaigne passed through Venice she sent him a little book of hers, as we learn from hisJournal, though they do not appear to have met. Tintoret was one of her many distinguished friends, and she was a strenuous advocate of the high qualities of modern, as compared with ancient, art. Her friendships were affectionate, and she even seems to have had various grand ladies among her friends. She was, however, so far from being ashamed of her profession of courtesan that in one of her poems she affirms she has been taught by Apollo other arts besides those he is usually regarded as teaching:
Before the term "courtesan" came into repute, prostitutes were even in Italy commonly called "sinners,"peccatrice. The change, Graf remarks in a very interesting study of the Renaissance prostitute ("Una Cortigiana fra Mille,"Attraverso il Cinquecento, pp. 217-351), "reveals a profound alteration in ideas and in life;" a term that suggested infamy gave place to one that suggested approval, and even honor, for the courts of the Renaissance period represented the finest culture of the time. The best of these courtesans seem to have been not altogether unworthy of the honor they received. We can detect this in their letters. There is a chapter on the letters of Renaissance prostitutes, especially those of Camilla de Pisa which are marked by genuine passion, in Lothar Schmidt'sFrauenbriefe der Renaissance. The famous Imperia, called by a Pope in the early years of the sixteenth century "nobilissimum Romæ scortum," knew Latin and could write Italian verse. Other courtesans knew Italian and Latin poetry by heart, while they were accomplished in music, dancing, and speech. We are reminded of ancient Greece, and Graf, discussing how far the Renaissance courtesans resembled the hetairæ, finds a very considerable likeness, especially in culture and influence, though with some differences due to the antagonism between religion and prostitution at the later period.
The most distinguished figure in every respect among the courtesans of that time was certainly Tullia D'Aragona. She was probably the daughter of Cardinal D'Aragona (an illegitimate scion of the Spanish royal family) by a Ferrarese courtesan who became his mistress. Tullia has gained a high reputation by her verse. Her best sonnet is addressed to a youth of twenty, whom she passionately loved, but who did not return her love. HerGuerrino Meschino, a translation from the Spanish, is a very pure and chaste work. She was a woman of refined instincts and aspirations, and once at least she abandoned her life of prostitution. She was held in high esteem and respect. When, in 1546, Cosimo, Duke of Florence, ordered all prostitutes to wear a yellow veil or handkerchief as a public badge of their profession, Tullia appealed to the Duchess, a Spanish lady of high character, and received permission to dispense with this badge on account of her "rara scienzia di poesia et filosofia." She dedicated herRimeto the Duchess. Tullia D'Aragona was very beautiful, with yellow hair, and remarkably large and bright eyes, which dominated those who came near her. She was of proud bearing and inspired unusual respect (G. Biagi, "Un' Etera Romana,"Nuova Antologia, vol. iv, 1886, pp. 655-711; S. Bongi,Rivista critica della Letteratura Italiana, 1886, IV, p. 186).
Tullia D'Aragona was clearly not a courtesan at heart. Perhaps the most typical example of the Renaissance courtesan at her best is furnished by Veronica Franco, born in 1546 at Venice, of middle class family and in early life married to a doctor. Of her also it has been said that, while by profession a prostitute, she was by inclination a poet. But she appears to have been well content with her profession, and never ashamed of it. Her life and character have been studied by Arturo Graf, and more slightly in a little book by Tassini. She was highly cultured, and knew several languages; she also sang well and played on many instruments. In one of her letters she advises a youth who was madly in love with her that if he wishes to obtain her favors he must leave off importuning her and devote himself tranquilly to study. "You know well," she adds, "that all those who claim to be able to gain my love, and who are extremely dear to me, are strenuous in studious discipline.... If my fortune allowed it I would spend all my time quietly in the academies of virtuous men." The Diotimas and Aspasias of antiquity, as Graf comments, would not have demanded so much of their lovers. In her poems it is possible to trace some of her love histories, and she often shows herself torn by jealousy at the thought that perhaps another woman may approach her beloved. Once she fell in love with an ecclesiastic, possibly a bishop, with whom she had no relationships, and after a long absence, which healed her love, she and he became sincere friends. Once she was visited by Henry III of France, who took away her portrait, while on her part she promised to dedicate a book to him; she so far fulfilled this as to address some sonnets to him and a letter; "neither did the King feel ashamed of his intimacy with the courtesan," remarks Graf, "nor did she suspect that he would feel ashamed of it." When Montaigne passed through Venice she sent him a little book of hers, as we learn from hisJournal, though they do not appear to have met. Tintoret was one of her many distinguished friends, and she was a strenuous advocate of the high qualities of modern, as compared with ancient, art. Her friendships were affectionate, and she even seems to have had various grand ladies among her friends. She was, however, so far from being ashamed of her profession of courtesan that in one of her poems she affirms she has been taught by Apollo other arts besides those he is usually regarded as teaching:
"Cosi dolce e gustevole divento,Quando mi trovo con persona in lettoDa cui amata e gradita mi sento."
"Cosi dolce e gustevole divento,Quando mi trovo con persona in lettoDa cui amata e gradita mi sento."
In a certaincatalogoof the prices of Venetian courtesans Veronica is assigned only 2 scudi for her favors, while the courtesan to whom thecatalogue is dedicated is set down at 25 scudi. Graf thinks there may be some mistake or malice here, and an Italian gentleman of the time states that she required not less than 50 scudi from those to whom she was willing to accord what Montaigne called the "negotiation entière."In regard to this matter it may be mentioned that, as stated by Bandello, it was the custom for a Venetian prostitute to have six or seven gentlemen at a time as her lovers. Each was entitled to come to sup and sleep with her on one night of the week, leaving her days free. They paid her so much per month, but she always definitely reserved the right to receive a stranger passing through Venice, if she wished, changing the time of her appointment with her lover for the night. The high and special prices which we find recorded are, of course, those demanded from the casual distinguished stranger who came to Venice as, once in the sixteenth century, Montaigne came.In 1580 (when not more than thirty-four) Veronica confessed to the Holy Office that she had had six children. In the same year she formed the design of founding a home, which should not be a monastery, where prostitutes who wished to abandon their mode of life could find a refuge with their children, if they had any. This seems to have led to the establishment of a Casa del Soccorso. In 1591 she died of fever, reconciled with God and blessed by many unfortunates. She had a good heart and a sound intellect, and was the last of the great Renaissance courtesans who revived Greek hetairism (Graf,Attraverso il Cinquecento, pp. 217-351). Even in sixteenth century Venice, however, it will be seen, Veronica Franco seems to have been not altogether at peace in the career of a courtesan. She was clearly not adapted for ordinary marriage, yet under the most favorable conditions that the modern world has ever offered it may still be doubted whether a prostitute's career can offer complete satisfaction to a woman of large heart and brain.Ninon de Lenclos, who is frequently called "the last of the great courtesans," may seem an exception to the general rule as to the inability of a woman of good heart, high character, and fine intelligence to find satisfaction in a prostitute's life. But it is a total misconception alike of Ninon de Lenclos's temperament and her career to regard her as in any true sense a prostitute at all. A knowledge of even the barest outlines of her life ought to prevent such a mistake. Born early in the seventeenth century, she was of good family on both sides; her mother was a woman of severe life, but her father, a gentleman of Touraine, inspired her with his own Epicurean philosophy as well as his love of music. She was extremely well educated. At the age of sixteen or seventeen she had her first lover, the noble and valiant Gaspard de Coligny; he was followed for half a century by a long succession of other lovers, sometimes more than one at a time; three years was the longest period during which she was faithful to one lover. Her attractionslasted so long that, it is said, three generations of Sévignés were among her lovers. Tallemant des Réaux enables us to study in detail herliaisons.It is not, however, the abundance of lovers which makes a woman a prostitute, but the nature of her relationships with them. Sainte-Beuve, in an otherwise admirable study of Ninon de Lenclos (Causeries du Lundi, vol. iv), seems to reckon her among the courtesans. But no woman is a prostitute unless she uses men as a source of pecuniary gain. Not only is there no evidence that this was the case with Ninon, but all the evidence excludes such a relationship. "It required much skill," said Voltaire, "and a great deal of love on her part, to induce her to accept presents." Tallemant, indeed, says that she sometimes took money from her lovers, but this statement probably involves nothing beyond what is contained in Voltaire's remark, and, in any case, Tallemant's gossip, though usually well-informed, was not always reliable. All are agreed as to her extreme disinterestedness.When we hear precisely of Ninon de Lenclos in connection with money, it is not as receiving a gift, but only as repaying a debt to an old lover, or restoring a large sum left with her for safe keeping when the owner was exiled. Such incidents are far from suggesting the professional prostitute of any age; they are rather the relationships which might exist between men friends. Ninon de Lenclos's character was in many respects far from perfect, but she combined many masculine virtues, and especially probity, with a temperament which, on the whole, was certainly feminine; she hated hypocrisy, and she was never influenced by pecuniary considerations. She was, moreover, never reckless, but always retained a certain self-restraint and temperance, even in eating and drinking, and, we are told, she never drank wine. She was, as Sainte-Beuve has remarked, the first to realize that there must be the same virtues for men and for women, and that it is absurd to reduce all feminine virtues to one. "Our sex has been burdened with all the frivolities," she wrote, "and men have reserved to themselves the essential qualities: I have made myself a man." She sometimes dressed as a man when riding (see,e.g.,Correspondence Authentiqueof Ninon de Lenclos, with a good introduction by Emile Colombey). Consciously or not, she represented a new feminine idea at a period when—as we may see in many forgotten novels written by the women of that time—ideas were beginning to emerge in the feminine sphere. She was the first, and doubtless, from one point of view, the most extreme representative of a small and distinguished group of French women among whom Georges Sand is the finest personality.Thus it is idle to attempt to adorn the history of prostitution with the name of Ninon de Lenclos. A debauched old prostitute would never, like Ninon towards the end of her long life, have been able to retain orto conquer the affection and the esteem of many of the best men and women of her time; even to the austere Saint-Simon it seemed that there reigned in her little court a decorum which the greatest princesses cannot achieve. She was not a prostitute, but a woman of unique personality with a little streak of genius in it. That she was inimitable we need not perhaps greatly regret. In her old age, in 1699, her old friend and former lover, Saint-Evremond, wrote to her, with only a little exaggeration, that there were few princesses and few saints who would not leave their courts and their cloisters to change places with her. "If I had known beforehand what my life would be I would have hanged myself," was her oft-quoted answer. It is, indeed, a solitary phrase that slips in, perhaps as the expression of a momentary mood; one may make too much of it. More truly characteristic is the fine saying in which her Epicurean philosophy seems to stretch out towards Nietzsche: "La joie de l'esprit en marque la force."
In a certaincatalogoof the prices of Venetian courtesans Veronica is assigned only 2 scudi for her favors, while the courtesan to whom thecatalogue is dedicated is set down at 25 scudi. Graf thinks there may be some mistake or malice here, and an Italian gentleman of the time states that she required not less than 50 scudi from those to whom she was willing to accord what Montaigne called the "negotiation entière."
In regard to this matter it may be mentioned that, as stated by Bandello, it was the custom for a Venetian prostitute to have six or seven gentlemen at a time as her lovers. Each was entitled to come to sup and sleep with her on one night of the week, leaving her days free. They paid her so much per month, but she always definitely reserved the right to receive a stranger passing through Venice, if she wished, changing the time of her appointment with her lover for the night. The high and special prices which we find recorded are, of course, those demanded from the casual distinguished stranger who came to Venice as, once in the sixteenth century, Montaigne came.
In 1580 (when not more than thirty-four) Veronica confessed to the Holy Office that she had had six children. In the same year she formed the design of founding a home, which should not be a monastery, where prostitutes who wished to abandon their mode of life could find a refuge with their children, if they had any. This seems to have led to the establishment of a Casa del Soccorso. In 1591 she died of fever, reconciled with God and blessed by many unfortunates. She had a good heart and a sound intellect, and was the last of the great Renaissance courtesans who revived Greek hetairism (Graf,Attraverso il Cinquecento, pp. 217-351). Even in sixteenth century Venice, however, it will be seen, Veronica Franco seems to have been not altogether at peace in the career of a courtesan. She was clearly not adapted for ordinary marriage, yet under the most favorable conditions that the modern world has ever offered it may still be doubted whether a prostitute's career can offer complete satisfaction to a woman of large heart and brain.
Ninon de Lenclos, who is frequently called "the last of the great courtesans," may seem an exception to the general rule as to the inability of a woman of good heart, high character, and fine intelligence to find satisfaction in a prostitute's life. But it is a total misconception alike of Ninon de Lenclos's temperament and her career to regard her as in any true sense a prostitute at all. A knowledge of even the barest outlines of her life ought to prevent such a mistake. Born early in the seventeenth century, she was of good family on both sides; her mother was a woman of severe life, but her father, a gentleman of Touraine, inspired her with his own Epicurean philosophy as well as his love of music. She was extremely well educated. At the age of sixteen or seventeen she had her first lover, the noble and valiant Gaspard de Coligny; he was followed for half a century by a long succession of other lovers, sometimes more than one at a time; three years was the longest period during which she was faithful to one lover. Her attractionslasted so long that, it is said, three generations of Sévignés were among her lovers. Tallemant des Réaux enables us to study in detail herliaisons.
It is not, however, the abundance of lovers which makes a woman a prostitute, but the nature of her relationships with them. Sainte-Beuve, in an otherwise admirable study of Ninon de Lenclos (Causeries du Lundi, vol. iv), seems to reckon her among the courtesans. But no woman is a prostitute unless she uses men as a source of pecuniary gain. Not only is there no evidence that this was the case with Ninon, but all the evidence excludes such a relationship. "It required much skill," said Voltaire, "and a great deal of love on her part, to induce her to accept presents." Tallemant, indeed, says that she sometimes took money from her lovers, but this statement probably involves nothing beyond what is contained in Voltaire's remark, and, in any case, Tallemant's gossip, though usually well-informed, was not always reliable. All are agreed as to her extreme disinterestedness.
When we hear precisely of Ninon de Lenclos in connection with money, it is not as receiving a gift, but only as repaying a debt to an old lover, or restoring a large sum left with her for safe keeping when the owner was exiled. Such incidents are far from suggesting the professional prostitute of any age; they are rather the relationships which might exist between men friends. Ninon de Lenclos's character was in many respects far from perfect, but she combined many masculine virtues, and especially probity, with a temperament which, on the whole, was certainly feminine; she hated hypocrisy, and she was never influenced by pecuniary considerations. She was, moreover, never reckless, but always retained a certain self-restraint and temperance, even in eating and drinking, and, we are told, she never drank wine. She was, as Sainte-Beuve has remarked, the first to realize that there must be the same virtues for men and for women, and that it is absurd to reduce all feminine virtues to one. "Our sex has been burdened with all the frivolities," she wrote, "and men have reserved to themselves the essential qualities: I have made myself a man." She sometimes dressed as a man when riding (see,e.g.,Correspondence Authentiqueof Ninon de Lenclos, with a good introduction by Emile Colombey). Consciously or not, she represented a new feminine idea at a period when—as we may see in many forgotten novels written by the women of that time—ideas were beginning to emerge in the feminine sphere. She was the first, and doubtless, from one point of view, the most extreme representative of a small and distinguished group of French women among whom Georges Sand is the finest personality.
Thus it is idle to attempt to adorn the history of prostitution with the name of Ninon de Lenclos. A debauched old prostitute would never, like Ninon towards the end of her long life, have been able to retain orto conquer the affection and the esteem of many of the best men and women of her time; even to the austere Saint-Simon it seemed that there reigned in her little court a decorum which the greatest princesses cannot achieve. She was not a prostitute, but a woman of unique personality with a little streak of genius in it. That she was inimitable we need not perhaps greatly regret. In her old age, in 1699, her old friend and former lover, Saint-Evremond, wrote to her, with only a little exaggeration, that there were few princesses and few saints who would not leave their courts and their cloisters to change places with her. "If I had known beforehand what my life would be I would have hanged myself," was her oft-quoted answer. It is, indeed, a solitary phrase that slips in, perhaps as the expression of a momentary mood; one may make too much of it. More truly characteristic is the fine saying in which her Epicurean philosophy seems to stretch out towards Nietzsche: "La joie de l'esprit en marque la force."
The frank acceptance of prostitution by the spiritual or even the temporal power has since the Renaissance become more and more exceptional. The opposite extreme of attempting to uproot prostitution has also in practice been altogether abandoned. Sporadic attempts have indeed been made, here and there, to put down prostitution with a strong hand even in quite modern times. It is now, however, realized that in such a case the remedy is worse than the disease.
In 1860 a Mayor of Portsmouth felt it his duty to attempt to suppress prostitution. "In the early part of his mayoralty," according to a witness before the Select Committee on the Contagious Diseases Acts (p. 393), "there was an order passed that every beerhouse-keeper and licensed victualer in the borough known to harbor these women would be dealt with, and probably lose his license. On a given day about three hundred or four hundred of these forlorn outcasts were bundled wholesale into the streets, and they formed up in a large body, many of them with only a shift and a petticoat on, and with a lot of drunken men and boys with a fife and fiddle they paraded the streets for several days. They marched in a body to the workhouse, but for many reasons they were refused admittance.... These women wandered about for two or three days shelterless, and it was felt that the remedy was very much worse than the disease, and the women were allowed to go back to their former places."Similar experiments have been made even more recently in America. "In Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1891, the houses of prostitutes wereclosed, the inmates turned out upon the streets, and were refused lodging and even food by the citizens of that place. A wave of popular remonstrance, all over the country, at the outrage on humanity, created a reaction which resulted in a last condition by no means better than the first." In the same year also a similar incident occurred in New York with the same unfortunate results (Isidore Dyer, "The Municipal Control of Prostitution in the United States," report presented to the Brussels International Conference in 1899).
In 1860 a Mayor of Portsmouth felt it his duty to attempt to suppress prostitution. "In the early part of his mayoralty," according to a witness before the Select Committee on the Contagious Diseases Acts (p. 393), "there was an order passed that every beerhouse-keeper and licensed victualer in the borough known to harbor these women would be dealt with, and probably lose his license. On a given day about three hundred or four hundred of these forlorn outcasts were bundled wholesale into the streets, and they formed up in a large body, many of them with only a shift and a petticoat on, and with a lot of drunken men and boys with a fife and fiddle they paraded the streets for several days. They marched in a body to the workhouse, but for many reasons they were refused admittance.... These women wandered about for two or three days shelterless, and it was felt that the remedy was very much worse than the disease, and the women were allowed to go back to their former places."
Similar experiments have been made even more recently in America. "In Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1891, the houses of prostitutes wereclosed, the inmates turned out upon the streets, and were refused lodging and even food by the citizens of that place. A wave of popular remonstrance, all over the country, at the outrage on humanity, created a reaction which resulted in a last condition by no means better than the first." In the same year also a similar incident occurred in New York with the same unfortunate results (Isidore Dyer, "The Municipal Control of Prostitution in the United States," report presented to the Brussels International Conference in 1899).
There grew up instead the tendency to regulate prostitution, to give it a semi-official toleration which enabled the authorities to exercise a control over it, and to guard as far as possible against its evil by medical and police inspection. The new brothel system differed from the ancient mediæval houses of prostitution in important respects; it involved a routine of medical inspection and it endeavored to suppress any rivalry by unlicensed prostitutes outside. Bernard Mandeville, the author of theFable of the Bees, and an acute thinker, was a pioneer in the advocacy of this system. In 1724, in hisModest Defense of Publick Stews, he argues that "the encouraging of public whoring will not only prevent most of the mischievous effects of this vice, but even lessen the quantity of whoring in general, and reduce it to the narrowest bounds which it can possibly be contained in." He proposed to discourage private prostitution by giving special privileges and immunities to brothels by Act of Parliament. His scheme involved the erection of one hundred brothels in a special quarter of the city, to contain two thousand prostitutes and one hundred matrons of ability and experience with physicians and surgeons, as well as commissioners to oversee the whole. Mandeville was regarded merely as a cynic or worse, and his scheme was ignored or treated with contempt. It was left to the genius of Napoleon, eighty years later, to establish the system of "maisons de tolérance," which had so great an influence over modern European practice during a large part of the last century and even still in its numerous survivals forms the subject of widely divergent opinions.
On the whole, however, it must be said that the system of registering, examining, and regularizing prostitutes now belongsto the past. Many great battles have been fought over this question; the most important is that which raged for many years in England over the Contagious Diseases Acts, and is embodied in the 600 pages of a Report by a Select Committee on these Acts issued in 1882. The majority of the members of the Committee reported favorably to the Acts which were, notwithstanding, repealed in 1886, since which date no serious attempt has been made in England to establish them again.
At the present time, although the old system still stands in many countries with the inert stolidity of established institutions, it no longer commands general approval. As Paul and Victor Margueritte have truly stated, in the course of an acute examination of the phenomena of state-regulated prostitution as found in Paris, the system is "barbarous to start with and almost inefficacious as well." The expert is every day more clearly demonstrating its inefficacy while the psychologist and the sociologist are constantly becoming more convinced that it is barbarous.
It can indeed by no means be said that any unanimity has been attained. It is obviously so urgently necessary to combat the flood of disease and misery which proceeds directly from the spread of syphilis and gonorrhœa, and indirectly from the prostitution which is the chief propagator of these diseases, that we cannot be surprised that many should eagerly catch at any system which seems to promise a palliation of the evils. At the present time, however, it is those best acquainted with the operation of the system of control who have most clearly realized that the supposed palliation is for the most part illusory,[157]and in any case attained at the cost of the artificial production of other evils. In France, where the system of the registration and control ofprostitutes has been established for over a century,[158]and where consequently its advantages, if such there are, should be clearly realized, it meets with almost impassioned opposition from able men belonging to every section of the community. In Germany the opposition to regularized control has long been led by well-equipped experts, headed by Blaschko of Berlin. Precisely the same conclusions are being reached in America. Gottheil, of New York, finds that the municipal control of prostitution is "neither successful nor desirable." Heidingsfeld concludes that the regulation and control system in force in Cincinnati has done little good and much harm; under the system among the private patients in his own clinic the proportion of cases of both syphilis and gonorrhœa has increased; "suppression of prostitutes is impossible and control is impracticable."[159]
It is in Germany that the attempt to regulate prostitution still remains most persistent, with results that in Germany itself are regarded as unfortunate. Thus the German law inflicts a penalty on householders who permit illegitimate sexual intercourse in their houses. This is meant to strike the unlicensed prostitute, but it really encourages prostitution, for a decent youth and girl who decide to form a relationship which later may develop into marriage, and which is not illegal (for extra-marital sexual intercourseper seis not in Germany, as it is by the antiquated laws of several American States, a punishable offense), are subjected to so much trouble and annoyance by the suspicious police that it is much easier for the girl to become a prostitute and put herself under the protection of the police. The law was largely directed against those who live on the profits of prostitution. But in practice it works out differently. The prostitute simply has to pay extravagantly high rents, so that her landlord really lives on the fruits of her trade, while she has to carry on her business with increased activity and on a larger scale in order to cover her heavy expenses (P. Hausmeister, "Zur Analyse der Prostitution,"Geschlecht und Gesellschaft, vol. ii, 1907, p. 294).In Italy, opinion on this matter is much divided. The regulation of prostitution has been successively adopted, abandoned, and readopted. In Switzerland, the land of governmental experiments, various plans aretried in different cantons. In some there is no attempt to interfere with prostitution, except under special circumstances; in others all prostitution, and even fornication generally, is punishable; in Geneva only native prostitutes are permitted to practice; in Zurich, since 1897, prostitution is prohibited, but care is taken to put no difficulties in the path of free sexual relationships which are not for gain. With these different regulations, morals in Switzerland generally are said to be much on the same level as elsewhere (Moreau-Christophe,Du Problème de la Misère, vol. iii, p. 259). The same conclusion holds good of London. A disinterested observer, Félix Remo (La Vie Galante en Angleterre, 1888, p. 237), concluded that, notwithstanding its free trade in prostitution, its alcoholic excesses, its vices of all kinds, "London is one of the most moral capitals in Europe." The movement towards freedom in this matter has been evidenced in recent years by the abandonment of the system of regulation by Denmark in 1906.
It is in Germany that the attempt to regulate prostitution still remains most persistent, with results that in Germany itself are regarded as unfortunate. Thus the German law inflicts a penalty on householders who permit illegitimate sexual intercourse in their houses. This is meant to strike the unlicensed prostitute, but it really encourages prostitution, for a decent youth and girl who decide to form a relationship which later may develop into marriage, and which is not illegal (for extra-marital sexual intercourseper seis not in Germany, as it is by the antiquated laws of several American States, a punishable offense), are subjected to so much trouble and annoyance by the suspicious police that it is much easier for the girl to become a prostitute and put herself under the protection of the police. The law was largely directed against those who live on the profits of prostitution. But in practice it works out differently. The prostitute simply has to pay extravagantly high rents, so that her landlord really lives on the fruits of her trade, while she has to carry on her business with increased activity and on a larger scale in order to cover her heavy expenses (P. Hausmeister, "Zur Analyse der Prostitution,"Geschlecht und Gesellschaft, vol. ii, 1907, p. 294).
In Italy, opinion on this matter is much divided. The regulation of prostitution has been successively adopted, abandoned, and readopted. In Switzerland, the land of governmental experiments, various plans aretried in different cantons. In some there is no attempt to interfere with prostitution, except under special circumstances; in others all prostitution, and even fornication generally, is punishable; in Geneva only native prostitutes are permitted to practice; in Zurich, since 1897, prostitution is prohibited, but care is taken to put no difficulties in the path of free sexual relationships which are not for gain. With these different regulations, morals in Switzerland generally are said to be much on the same level as elsewhere (Moreau-Christophe,Du Problème de la Misère, vol. iii, p. 259). The same conclusion holds good of London. A disinterested observer, Félix Remo (La Vie Galante en Angleterre, 1888, p. 237), concluded that, notwithstanding its free trade in prostitution, its alcoholic excesses, its vices of all kinds, "London is one of the most moral capitals in Europe." The movement towards freedom in this matter has been evidenced in recent years by the abandonment of the system of regulation by Denmark in 1906.
Even the most ardent advocates of the registration of prostitutes recognize that not only is the tendency of civilization opposed rather than favorable to the system, but that in the numerous countries where the system persists registered prostitutes are losing ground in the struggle against clandestine prostitutes. Even in France, the classic land of police-controlled prostitutes, the "maisons de tolérance" have long been steadily decreasing in number, by no means because prostitution is decreasing but because low-classbrasseriesand smallcafés-chantants, which are really unlicensed brothels, are taking their place.[160]
The wholesale regularization of prostitution in civilized centres is nowadays, indeed, advocated by few, if any, of the authorities who belong to the newer school. It is at most claimed as desirable in certain places under special circumstances.[161]Even those who would still be glad to see prostitution thoroughlyin the control of the police now recognize that experience shows this to be impossible. As many girls begin their career as prostitutes at a very early age, a sound system of regulation should be prepared to enroll as permanent prostitutes even girls who are little more than children. That, however, is a logical conclusion against which the moral sense, and even the common sense, of a community instinctively revolts. In Paris girls may not be inscribed as prostitutes until they have reached the age of sixteen and some consider even that age too low.[162]Moreover, whenever she becomes diseased, or grows tired of her position, the registered woman may always slip out of the hands of the police and establish herself elsewhere as a clandestine prostitute. Every rigid attempt to keep prostitution within the police ring leads to offensive interference with the actions and the freedom of respectable women which cannot fail to be intolerable in any free community. Even in a city like London, where prostitution is relatively free, the supervision of the police has led to scandalous police charges against women who have done nothing whatever which should legitimately arouse suspicion of their behavior. The escape of the infected woman from the police cordon has, it is obvious, an effect in raising the apparent level of health of registered women, and the police statistics are still further fallaciously improved by the fact that the inmates of brothels are older on the average than clandestine prostitutes and have become immune to disease.[163]These facts are now becoming fairly obvious and well recognized. The state regulation of prostitutionis undesirable, on moral grounds for the oft-emphasized reason that it is only applied to one sex, and on practical grounds because it is ineffective. Society allows the police to harass the prostitute with petty persecutions under the guise of charges of "solicitation," "disorderly conduct," etc., but it is no longer convinced that she ought to be under the absolute control of the police.
The problem of prostitution, when we look at it narrowly, seems to be in the same position to-day as at any time in the course of the past three thousand years. In order, however, to comprehend the real significance of prostitution, and to attain a reasonable attitude towards it, we must look at it from a broader point of view; we must consider not only its evolution and history, but its causes and its relation to the wider aspects of modern social life. When we thus view the problem from a broader standpoint we shall find that there is no conflict between the claims of ethics and those of social hygiene, and that the coördinated activity of both is involved in the progressive refinement and purification of civilized sexual relationships.