Canon Lyttelton's remarks may be taken to refer chiefly to young men of the upper middle class. Concerning what is perhaps the usual attitude of lower middle class people towards prostitution, I may quote from a remarkable communication which has reached me from Australia: "What are the views of a young man brought up in a middle-class Christian English family on prostitutes? Take my father, for instance. He first mentioned prostitutes to me, if I remember rightly, when speaking of his life before marriage. And he spoke of them as he would speak of a horse he had hired, paid for, and dismissed from his mind when it had rendered him service. Although my mother was so kind and good she spoke of abandoned women with disgust and scorn as of some unclean animal. As it flatters vanity and pride to be able with good countenance and universal consent to look down on something, I soon grasped the situation and adopted an attitude which is, in the main, that of mostmiddle-class Christian Englishmen towards prostitutes. But as puberty develops this attitude has to be accommodated with the wish to make use of this scum, these moral lepers. The ordinary young man, who likes a spice of immorality and has it when in town, and thinks it is not likely to come to his mother's or sisters' ears, does not get over his arrogance and disgust or abate them in the least. He takes them with him, more or less disguised, to the brothel, and they color his thoughts and actions all the time he is sleeping with prostitutes, or kissing them, or passing his hands over them, as he would over a mare, getting as much as he can for his money. To tell the truth, on the whole, that was my attitude too. But if anyone had asked me for the smallest reason for this attitude, for this feeling of superiority, pride,hauteur, and prejudice, I should, like any other 'respectable' young man, have been entirely at a loss, and could only have gaped foolishly."
Canon Lyttelton's remarks may be taken to refer chiefly to young men of the upper middle class. Concerning what is perhaps the usual attitude of lower middle class people towards prostitution, I may quote from a remarkable communication which has reached me from Australia: "What are the views of a young man brought up in a middle-class Christian English family on prostitutes? Take my father, for instance. He first mentioned prostitutes to me, if I remember rightly, when speaking of his life before marriage. And he spoke of them as he would speak of a horse he had hired, paid for, and dismissed from his mind when it had rendered him service. Although my mother was so kind and good she spoke of abandoned women with disgust and scorn as of some unclean animal. As it flatters vanity and pride to be able with good countenance and universal consent to look down on something, I soon grasped the situation and adopted an attitude which is, in the main, that of mostmiddle-class Christian Englishmen towards prostitutes. But as puberty develops this attitude has to be accommodated with the wish to make use of this scum, these moral lepers. The ordinary young man, who likes a spice of immorality and has it when in town, and thinks it is not likely to come to his mother's or sisters' ears, does not get over his arrogance and disgust or abate them in the least. He takes them with him, more or less disguised, to the brothel, and they color his thoughts and actions all the time he is sleeping with prostitutes, or kissing them, or passing his hands over them, as he would over a mare, getting as much as he can for his money. To tell the truth, on the whole, that was my attitude too. But if anyone had asked me for the smallest reason for this attitude, for this feeling of superiority, pride,hauteur, and prejudice, I should, like any other 'respectable' young man, have been entirely at a loss, and could only have gaped foolishly."
From the modern moral standpoint which now concerns us, not only is the cruelty involved in the dishonor of the prostitute absurd, but not less absurd, and often not less cruel, seems the honor bestowed on the respectable women on the other side of the social gulf. It is well recognized that men sometimes go to prostitutes to gratify the excitement aroused by fondling their betrothed.[218]As the emotional and physical results of ungratified excitement are not infrequently more serious in women than in men, the betrothed women in these cases are equally justified in seeking relief from other men, and the vicious circle of absurdity might thus be completed.
From the point of view of the modern moralist there is another consideration which was altogether overlooked in the conventional and traditional morality we have inherited, and was indeed practically non-existent in the ancient days when that morality was still a living reality. Women are no longer divided only into the two groups of wives who are to be honored, and prostitutes who are the dishonored guardians of that honor; there is a large third class of women who are neither wives nor prostitutes.For this group of the unmarried virtuous the traditional morality had no place at all; it simply ignored them. But the new moralist, who is learning to recognize both the claims of the individual and the claims of society, begins to ask whether on the one hand these women are not entitled to the satisfaction of their affectional and emotional impulses if they so desire, and on the other hand whether, since a high civilization involves a diminished birthrate, the community is not entitled to encourage every healthy and able-bodied woman to contribute to maintain the birthrate when she so desires.
All the considerations briefly indicated in the preceding pages—the fundamental sense of human equality generated by our civilization, the repugnance to cruelty which accompanies the refinement of urban life, the ugly contrast of extremes which shock our developing democratic tendencies, the growing sense of the rights of the individual to authority over his own person, the no less strongly emphasized right of the community to the best that the individual can yield—all these considerations are every day more strongly influencing the modern moralist to assume towards the prostitute an attitude altogether different from that of the morality which we derived from Cato and Augustine. He sees the question in a larger and more dynamic manner. Instead of declaring that it is well worth while to tolerate and at the same time to condemn the prostitute, in order to preserve the sanctity of the wife in her home, he is not only more inclined to regard each as the proper guardian of her own moral freedom, but he is less certain about the time-honored position of the prostitute, and moreover, by no means sure that the wife in the home may not be fully as much in need of rescuing as the prostitute in the street; he is prepared to consider whether reform in this matter is not most likely to take place in the shape of a fairer apportionment of sexual privileges and sexual duties to women generally, with an inevitably resultant elevation in the sexual lives of men also.
The revolt of many serious reformers against the injustice and degradation now involved by our system of prostitution is so profound that some have declared themselves ready to accept any revolution ofideas which would bring about a more wholesome transmutation of moral values. "Better indeed were a saturnalia offreemen and women," exclaims Edward Carpenter (Love's Coming of Age, p. 62), "than the spectacle which, as it is, our great cities present at night."Even those who would be quite content with as conservative a treatment as possible of social institutions still cannot fail to realize that prostitution is unsatisfactory, unless we are content to make very humble claims of the sexual act. "The act of prostitution," Godfrey declares (The Science of Sex, p. 202), "may be physiologically complete, but it is complete in no other sense. All the moral and intellectual factors which combine with physical desire to form the perfect sexual attraction are absent. All the higher elements of love—admiration, respect, honor, and self-sacrificing devotion—are as foreign to prostitution as to the egoistic act of masturbation. The principal drawbacks to the morality of the act lie in its associations more than in the act itself. Any affectional quality which a more or less promiscuous connection might possess is at once destroyed by the intrusion of the monetary element. In the resulting degradation the woman has the largest share, since it makes her a pariah and involves her in all the hardening and depraving influences of social ostracism. But her degradation only serves to render her influence on her partners more demoralizing. Prostitution," he concludes, "has a strong tendency towards emphasizing the naturally selfish attitude of men towards women, and encouraging them in the delusion, born of unregulated passions, that the sexual act itself is the aim and end of the sex life. Prostitution can therefore make no claim to afford even a temporary solution to the sex problem. It fulfils only that mission which has made it a 'necessary evil'—the mission of palliative to the physical rigors of celibacy and monogamy. It does so at the cost of a considerable amount of physical and moral deterioration, much of which is undoubtedly due to the action of society in completing the degradation of the prostitute by persistent ostracism. Prostitution was not so great an evil when it was not thought so great, yet even at its best it was a real evil, a melancholy and sordid travesty of sincere and natural passional relations. It is an evil which we are bound to have with us so long as celibacy is a custom and monogamy a law." It is the wife as well as the prostitute who is degraded by a system which makes venal love possible. "The time has gone past," the same writer remarks elsewhere (p. 195) "when a mere ceremony can really sanctify what is base and transform lust and greed into the sincerity of sexual affection. If, to enter into sexual connections with a man for a solely material end is a disgrace to humanity, it is a disgrace under the marriage bond just as much as apart from the hypocritical blessing of the church or the law. If the public prostitute is a being who deserves to be treated as a pariah, it is hopelessly irrational to withhold every sortof moral opprobrium from the woman who leads a similar life under a different set of external circumstances. Either the prostitute wife must come under the moral ban, or there must be an end to the complete ostracism under which the prostitute labors."The thinker who more clearly and fundamentally than others, and first of all, realized the dynamical relationships of prostitution, as dependent upon a change in the other social relationships of life, was James Hinton. More than thirty years ago, in fragmentary writings that still remain unpublished, since he never worked them into an orderly form, Hinton gave vigorous and often passionate expression to this fundamental idea. It may be worth while to quote a few brief passages from Hinton's MSS.: "I feel that the laws of force should hold also amid the waves of human passion, that the relations of mechanics are true, and will rule also in human life.... There is a tension, a crushing of the soul, by our modern life, and it is ready for a sudden spring to a different order in which the forces shall rearrange themselves. It is a dynamical question presented in moral terms.... Keeping a portion of the woman population without prospect of marriage means having prostitutes, that is women as instruments of man's mere sensuality, and this means the killing, in many of them, of all pure love or capacity of it. This is the fact we have to face.... To-day I saw a young woman whose life was being consumed by her want of love, a case of threatened utter misery: now see the price at which we purchase her ill-health; for her ill-health we pay the crushing of another girl into hell. We give that for it; her wretchedness of soul and body are bought by prostitution; we have prostitutes made for that.... We devote some women recklessly to perdition to make a hothouse Heaven for the rest.... One wears herself out in vainly trying to endure pleasures she is not strong enough to enjoy, while other women are perishing for lack of these very pleasures. If marriage is this, is it not embodied lust? The happy Christian homes are the true dark places of the earth.... Prostitution for man, restraint for woman—they are two sides of the same thing, and both are denials of love, like luxury and asceticism. The mountains of restraint must be used to fill up the abysses of luxury."Some of Hinton's views were set forth by a writer intimately acquainted with him in a pamphlet entitledThe Future of Marriage: An Eirenicon for a Question of To-day, by a Respectable Woman (1885). "When once the conviction is forced home upon the 'good' women," the writer remarks, "that their place of honor and privilege rests upon the degradation of others as its basis, they will never rest till they have either abandoned it or sought for it some other pedestal. If our inflexible marriage system has for its essential condition the existence side by side with it of prostitution, then one of two things follows: either prostitutionmust be shown to be compatible with the well-being, moral and physical, of the women who practice it, or our marriage system must be condemned. If it was clearly put before anyone, he could not seriously assert that to be 'virtue' which could only be practiced at the expense of another's vice.... Whilst the laws of physics are becoming so universally recognized that no one dreams of attempting to annihilate a particle of matter, or of force, yet we do not instinctively apply the same conception to moral forces, but think and act as if we could simply do away with an evil, while leaving unchanged that which gives it its strength. This is the only view of the social problem which can give us hope. That prostitution should simply cease, leaving everything else as it is, would be disastrous if it were possible. But it is not possible. The weakness of all existing efforts to put down prostitution is that they are directed against it as an isolated thing, whereas it is only one of the symptoms proceeding from a common disease."Ellen Key, who during recent years has been the chief apostle of a gospel of sexual morality based on the needs of women as the mothers of the race, has, in a somewhat similar spirit, denounced alike prostitution and rigid marriage, declaring (in herEssays on Love and Marriage) that "the development of erotic personal consciousness is as much hindered by socially regulated 'morality' as by socially regulated 'immorality,'" and that "the two lowest and socially sanctioned expressions of sexual dualism, rigid marriage and prostitution, will gradually become impossible, because with the conquest of the idea of erotic unity they will no longer correspond to human needs."
The revolt of many serious reformers against the injustice and degradation now involved by our system of prostitution is so profound that some have declared themselves ready to accept any revolution ofideas which would bring about a more wholesome transmutation of moral values. "Better indeed were a saturnalia offreemen and women," exclaims Edward Carpenter (Love's Coming of Age, p. 62), "than the spectacle which, as it is, our great cities present at night."
Even those who would be quite content with as conservative a treatment as possible of social institutions still cannot fail to realize that prostitution is unsatisfactory, unless we are content to make very humble claims of the sexual act. "The act of prostitution," Godfrey declares (The Science of Sex, p. 202), "may be physiologically complete, but it is complete in no other sense. All the moral and intellectual factors which combine with physical desire to form the perfect sexual attraction are absent. All the higher elements of love—admiration, respect, honor, and self-sacrificing devotion—are as foreign to prostitution as to the egoistic act of masturbation. The principal drawbacks to the morality of the act lie in its associations more than in the act itself. Any affectional quality which a more or less promiscuous connection might possess is at once destroyed by the intrusion of the monetary element. In the resulting degradation the woman has the largest share, since it makes her a pariah and involves her in all the hardening and depraving influences of social ostracism. But her degradation only serves to render her influence on her partners more demoralizing. Prostitution," he concludes, "has a strong tendency towards emphasizing the naturally selfish attitude of men towards women, and encouraging them in the delusion, born of unregulated passions, that the sexual act itself is the aim and end of the sex life. Prostitution can therefore make no claim to afford even a temporary solution to the sex problem. It fulfils only that mission which has made it a 'necessary evil'—the mission of palliative to the physical rigors of celibacy and monogamy. It does so at the cost of a considerable amount of physical and moral deterioration, much of which is undoubtedly due to the action of society in completing the degradation of the prostitute by persistent ostracism. Prostitution was not so great an evil when it was not thought so great, yet even at its best it was a real evil, a melancholy and sordid travesty of sincere and natural passional relations. It is an evil which we are bound to have with us so long as celibacy is a custom and monogamy a law." It is the wife as well as the prostitute who is degraded by a system which makes venal love possible. "The time has gone past," the same writer remarks elsewhere (p. 195) "when a mere ceremony can really sanctify what is base and transform lust and greed into the sincerity of sexual affection. If, to enter into sexual connections with a man for a solely material end is a disgrace to humanity, it is a disgrace under the marriage bond just as much as apart from the hypocritical blessing of the church or the law. If the public prostitute is a being who deserves to be treated as a pariah, it is hopelessly irrational to withhold every sortof moral opprobrium from the woman who leads a similar life under a different set of external circumstances. Either the prostitute wife must come under the moral ban, or there must be an end to the complete ostracism under which the prostitute labors."
The thinker who more clearly and fundamentally than others, and first of all, realized the dynamical relationships of prostitution, as dependent upon a change in the other social relationships of life, was James Hinton. More than thirty years ago, in fragmentary writings that still remain unpublished, since he never worked them into an orderly form, Hinton gave vigorous and often passionate expression to this fundamental idea. It may be worth while to quote a few brief passages from Hinton's MSS.: "I feel that the laws of force should hold also amid the waves of human passion, that the relations of mechanics are true, and will rule also in human life.... There is a tension, a crushing of the soul, by our modern life, and it is ready for a sudden spring to a different order in which the forces shall rearrange themselves. It is a dynamical question presented in moral terms.... Keeping a portion of the woman population without prospect of marriage means having prostitutes, that is women as instruments of man's mere sensuality, and this means the killing, in many of them, of all pure love or capacity of it. This is the fact we have to face.... To-day I saw a young woman whose life was being consumed by her want of love, a case of threatened utter misery: now see the price at which we purchase her ill-health; for her ill-health we pay the crushing of another girl into hell. We give that for it; her wretchedness of soul and body are bought by prostitution; we have prostitutes made for that.... We devote some women recklessly to perdition to make a hothouse Heaven for the rest.... One wears herself out in vainly trying to endure pleasures she is not strong enough to enjoy, while other women are perishing for lack of these very pleasures. If marriage is this, is it not embodied lust? The happy Christian homes are the true dark places of the earth.... Prostitution for man, restraint for woman—they are two sides of the same thing, and both are denials of love, like luxury and asceticism. The mountains of restraint must be used to fill up the abysses of luxury."
Some of Hinton's views were set forth by a writer intimately acquainted with him in a pamphlet entitledThe Future of Marriage: An Eirenicon for a Question of To-day, by a Respectable Woman (1885). "When once the conviction is forced home upon the 'good' women," the writer remarks, "that their place of honor and privilege rests upon the degradation of others as its basis, they will never rest till they have either abandoned it or sought for it some other pedestal. If our inflexible marriage system has for its essential condition the existence side by side with it of prostitution, then one of two things follows: either prostitutionmust be shown to be compatible with the well-being, moral and physical, of the women who practice it, or our marriage system must be condemned. If it was clearly put before anyone, he could not seriously assert that to be 'virtue' which could only be practiced at the expense of another's vice.... Whilst the laws of physics are becoming so universally recognized that no one dreams of attempting to annihilate a particle of matter, or of force, yet we do not instinctively apply the same conception to moral forces, but think and act as if we could simply do away with an evil, while leaving unchanged that which gives it its strength. This is the only view of the social problem which can give us hope. That prostitution should simply cease, leaving everything else as it is, would be disastrous if it were possible. But it is not possible. The weakness of all existing efforts to put down prostitution is that they are directed against it as an isolated thing, whereas it is only one of the symptoms proceeding from a common disease."
Ellen Key, who during recent years has been the chief apostle of a gospel of sexual morality based on the needs of women as the mothers of the race, has, in a somewhat similar spirit, denounced alike prostitution and rigid marriage, declaring (in herEssays on Love and Marriage) that "the development of erotic personal consciousness is as much hindered by socially regulated 'morality' as by socially regulated 'immorality,'" and that "the two lowest and socially sanctioned expressions of sexual dualism, rigid marriage and prostitution, will gradually become impossible, because with the conquest of the idea of erotic unity they will no longer correspond to human needs."
We may sum up the present situation as regards prostitution by saying that on the one hand there is a tendency for its elevation, in association with the growing humanity and refinement of civilization, characteristics which must inevitably tend to mark more and more both those women who become prostitutes and those men who seek them; on the other hand, but perhaps through the same dynamic force, there is a tendency towards the slow elimination of prostitution by the successful competition of higher and purer methods of sexual relationship freed from pecuniary considerations. This refinement and humanization, this competition by better forms of sexual love, are indeed an essential part of progress as civilization becomes more truly sound, wholesome, and sincere.
This moral change cannot, it seems probable, fail to be accompanied by the realization that the facts of human life aremore important than the forms. For all changes from lower to higher social forms, from savagery to civilization, are accompanied—in so far as they are vital changes—by a slow and painful groping towards the truth that it is only in natural relations that sanity and sanctity can be found, for, as Nietzsche said, the "return" to Nature should rather be called the "ascent." Only so can we achieve the final elimination from our hearts of that clinging tradition that there is any impurity or dishonor in acts of love for which the reasonable, and not merely the conventional, conditions have been fulfilled. For it is vain to attempt to cleanse our laws, or even our by-laws, until we have first cleansed our hearts.
It would be out of place here to push further the statement of the moral question as it is to-day beginning to shape itself in the sphere of sex. In a psychological discussion we are only concerned to set down the actual attitude of the moralist, and of civilization. The practical outcome of that attitude must be left to moralists and sociologists and the community generally to work out.
Our inquiry has also, it may be hoped, incidentally tended to show that in practically dealing with the question of prostitution it is pre-eminently necessary to remember the warning which, as regards many other social problems, has been embodied by Herbert Spencer in his famous illustration of the bent iron plate. In trying to make the bent plate smooth, it is useless, Spencer pointed out, to hammer directly on the buckled up part; if we do so we merely find that we have made matters worse; our hammering, to be effective, must be around, and not directly on, the offensive elevation we wish to reduce; only so can the iron plate be hammered smooth.[219]But this elementarylaw has not been understood by moralists. The plain, practical, common-sense reformer, as he fancied himself to be—from the time of Charlemagne onwards—has over and over again brought his heavy fist directly down on to the evil of prostitution and has always made matters worse. It is only by wisely working outside and around the evil that we can hope to lessen it effectually. By aiming to develop and raise the relationships of men to women, and of women to women, by modifying our notions of sexual relationships, and by introducing a saner and truer conception of womanhood and of the responsibilities of women as well as of men, by attaining, socially as well as economically, a higher level of human living—it is only by such methods as these that we can reasonably expect to see any diminution and alleviation of the evil of prostitution. So long as we are incapable of such methods we must be content with the prostitution we deserve, learning to treat it with the pity, and the respect, which so intimate a failure of our civilization is entitled to.
[107]
See,e.g., Cheetham's Hulsean Lectures,The Mysteries, Pagan and Christian, pp. 123, 136.
See,e.g., Cheetham's Hulsean Lectures,The Mysteries, Pagan and Christian, pp. 123, 136.
[108]
Hormayr'sTaschenbuch, 1835, p. 255. Hagelstange, in a chapter on mediæval festivals in hisSüddeutsches Bauernleben im Mittelalter, shows how, in these Christian orgies which were really of pagan origin, the German people reacted with tremendous and boisterous energy against the laborious and monotonous existence of everyday life.
Hormayr'sTaschenbuch, 1835, p. 255. Hagelstange, in a chapter on mediæval festivals in hisSüddeutsches Bauernleben im Mittelalter, shows how, in these Christian orgies which were really of pagan origin, the German people reacted with tremendous and boisterous energy against the laborious and monotonous existence of everyday life.
[109]
This was clearly realized by the more intelligent upholders of the Feast of Fools. Austere persons wished to abolish this Feast, and in a remarkable petition sent up to the Theological Faculty of Paris (and quoted by Flogel,Geschichte des Grotesk-Komischen, fourth edition, p. 204) the case for the Feast is thus presented: "We do this according to ancient custom, in order that folly, which is second nature to man and seems to be inborn, may at least once a year have free outlet. Wine casks would burst if we failed sometimes to remove the bung and let in air. Now we are all ill-bound casks and barrels which would let out the wine of wisdom if by constant devotion and fear of God we allowed it to ferment. We must let in air so that it may not be spoilt. Thus on some days we give ourselves up to sport, so that with the greater zeal we may afterwards return to the worship of God." The Feast of Fools was not suppressed until the middle of the sixteenth century, and relics of it persisted (as at Aix) till near the end of the eighteenth century.
This was clearly realized by the more intelligent upholders of the Feast of Fools. Austere persons wished to abolish this Feast, and in a remarkable petition sent up to the Theological Faculty of Paris (and quoted by Flogel,Geschichte des Grotesk-Komischen, fourth edition, p. 204) the case for the Feast is thus presented: "We do this according to ancient custom, in order that folly, which is second nature to man and seems to be inborn, may at least once a year have free outlet. Wine casks would burst if we failed sometimes to remove the bung and let in air. Now we are all ill-bound casks and barrels which would let out the wine of wisdom if by constant devotion and fear of God we allowed it to ferment. We must let in air so that it may not be spoilt. Thus on some days we give ourselves up to sport, so that with the greater zeal we may afterwards return to the worship of God." The Feast of Fools was not suppressed until the middle of the sixteenth century, and relics of it persisted (as at Aix) till near the end of the eighteenth century.
[110]
A Méray,La Vie au Temps des Libres Prêcheurs, vol. ii, Ch. X. A good and scholarly account of the Feast of Fools is given by E. K. Chambers,The Mediæval Stage, Ch. XIII. It is true that the Church and the early Fathers often anathematized the theatre. But Gregory of Nazianzen wished to found a Christian theatre; the Mediæval Mysteries were certainly under the protection of the clergy; and St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of the schoolmen, only condemns the theatre with cautious qualifications.
A Méray,La Vie au Temps des Libres Prêcheurs, vol. ii, Ch. X. A good and scholarly account of the Feast of Fools is given by E. K. Chambers,The Mediæval Stage, Ch. XIII. It is true that the Church and the early Fathers often anathematized the theatre. But Gregory of Nazianzen wished to found a Christian theatre; the Mediæval Mysteries were certainly under the protection of the clergy; and St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of the schoolmen, only condemns the theatre with cautious qualifications.
[111]
Spencer and Gillen,Northern Tribes of Central Australia, Ch. XII.
Spencer and Gillen,Northern Tribes of Central Australia, Ch. XII.
[112]
Journal Anthropological Institute, July-Dec., 1904, p. 329.
Journal Anthropological Institute, July-Dec., 1904, p. 329.
[113]
Westermarck (Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, vol. ii, pp. 283-9) shows how widespread is the custom of setting apart a periodical rest day.
Westermarck (Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, vol. ii, pp. 283-9) shows how widespread is the custom of setting apart a periodical rest day.
[114]
A. E. Crawley,The Mystic Rose, pp. 273et seq., Crawley brings into association with this function of great festivals the custom, found in some parts of the world, of exchanging wives at these times. "It has nothing whatever to do with the marriage system, except as breaking it for a season, women of forbidden degree being lent, on the same grounds as conventions and ordinary relations are broken at festivals of the Saturnalia type, the object being to change life and start afresh, by exchanging every thing one can, while the very act of exchange coincides with the other desire, to weld the community together" (Ib., p. 479).
A. E. Crawley,The Mystic Rose, pp. 273et seq., Crawley brings into association with this function of great festivals the custom, found in some parts of the world, of exchanging wives at these times. "It has nothing whatever to do with the marriage system, except as breaking it for a season, women of forbidden degree being lent, on the same grounds as conventions and ordinary relations are broken at festivals of the Saturnalia type, the object being to change life and start afresh, by exchanging every thing one can, while the very act of exchange coincides with the other desire, to weld the community together" (Ib., p. 479).
[115]
See "The Analysis of the Sexual Impulse" in vol. iii of theseStudies.
See "The Analysis of the Sexual Impulse" in vol. iii of theseStudies.
[116]
G. Murray,Ancient Greek Literature, p. 211.
G. Murray,Ancient Greek Literature, p. 211.
[117]
The Greek drama probably arose out of a folk-festival of more or less sexual character, and it is even possible that the mediæval drama had a somewhat similar origin (see Donaldson,The Greek Theatre; Gilbert Murray,loc. cit.; Karl Pearson,The Chances of Death, vol. ii, pp. 135-6, 280et seq.).
The Greek drama probably arose out of a folk-festival of more or less sexual character, and it is even possible that the mediæval drama had a somewhat similar origin (see Donaldson,The Greek Theatre; Gilbert Murray,loc. cit.; Karl Pearson,The Chances of Death, vol. ii, pp. 135-6, 280et seq.).
[118]
R. Canudo, "Les Chorèges Français,"Mercure de France, May 1, 1907, p. 180.
R. Canudo, "Les Chorèges Français,"Mercure de France, May 1, 1907, p. 180.
[119]
"This is, in fact," Cyples declares (The Process of Human Experience, p. 743), "Art's great function—to rehearse within us greater egoistic possibilities, to habituate us to larger actualizations of personality in a rudimentary manner," and so to arouse, "aimlessly but splendidly, the sheer as yet unfulfilled possibilities within us."
"This is, in fact," Cyples declares (The Process of Human Experience, p. 743), "Art's great function—to rehearse within us greater egoistic possibilities, to habituate us to larger actualizations of personality in a rudimentary manner," and so to arouse, "aimlessly but splendidly, the sheer as yet unfulfilled possibilities within us."
[120]
Even when monotonous labor is intellectual, it is not thereby protected against degrading orgiastic reactions. Prof. L. Gurlitt shows (Die Neue Generation, January, 1909, pp. 31-6) how the strenuous, unremitting intellectual work of Prussian seminaries leads among both teachers and scholars to the worst forms of the orgy.
Even when monotonous labor is intellectual, it is not thereby protected against degrading orgiastic reactions. Prof. L. Gurlitt shows (Die Neue Generation, January, 1909, pp. 31-6) how the strenuous, unremitting intellectual work of Prussian seminaries leads among both teachers and scholars to the worst forms of the orgy.
[121]
Rabutaux discusses various definitions of prostitution,De la Prostitution en Europe, pp. 119et seq.For the origin of the names to designate the prostitute, see Schrader,Reallexicon, art. "Beischläferin."
Rabutaux discusses various definitions of prostitution,De la Prostitution en Europe, pp. 119et seq.For the origin of the names to designate the prostitute, see Schrader,Reallexicon, art. "Beischläferin."
[122]
Digest, lib. xxiii, tit. ii, p. 43. If she only gave herself to one or two persons, though for money, it was not prostitution.
Digest, lib. xxiii, tit. ii, p. 43. If she only gave herself to one or two persons, though for money, it was not prostitution.
[123]
Guyot,La Prostitution, p. 8. The element of venality is essential, and religious writers (like Robert Wardlaw, D. D., of Edinburgh, in hisLectures on Female Prostitution, 1842, p. 14) who define prostitution as "the illicit intercourse of the sexes," and synonymous with theological "fornication," fall into an absurd confusion.
Guyot,La Prostitution, p. 8. The element of venality is essential, and religious writers (like Robert Wardlaw, D. D., of Edinburgh, in hisLectures on Female Prostitution, 1842, p. 14) who define prostitution as "the illicit intercourse of the sexes," and synonymous with theological "fornication," fall into an absurd confusion.
[124]
"Such marriages are sometimes stigmatized as 'legalized prostitution,'" remarks Sidgwick (Methods of Ethics, Bk. iii, Ch. XI), "but the phrase is felt to be extravagant and paradoxical."
"Such marriages are sometimes stigmatized as 'legalized prostitution,'" remarks Sidgwick (Methods of Ethics, Bk. iii, Ch. XI), "but the phrase is felt to be extravagant and paradoxical."
[125]
Bonger,Criminalité et Conditions Economiques, p. 378. Bonger believes that the act of prostitution is "intrinsically equal to that of a man or woman who contracts a marriage for economical reasons."
Bonger,Criminalité et Conditions Economiques, p. 378. Bonger believes that the act of prostitution is "intrinsically equal to that of a man or woman who contracts a marriage for economical reasons."
[126]
E. Richard,La Prostitution à Paris, 1890, p. 44. It may be questioned whether publicity or notoriety should form an essential part of the definition; it seems, however, to be involved, or the prostitute cannot obtain clients. Reuss states that she must, in addition, be absolutely without means of subsistence; that is certainly not essential. Nor is it necessary, as theDigestinsisted, that the act should be performed "without pleasure;" that may be as it will, without affecting the prostitutional nature of the act.
E. Richard,La Prostitution à Paris, 1890, p. 44. It may be questioned whether publicity or notoriety should form an essential part of the definition; it seems, however, to be involved, or the prostitute cannot obtain clients. Reuss states that she must, in addition, be absolutely without means of subsistence; that is certainly not essential. Nor is it necessary, as theDigestinsisted, that the act should be performed "without pleasure;" that may be as it will, without affecting the prostitutional nature of the act.
[127]
Hawkesworth,Account of the Voyages, etc., 1775, vol. ii, p. 254.
Hawkesworth,Account of the Voyages, etc., 1775, vol. ii, p. 254.
[128]
R. W. Codrington,The Melanesians, p. 235.
R. W. Codrington,The Melanesians, p. 235.
[129]
F. S. Krauss,Romanische Forschungen, 1903, p. 290.
F. S. Krauss,Romanische Forschungen, 1903, p. 290.
[130]
H. Schurtz,Altersklassen und Männerbünde, 1902, p. 190. In this work Schurtz brings together (pp. 189-201) some examples of the germs of prostitution among primitive peoples. Many facts and references are given by Westermarck (History of Human Marriage, pp. 66et seq., andOrigin and Development of the Moral Ideas, vol. ii, pp. 441et seq.).
H. Schurtz,Altersklassen und Männerbünde, 1902, p. 190. In this work Schurtz brings together (pp. 189-201) some examples of the germs of prostitution among primitive peoples. Many facts and references are given by Westermarck (History of Human Marriage, pp. 66et seq., andOrigin and Development of the Moral Ideas, vol. ii, pp. 441et seq.).
[131]
Bachofen (more especially in hisMutterrechtandSage von Tanaquil) argued that even religious prostitution sprang from the resistance of primitive instincts to the individualization of love.Cf.Robertson Smith,Religion of Semites, second edition, p. 59.
Bachofen (more especially in hisMutterrechtandSage von Tanaquil) argued that even religious prostitution sprang from the resistance of primitive instincts to the individualization of love.Cf.Robertson Smith,Religion of Semites, second edition, p. 59.
[132]
Whatever the reason may be, there can be no doubt that there is a widespread tendency for religion and prostitution to be associated; it is possibly to some extent a special case of that general connection between the religious and sexual impulses which has been discussed elsewhere (Appendix C to vol. i of theseStudies). Thus A. B. Ellis, in his book onThe Ewe-speaking Peoples of West Africa(pp. 124, 141) states that here women dedicated to a god become promiscuous prostitutes. W. G. Sumner (Folkways, Ch. XVI) brings together many facts concerning the wide distribution of religious prostitution.
Whatever the reason may be, there can be no doubt that there is a widespread tendency for religion and prostitution to be associated; it is possibly to some extent a special case of that general connection between the religious and sexual impulses which has been discussed elsewhere (Appendix C to vol. i of theseStudies). Thus A. B. Ellis, in his book onThe Ewe-speaking Peoples of West Africa(pp. 124, 141) states that here women dedicated to a god become promiscuous prostitutes. W. G. Sumner (Folkways, Ch. XVI) brings together many facts concerning the wide distribution of religious prostitution.
[133]
Herodotus, Bk. I, Ch. CXCIX; Baruch, Ch. VI, p. 43. Modern scholars confirm the statements of Herodotus from the study of Babylonian literature, though inclined to deny that religious prostitution occupied so large a place as he gives it. A tablet of the Gilgamash epic, according to Morris Jastrow, refers to prostitutes as attendants of the goddess Ishtar in the city Uruk (or Erech), which was thus a centre, and perhaps the chief centre, of the rites described by Herodotus (Morris Jastrow,The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, 1898, p. 475). Ishtar was the goddess of fertility, the great mother goddess, and the prostitutes were priestesses, attached to her worship, who took part in ceremonies intended to symbolize fertility. These priestesses of Ishtar were known by the general name Kadishtu, "the holy ones" (op. cit., pp. 485, 660).
Herodotus, Bk. I, Ch. CXCIX; Baruch, Ch. VI, p. 43. Modern scholars confirm the statements of Herodotus from the study of Babylonian literature, though inclined to deny that religious prostitution occupied so large a place as he gives it. A tablet of the Gilgamash epic, according to Morris Jastrow, refers to prostitutes as attendants of the goddess Ishtar in the city Uruk (or Erech), which was thus a centre, and perhaps the chief centre, of the rites described by Herodotus (Morris Jastrow,The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, 1898, p. 475). Ishtar was the goddess of fertility, the great mother goddess, and the prostitutes were priestesses, attached to her worship, who took part in ceremonies intended to symbolize fertility. These priestesses of Ishtar were known by the general name Kadishtu, "the holy ones" (op. cit., pp. 485, 660).
[134]
It is usual among modern writers to associate Aphrodite Pandemos, rather than Ourania, with venal or promiscuous sexuality, but this is a complete mistake, for the Aphrodite Pandemos was purely political and had no sexual significance. The mistake was introduced, perhaps intentionally, by Plato. It has been suggested that that arch-juggler, who disliked democratic ideas, purposely sought to pervert and vulgarize the conception of Aphrodite Pandemos (Farnell,Cults of Greek States, vol. ii, p. 660).
It is usual among modern writers to associate Aphrodite Pandemos, rather than Ourania, with venal or promiscuous sexuality, but this is a complete mistake, for the Aphrodite Pandemos was purely political and had no sexual significance. The mistake was introduced, perhaps intentionally, by Plato. It has been suggested that that arch-juggler, who disliked democratic ideas, purposely sought to pervert and vulgarize the conception of Aphrodite Pandemos (Farnell,Cults of Greek States, vol. ii, p. 660).
[135]
Athenæus, Bk. xiii, cap. XXXII. It appears that the only other Hellenic community where the temple cult involved unchastity was a city of the Locri Epizephyrii (Farnell,op. cit., vol. ii, p. 636).
Athenæus, Bk. xiii, cap. XXXII. It appears that the only other Hellenic community where the temple cult involved unchastity was a city of the Locri Epizephyrii (Farnell,op. cit., vol. ii, p. 636).
[136]
I do not say an earlier "promiscuity," for the theory of a primitive sexual promiscuity is now widely discredited, though there can be no reasonable doubt that the early prevalence of mother-right was more favorable to the sexual freedom of women than the later patriarchal system. Thus in very early Egyptian days a woman could give her favors to any man she chose by sending him her garment, even if she were married. In time the growth of the rights of men led to this being regarded as criminal, but the priestesses of Amen retained the privilege to the last, as being under divine protection (Flinders Petrie,Egyptian Tales, pp. 10, 48).
I do not say an earlier "promiscuity," for the theory of a primitive sexual promiscuity is now widely discredited, though there can be no reasonable doubt that the early prevalence of mother-right was more favorable to the sexual freedom of women than the later patriarchal system. Thus in very early Egyptian days a woman could give her favors to any man she chose by sending him her garment, even if she were married. In time the growth of the rights of men led to this being regarded as criminal, but the priestesses of Amen retained the privilege to the last, as being under divine protection (Flinders Petrie,Egyptian Tales, pp. 10, 48).
[137]
It should be added that Farnell ("The Position of Women in Ancient Religion,"Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, 1904, p. 88) seeks to explain the religious prostitution of Babylonia as a special religious modification of the custom of destroying virginity before marriage in order to safeguard the husband from the mystic dangers of defloration. E. S. Hartland, also ("Concerning the Rite at the Temple of Mylitta,"Anthropological Essays Presented to E. B. Tyler, p. 189), suggests that this was a puberty rite connected with ceremonial defloration. This theory is not, however, generally accepted by Semitic scholars.
It should be added that Farnell ("The Position of Women in Ancient Religion,"Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, 1904, p. 88) seeks to explain the religious prostitution of Babylonia as a special religious modification of the custom of destroying virginity before marriage in order to safeguard the husband from the mystic dangers of defloration. E. S. Hartland, also ("Concerning the Rite at the Temple of Mylitta,"Anthropological Essays Presented to E. B. Tyler, p. 189), suggests that this was a puberty rite connected with ceremonial defloration. This theory is not, however, generally accepted by Semitic scholars.
[138]
The girls of this tribe, who are remarkably pretty, after spending two or three years in thus amassing a little dowry, return home to marry, and are said to make model wives and mothers. They are described by Bertherand in Parent-Duchâtelet,La Prostitution à Paris, vol. ii, p. 539.
The girls of this tribe, who are remarkably pretty, after spending two or three years in thus amassing a little dowry, return home to marry, and are said to make model wives and mothers. They are described by Bertherand in Parent-Duchâtelet,La Prostitution à Paris, vol. ii, p. 539.
[139]
In Abyssinia (according to Fiaschi,British Medical Journal, March 13, 1897), where prostitution has always been held in high esteem, the prostitutes, who are now subject to medical examination twice a week, still attach no disgrace to their profession, and easily find husbands afterwards. Potter (Sohrab and Rustem, pp. 168et seq.) gives references as regards peoples, widely dispersed in the Old World and the New, among whom the young women have practiced prostitution to obtain a dowry.
In Abyssinia (according to Fiaschi,British Medical Journal, March 13, 1897), where prostitution has always been held in high esteem, the prostitutes, who are now subject to medical examination twice a week, still attach no disgrace to their profession, and easily find husbands afterwards. Potter (Sohrab and Rustem, pp. 168et seq.) gives references as regards peoples, widely dispersed in the Old World and the New, among whom the young women have practiced prostitution to obtain a dowry.
[140]
At Tralles, in Lydia, even in the second century A.D., as Sir W. M. Ramsay notes (Cities of Phrygia, vol. i, pp. 94, 115), sacred prostitution was still an honorable practice for women of good birth who "felt themselves called upon to live the divine life under the influence of divine inspiration."
At Tralles, in Lydia, even in the second century A.D., as Sir W. M. Ramsay notes (Cities of Phrygia, vol. i, pp. 94, 115), sacred prostitution was still an honorable practice for women of good birth who "felt themselves called upon to live the divine life under the influence of divine inspiration."
[141]
The gradual secularization of prostitution from its earlier religious form has been traced by various writers (see,e.g., Dupouey,La Prostitution dans l'Antiquité). The earliest complimentary reference to theHetairain literature is to be found, according to Benecke (Antimachus of Colophon, p. 36), in Bacchylides.
The gradual secularization of prostitution from its earlier religious form has been traced by various writers (see,e.g., Dupouey,La Prostitution dans l'Antiquité). The earliest complimentary reference to theHetairain literature is to be found, according to Benecke (Antimachus of Colophon, p. 36), in Bacchylides.
[142]
Cicero,Oratio prô Coelio, Cap. XX.
Cicero,Oratio prô Coelio, Cap. XX.
[143]
Pierre Dufour,Histoire de la Prostitution, vol. ii, Chs. XIX-XX. The real author of this well-known history of prostitution, which, though not scholarly in its methods, brings together a great mass of interesting information, is said to be Paul Lacroix.
Pierre Dufour,Histoire de la Prostitution, vol. ii, Chs. XIX-XX. The real author of this well-known history of prostitution, which, though not scholarly in its methods, brings together a great mass of interesting information, is said to be Paul Lacroix.
[144]
Rabutaux, in hisHistoire de la Prostitution en Europe, describes many attempts to suppress prostitution;cf.Dufour,op. cit., vol. iii.
Rabutaux, in hisHistoire de la Prostitution en Europe, describes many attempts to suppress prostitution;cf.Dufour,op. cit., vol. iii.
[145]
Dufour,op. cit., vol. vi, Ch. XLI. It was in the reign of the homosexual Henry III that the tolerance of brothels was established.
Dufour,op. cit., vol. vi, Ch. XLI. It was in the reign of the homosexual Henry III that the tolerance of brothels was established.
[146]
In the eighteenth century, especially, houses of prostitution in Paris attained to an astonishing degree of elaboration and prosperity. Owing to the constant watchful attention of the police a vast amount of detailed information concerning these establishments was accumulated, and during recent years much of it has been published. A summary of this literature will be found in Dühren'sNeue Forshungen über den Marquis de Sade und seine Zeit, 1904, pp. 97et seq.
In the eighteenth century, especially, houses of prostitution in Paris attained to an astonishing degree of elaboration and prosperity. Owing to the constant watchful attention of the police a vast amount of detailed information concerning these establishments was accumulated, and during recent years much of it has been published. A summary of this literature will be found in Dühren'sNeue Forshungen über den Marquis de Sade und seine Zeit, 1904, pp. 97et seq.
[147]
Rabutaux,op. cit., p. 54.
Rabutaux,op. cit., p. 54.
[148]
Calza has written the history of Venetian prostitution; and some of the documents he found have been reproduced by Mantegazza,Gli Amori degli Uomimi, cap. XIV. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, a comparatively late period, Coryat visited Venice, and in hisCruditiesgives a full and interesting account of its courtesans, who then numbered, he says, at least 20,000; the revenue they brought into the State maintained a dozen galleys.
Calza has written the history of Venetian prostitution; and some of the documents he found have been reproduced by Mantegazza,Gli Amori degli Uomimi, cap. XIV. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, a comparatively late period, Coryat visited Venice, and in hisCruditiesgives a full and interesting account of its courtesans, who then numbered, he says, at least 20,000; the revenue they brought into the State maintained a dozen galleys.
[149]
J. Schrank,Die Prostitution in Wien, Bd. I, pp. 152-206.
J. Schrank,Die Prostitution in Wien, Bd. I, pp. 152-206.
[150]
U. Robert,Les Signes d'Infamie au Moyen Age, Ch. IV.
U. Robert,Les Signes d'Infamie au Moyen Age, Ch. IV.
[151]
Rudeck (Geschichte der öffentlichen Sittlichkeit in Deutschland, pp. 26-36) gives many details concerning the important part played by prostitutes and brothels in mediæval German life.
Rudeck (Geschichte der öffentlichen Sittlichkeit in Deutschland, pp. 26-36) gives many details concerning the important part played by prostitutes and brothels in mediæval German life.
[152]
They are described by Rabutaux,op. cit., pp. 90et seq.
They are described by Rabutaux,op. cit., pp. 90et seq.
[153]
L'Année Sociologique, seventh year, 1904, p. 440.
L'Année Sociologique, seventh year, 1904, p. 440.
[154]
Bloch,Der Ursprung der Syphilis. As regards the German "Frauenhausen" see Max Bauer,Das Geschlechtsleben in der Deutschen Vergangenheit, pp. 133-214. In Paris, Dufour states (op. cit., vol. v, Ch. XXXIV), brothels under the ordinances of St. Louis had many rights which they lost at last in 1560, when they became merely tolerated houses, without statutes, special costumes, or confinement to special streets.
Bloch,Der Ursprung der Syphilis. As regards the German "Frauenhausen" see Max Bauer,Das Geschlechtsleben in der Deutschen Vergangenheit, pp. 133-214. In Paris, Dufour states (op. cit., vol. v, Ch. XXXIV), brothels under the ordinances of St. Louis had many rights which they lost at last in 1560, when they became merely tolerated houses, without statutes, special costumes, or confinement to special streets.
[155]
"Cortegiana, hoc est meretrix honesta," wrote Burchard, the Pope's Secretary, at the beginning of the sixteenth century,Diarium, ed. Thuasne, vol. ii, p. 442; other authorities are quoted by Thuasne in a note.
"Cortegiana, hoc est meretrix honesta," wrote Burchard, the Pope's Secretary, at the beginning of the sixteenth century,Diarium, ed. Thuasne, vol. ii, p. 442; other authorities are quoted by Thuasne in a note.
[156]