_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 were organized 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 called
_gisaing_, 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 commerce with 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, the _bonæ mulieres_, had no such dignified
position as the Greek _hetairæ_. 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 the _vitta_ or the _stola_; 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 the Visigoths,
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 time past,
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 known
_abbayes_ of 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 of this 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 Apostolic palace 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's
_Frauenbriefe 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. Her
_Guerrino 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 her _Rime_ to 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 his _Journal_, 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 letto
Da cui amata e gradita mi sento."
In a certain _catalogo_ of the prices of Venetian
courtesans
Veronica is assigned only 2 scudi for her favors,
while the
courtesan to whom the catalogue 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