Motives Assigned by
Prostitutes--(1) Economic Factor of Prostitution--
Poverty Seldom the Chief
Motive for Prostitution--But Economic Pressure Exerts a Real
Influence--The Large Proportion of Prostitutes Recruited from Domestic
Service--Significance of This Fact--(2) The Biological Factor of
Prostitution--The So-called Born-Prostitute--Alleged
Identity with the
Born-Criminal--The Sexual Instinct in Prostitutes--The Physical and
Psychic Characters of Prostitutes--(3) Moral Necessity as a Factor in the
Existence of Prostitution--The Moral Advocates of
Prostitution--The Moral
Attitude of Christianity Towards Prostitution--The
Attitude of
Protestantism--Recent Advocates of the Moral Necessity of
Prostitution--(4) Civilizational Value as a Factor of
Prostitution--The
Influence of Urban Life--The Craving for Excitement--Why Servant-girls
so Often Turn to Prostitution--The Small Part Played by Seduction--Prostitutes Come Largely from the Country--
The Appeal of
Civilization Attracts Women to Prostitution--The
Corresponding Attraction
Felt by Men--The Prostitute as Artist and Leader of
Fashion--The Charm of
Vulgarity.
IV. _The Present Social Attitude Towards Prostitution:_-
-The Decay of the
Brothel--The Tendency to the Humanization of
Prostitution--The Monetary
Aspects of Prostitution--The Geisha--The Hetaira--The
Moral Revolt
Against Prostitution--Squalid Vice Based on Luxurious
Virtue--The Ordinary
Attitude Towards Prostitutes--Its Cruelty Absurd--The
Need of Reforming
Prostitution--The Need of Reforming Marriage--These
These Two Needs
Closely Correlated--The Dynamic Relationships Involved.
_I. The Orgy_.
Traditional morality, religion, and established
convention combine to
promote not only the extreme of rigid abstinence but
also that of reckless
license. They preach and idealize the one extreme; they drive those who
cannot accept it to adopt the opposite extreme. In the great ages of
religion it even happens that the severity of the rule of abstinence is
more or less deliberately tempered by the permission for occasional
outbursts of license. We thus have the orgy, which
flourished in mediæval
days and is, indeed, in its largest sense, a universal manifestation,
having a function to fulfil in every orderly and
laborious civilization,
built up on natural energies that are bound by more or less inevitable
restraints.
The consideration of the orgy, it may be said, lifts us beyond the merely
sexual sphere, into a higher and wider region which
belongs to religion.
The Greek _orgeia_ referred originally to ritual things done with a
religious purpose, though later, when dances of
Bacchanals and the like
lost their sacred and inspiring character, the idea was fostered by
Christianity that such things were immoral.[107] Yet
Christianity was
itself in its origin an orgy of the higher spiritual
activities released
from the uncongenial servitude of classic civilization, a great festival
of the poor and the humble, of the slave and the sinner.
And when, with
the necessity for orderly social organization,
Christianity had ceased to
be this it still recognized, as Paganism had done, the need for an
occasional orgy. It appears that in 743 at a Synod held in Hainault
reference was made to the February debauch (_de
Spurcalibus in februario_)
as a pagan practice; yet it was precisely this pagan
festival which was
embodied in the accepted customs of the Christian Church as the chief orgy
of the ecclesiastical year, the great Carnival prefixed to the long fast
of Lent. The celebration on Shrove Tuesday and the
previous Sunday
constituted a Christian Bacchanalian festival in which all classes joined.
The greatest freedom and activity of physical movement was encouraged;
"some go about naked without shame, some crawl on all fours, some on
stilts, some imitate animals."[108] As time went on the Carnival lost its
most strongly marked Bacchanalian features, but it still retains its
essential character as a permitted and temporary
relaxation of the tension
of customary restraints and conventions. The Mediæval
Feast of Fools--a
New Year's Revel well established by the twelfth
century, mainly in
France--presented an expressive picture of a Christian orgy in its extreme
form, for here the most sacred ceremonies of the Church became the subject
of fantastic parody. The Church, according to
Nietzsche's saying, like all
wise legislators, recognized that where great impulses and habits have to
be cultivated, intercalary days must be appointed in
which these impulses
and habits may be denied, and so learn to hunger
anew.[109] The clergy
took the leading part in these folk-festivals, for to
the men of that age,
as Méray remarks, "the temple offered the complete notes of the human
gamut; they found there the teaching of all duties, the consolation of all
sorrows, the satisfaction of all joys. The sacred
festivals of mediæval
Christianity were not a survival from Roman times; they leapt from the
very heart of Christian society."[110] But, as Méray admits, all great and
vigorous peoples, of the East and the West, have found it necessary
sometimes to play with their sacred things.
Among the Greeks and Romans this need is everywhere
visible, not only in
their comedy and their literature generally, but in
everyday life. As
Nietzsche truly remarks (in his _Geburt der Tragödie_) the Greeks
recognized all natural impulses, even those that are
seemingly unworthy,
and safeguarded them from working mischief by providing channels into
which, on special days and in special rites, the surplus of wild energy
might harmlessly flow. Plutarch, the last and most
influential of the
Greek moralists, well says, when advocating festivals
(in his essay "On
the Training of Children"), that "even in bows and harps we loosen their
strings that we may bend and wind them up again."
Seneca, perhaps the most
influential of Roman if not of European moralists, even recommended
occasional drunkenness. "Sometimes," he wrote in his _De Tranquillilate_,
"we ought to come even to the point of intoxication, not for the purpose
of drowning ourselves but of sinking ourselves deep in wine. For it washes
away cares and raises our spirits from the lowest
depths. The inventor of
wine is called _Liber_ because he frees the soul from
the servitude of
care, releases it from slavery, quickens it, and makes it bolder for all
undertakings." The Romans were a sterner and more serious people than the
Greeks, but on that very account they recognized the
necessity of
occasionally relaxing their moral fibres in order to
preserve their tone,
and encouraged the prevalence of festivals which were
marked by much more
abandonment than those of Greece. When these festivals began to lose
their moral sanction and to fall into decay the
decadence of Rome had
begun.
All over the world, and not excepting the most primitive savages--for even
savage life is built up on systematic constraints which sometimes need
relaxation--the principle of the orgy is recognized and accepted. Thus
Spencer and Gillen describe[111] the Nathagura or fire-ceremony of the
Warramunga tribe of Central Australia, a festival taken part in by both
sexes, in which all the ordinary rules of social life
are broken, a kind
of Saturnalia in which, however, there is no sexual
license, for sexual
license is, it need scarcely be said, no essential part of the orgy, even
when the orgy lightens the burden of sexual constraints.
In a widely
different part of the world, in British Columbia, the
Salish Indians,
according to Hill Tout,[112] believed that, long before the whites came,
their ancestors observed a Sabbath or seventh day
ceremony for dancing and
praying, assembling at sunrise and dancing till noon.
The Sabbath, or
periodically recurring orgy,--not a day of tension and constraint but a
festival of joy, a rest from all the duties of everyday life,--has, as we
know, formed an essential part of many of the orderly
ancient
civilizations on which our own has been built;[113] it is highly probable
that the stability of these ancient civilizations was
intimately
associated with their recognition of the need of a
Sabbath orgy. Such
festivals are, indeed, as Crawley observes, processes of purification and
reinvigoration, the effort to put off "the old man" and put on "the new
man," to enter with fresh energy on the path of everyday life.[114]
The orgy is an institution which by no means has its
significance only for
the past. On the contrary, the high tension, the rigid routine, the gray
monotony of modern life insistently call for moments of organic relief,
though the precise form that that orgiastic relief takes must necessarily
change with other social changes. As Wilhelm von
Humboldt said, "just as
men need suffering in order to become strong so they
need joy in order to
become good." Charles Wagner, insisting more recently (in his _Jeunesse_)
on the same need of joy in our modern life, regrets that dancing in the
old, free, and natural manner has gone out of fashion or become
unwholesome. Dancing is indeed the most fundamental and primitive form of
the orgy, and that which most completely and healthfully fulfils its
object. For while it is undoubtedly, as we see even
among animals, a
process by which sexual tumescence is accomplished,[115]
it by no means
necessarily becomes focused in sexual detumescence but it may itself
become a detumescent discharge of accumulated energy. It was on this
account that, at all events in former days, the clergy in Spain, on moral
grounds, openly encouraged the national passion for
dancing. Among
cultured people in modern times, the orgy tends to take on a purely
cerebral form, which is less wholesome because it fails to lead to
harmonious discharge along motor channels. In these
comparatively passive
forms, however, the orgy tends to become more and more pronounced under
the conditions of civilization. Aristotle's famous
statement concerning
the function of tragedy as "purgation" seems to be a recognition of the
beneficial effects of the orgy.[116] Wagner's music-
dramas appeal
powerfully to this need; the theatre, now as ever,
fulfils a great
function of the same kind, inherited from the ancient
days when it was the
ordered expression of a sexual festival.[117] The
theatre, indeed, tends
at the present time to assume a larger importance and to approximate to
the more serious dramatic performances of classic days by being
transferred to the day-time and the open-air. France has especially taken
the initiative in these performances, analogous to the Dionysiac festivals
of antiquity and the Mysteries and Moralities of the
Middle Ages. The
movement began some years ago at Orange. In 1907 there were, in France, as
many as thirty open-air theatres ("Théâtres de la Nature," "Théâtres du
Soleil," etc.,) while it is in Marseilles that the first formal open-air
theatre has been erected since classic days.[118] In
England, likewise,
there has been a great extension of popular interest in dramatic
performances, and the newly instituted Pageants, carried out and taken
part in by the population of the region commemorated in the Pageant, are
festivals of the same character. In England, however, at the present time,
the real popular orgiastic festivals are the Bank
holidays, with which may
be associated the more occasional celebrations,
"Maffekings," etc., often
called out by comparatively insignificant national
events but still
adequate to arouse orgiastic emotions as genuine as
those of antiquity,
though they are lacking in beauty and religious
consecration. It is easy
indeed for the narrowly austere person to view such
manifestations with a
supercilious smile, but in the eyes of the moralist and the philosopher
these orgiastic festivals exert a salutary and
preservative function. In
every age of dull and monotonous routine--and all
civilization involves
such routine--many natural impulses and functions tend to become
suppressed, atrophied, or perverted. They need these
moments of joyous
exercise and expression, moments in which they may not necessarily attain
their full activity but in which they will at all events be able, as
Cyples expresses it, to rehearse their great
possibilities.[119]
_II. The Origin and Development of Prostitution_.
The more refined forms of the orgy flourish in
civilization, although on
account of their mainly cerebral character they are not the most
beneficent or the most effective. The more primitive and muscular forms of
the orgy tend, on the other hand, under the influence of civilization, to
fall into discredit and to be so far as possible
suppressed altogether. It
is partly in this way that civilization encourages
prostitution. For the
orgy in its primitive forms, forbidden to show itself
openly and
reputably, seeks the darkness, and allying itself with a fundamental
instinct to which civilized society offers no complete legitimate
satisfaction, it firmly entrenches itself in the very
centre of civilized
life, and thereby constitutes a problem of immense
difficulty and
importance.[120]
It is commonly said that prostitution has existed always and everywhere.
That statement is far from correct. A kind of amateur
prostitution is
occasionally found among savages, but usually it is only when barbarism is
fully developed and is already approaching the stage of civilization that
well developed prostitution is found. It exists in a
systematic form in
every civilization.
What is prostitution? There has been considerable
discussion as to the
correct definition of prostitution.[121] The Roman
Ulpian said that a
prostitute was one who openly abandons her body to a
number of men without
choice, for money.[122] Not all modern definitions have been so
satisfactory. It is sometimes said a prostitute is a
woman who gives
herself to numerous men. To be sound, however, a
definition must be
applicable to both sexes alike and we should certainly hesitate to
describe a man who had sexual intercourse with many
women as a prostitute.
The idea of venality, the intention to sell the favors of the body, is
essential to the conception of prostitution. Thus Guyot defines a
prostitute as "any person for whom sexual relationships are subordinated
to gain."[123] It is not, however, adequate to define a prostitute simply
as a woman who sells her body. That is done every day by women who become
wives in order to gain a home and a livelihood, yet,
immoral as this
conduct may be from any high ethical standpoint, it
would be inconvenient
and even misleading to call it prostitution.[124] It is better, therefore,
to define a prostitute as a woman who temporarily sells her sexual favors
to various persons. Thus, according to Wharton's _Law-
lexicon_ a
prostitute is "a woman who indiscriminately consorts with men for hire";
Bonger states that "those women are prostitutes who sell their bodies for
the exercise of sexual acts and make of this a
profession";[125] Richard
again states that "a prostitute is a woman who publicly gives herself to
the first comer in return for a pecuniary
remuneration."[126] As, finally,
the prevalence of homosexuality has led to the existence of male
prostitutes, the definition must be put in a form
irrespective of sex, and
we may, therefore, say that a prostitute is a person who makes it a
profession to gratify the lust of various persons of the opposite sex or
the same sex.
It is essential that the act of prostitution should
be habitually
performed with "various persons." A woman who gains her living by
being mistress to a man, to whom she is faithful, is
not a
prostitute, although she often becomes one
afterwards, and may
have been one before. The exact point at which a
woman begins to
be a prostitute is a question of considerable
importance in
countries in which prostitutes are subject to
registration. Thus
in Berlin, not long ago, a girl who was mistress to
a rich
cavalry officer and supported by him, during the
illness of the
officer accidentally met a man whom she had formerly
known, and
once or twice invited him to see her, receiving from
him presents
in money. This somehow came to the knowledge of the
police, and
she was arrested and sentenced to one day's
imprisonment as an
unregistered prostitute. On appeal, however, the
sentence was
annulled. Liszt, in his _Strafrecht_, lays it down
that a girl
who obtains whole or part of her income from "fixed relationships" is not practicing unchastity for gain in the sense
of the German law (_Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_,
Jahrgang 1,
Heft 9, p. 345).
It is not altogether easy to explain the origin of the systematized
professional prostitution with the existence of which we are familiar in
civilization. The amateur kind of prostitution which has sometimes been
noted among primitive peoples--the fact, that is, that a man may give a
woman a present in seeking to persuade her to allow him to have
intercourse with her--is really not prostitution as we understand it. The
present in such a case is merely part of a kind of
courtship leading to a
temporary relationship. The woman more or less retains her social position
and is not forced to make an avocation of selling
herself because
henceforth no other career is possible to her. When Cook came to New
Zealand his men found that the women were not
impregnable, "but the terms
and manner of compliance were as decent as those in
marriage among us,"
and according "to their notions the agreement was as innocent." The
consent of the woman's friends was necessary, and when the preliminaries
were settled it was also necessary to treat this "Juliet of a night" with
"the same delicacy as is here required with the wife for life, and the
lover who presumed to take any liberties by which this was violated was
sure to be disappointed."[127] In some of the Melanesian Islands, it is
said that women would sometimes become prostitutes, or on account of their
bad conduct be forced to become prostitutes for a time; they were not,
however, particularly despised, and when they had in
this way accumulated
a certain amount of property they could marry well,
after which it would
not be proper to refer to their former career.[128]
When prostitution first arises among a primitive people it sometimes
happens that little or no stigma is attached to it for the reason that the
community has not yet become accustomed to attach any
special value to the
presence of virginity. Schurtz quotes from the old
Arabic geographer
Al-Bekri some interesting remarks about the Slavs: "The women of the
Slavs, after they have married, are faithful to their
husbands. If,
however, a young girl falls in love with a man she goes to him and
satisfies her passion. And if a man marries and finds
his wife a virgin he
says to her: 'If you were worth anything men would have loved you, and you
would have chosen one who would have taken away your
virginity.' Then he
drives her away and renounces her." It is a feeling of this kind which,
among some peoples, leads a girl to be proud of the
presents she has
received from her lovers and to preserve them as a dowry for her marriage,
knowing that her value will thus be still further
heightened. Even among
the Southern Slavs of modern Europe, who have preserved much of the
primitive sexual freedom, this freedom, as Krauss, who has minutely
studied the manners and customs of these peoples,
declares, is
fundamentally different from vice, licentiousness, or
immodesty.[129]
Prostitution tends to arise, as Schurtz has pointed out, in every society
in which early marriage is difficult and intercourse
outside marriage is
socially disapproved. "Venal women everywhere appear as soon as the free
sexual intercourse of young people is repressed, without the necessary
consequences being impeded by unusually early
marriages."[130] The
repression of sexual intimacies outside marriage is a
phenomenon of
civilization, but it is not itself by any means a
measure of a people's
general level, and may, therefore, begin to appear at an early period. But
it is important to remember that the primitive and
rudimentary forms of
prostitution, when they occur, are merely temporary, and frequently--though not invariably--involve no degrading influence on the
woman in public estimation, sometimes indeed increasing her value as a
wife. The woman who sells herself for money purely as a professional
matter, without any thought of love or passion, and who, by virtue of her
profession, belongs to a pariah class definitely and
rigidly excluded from
the main body of her sex, is a phenomenon which can
seldom be found except
in developed civilization. It is altogether incorrect to speak of
prostitutes as a mere survival from primitive times.
On the whole, while among savages sexual relationships are sometimes free
before marriage, as well as on the occasion of special festivals, they are
rarely truly promiscuous and still more rarely venal.
When savage women
nowadays sell themselves, or are sold by their husbands, it has usually
been found that we are concerned with the contamination of European
civilization.