[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.
[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.
[111] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
Australia_, Ch. XII.
[112] _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.
[114] A.E. Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_, pp. 273 et 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 these
_Studies_.
[116] 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, 280 et seq.).
[118] 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."
[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.
[121] Rabutaux discusses various definitions of
prostitution, _De la
Prostitution en Europe_, pp. 119 et 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.
[123] Guyot, _La Prostitution_, p. 8. The element of
venality is
essential, and religious writers (like Robert Wardlaw, D.D., of Edinburgh,
in his _Lectures 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."
[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."
[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 the _Digest_ insisted, 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.
[128] R.W. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 235.
[129] 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. 66 et seq., and _Origin
and Development of the Moral Ideas_, vol. ii, pp. 441
_et seq._).
[131] Bachofen (more especially in his _Mutterrecht_ and _Sage 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 these _Studies_). Thus A.B.
Ellis, in his book on
_The 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).
[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).
[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).
[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).
[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.
[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.
[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. 168 et
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."
[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
the _Hetaira_ in literature is to be found, according to Benecke
(_Antimachus of Colophon_, p. 36), in Bacchylides.
[142] 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.
[144] Rabutaux, in his _Histoire 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.
[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's _Neue Forshungen
über den Marquis de
Sade und seine Zeit_, 1904, pp. 97 et seq.
[147] 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 his _Crudities_
gives 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.
[150] 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.
[152] They are described by Rabutaux, op. cit., pp. 90
_et seq._
[153] _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.
[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.
[156] Burchard, _Diarium_, vol. iii, p. 167. Thuasne
quotes other
authorities in confirmation.
[157] The example of Holland, where some large cities
have adopted the
regulation of prostitution and others have not, is
instructive as regards
the illusory nature of the advantages of regulation. In 1883 Dr. Després
brought forward figures, supplied by Dutch officials,
showing that in
Rotterdam, where prostitution was regulated, both
prostitution and
venereal diseases were more prevalent than in Amsterdam, a city without
regulation (A. Després, _La Prostitution en France_, p.
122).
[158] It was in 1802 that the medical inspection of
prostitutes in Paris
brothels was introduced, though not until 1825 fully
established and made
general.
[159] M.L. Heidingsfeld, "The Control of Prostitution,"
_Journal American
Medical Association_, January 30, 1904.
[160] See, e.g., G. Bérault, _La Maison de Tolérance_, Thèse de Paris,
1904.
[161] Thus the circumstances of the English army in
India are of a special
character. A number of statements (from the reports of committees,
official publications, etc.) regarding the good
influence of regulation in
reducing venereal diseases in India are brought together by
Surgeon-Colonel F.H. Welch, "The Prevention of
Syphilis," _Lancet_, August
12, 1899. The system has been abolished, but only as the result of a
popular outcry and not on the question of its merits.
[162] Thus Richard, who accepts regulation and was
instructed to report on
it for the Paris Municipal Council, would not have girls inscribed as
professional prostitutes until they are of age and able to realize what
they are binding themselves to (E. Richard, _La
Prostitution à Paris_, p.
147). But at that age a large proportion of prostitutes have been
practicing their profession for years.
[163] In Germany, where the cure of infected prostitutes under regulation
is nearly everywhere compulsory, usually at the cost of the community, it
is found that 18 is the average age at which they are
affected by
syphilis; the average age of prostitutes in brothels is higher than that
of those outside, and a much larger proportion have
therefore become
immune to disease (Blaschko, "Hygiene der Syphilis," in Weyl's _Handbuch
der Hygiene_, Bd. ii, p. 62, 1900).
[164] A. Sherwell, _Life in West London_, 1897, Ch. V.
[165] Bonger brings together statistics illustrating
this point, op. cit.,
pp. 402-6.
[166] _The Nightless City_, p. 125.
[167] Ströhmberg, as quoted by Aschaffenburg, _Das
Verbrechen_, 1903, p.
77.
[168] _Monatsschrift für Harnkrankheiten und Sexuelle
Hygiene_, 1906. Heft
10, p. 460. But this cause is undoubtedly effective in some cases of
unmarried women in Germany unable to get work (see
article by Sister
Henrietta Arendt, Police-Assistant at Stuttgart,
_Sexual-Probleme_,
December, 1908).
[169] Thus, for instance, we find Irma von Troll-
Borostyáni saying in her
book, _Im Freien Reich_ (p. 176): "Go and ask these unfortunate creatures
if they willingly and freely devoted themselves to vice.
And nearly all of
them will tell you a story of need and destitution, of hunger and lack of
work, which compelled them to it, or else of love and
seduction and the
fear of the discovery of their false step which drove
them out of their
homes, helpless and forsaken, into the pool of vice from which there is
hardly any salvation." It is, of course, quite true that the prostitute is
frequently ready to tell such stories to philanthropic persons who expect
to hear them, and sometimes even put the words into her mouth.
[170] C. Booth, _Life and Labour_, final volume, p. 125.
Similarly in
Sweden, Kullberg states that girls of thirteen to
seventeen, living at
home with their parents in comfortable circumstances,
have often been
found on the streets.
[171] W. Acton, _Prostitution_, 1870, pp. 39, 49.
[172] In Lyons, according to Potton, of 3884
prostitutes, 3194 abandoned,
or apparently abandoned, their profession; in Paris a
very large number
became servants, dressmakers, or tailoresses,
occupations which, in many
cases, doubtless, they had exercised before (Parent-
Duchâtelet, _De la
Prostitution_, 1857, vol. i, p. 584; vol. ii, p. 451).
Sloggett (quoted by
Acton) stated that at Davenport, 250 of the 1775
prostitutes there
married. It is well known that prostitutes occasionally marry extremely
well. It was remarked nearly a century ago that
marriages of prostitutes
to rich men were especially frequent in England, and
usually turned out
well; the same seems to be true still. In their own
social rank they not
infrequently marry cabmen and policemen, the two classes of men with whom
they are brought most closely in contact in the streets.
As regards
Germany, C.K. Schneider (_Die Prostituirte und die
Gesellschaft_), states
that young prostitutes take up all sorts of occupations and situations,
sometimes, if they have saved a little money,
establishing a business,
while old prostitutes become procuresses, brothel-
keepers, lavatory women,
and so on. Not a few prostitutes marry, he adds, but the proportion among
inscribed German prostitutes is very small, less than 2
per cent.
[173] G. de Molinari, _La Viriculture_, 1897, p. 155.
[174] Reuss and other writers have reproduced typical
extracts from the
private account books of prostitutes, showing the high rate of their
earnings. Even in the common brothels, in Philadelphia (according to
Goodchild, "The Social Evil in Philadelphia," _Arena_, March, 1896), girls
earn twenty dollars or more a week, which is far more
than they could earn
in any other occupation open to them.
[175] A. Després, _La Prostitution en France_, 1883.
[176] Bonger, _Criminalité et Conditions Economiques_, 1905, pp. 378-414.
[177] _La Donna Delinquente_, p. 401.
[178] Raciborski, _Traité de l'Impuissance_, p. 20. It may be added that
Bergh, a leading authority on the anatomical
peculiarities of the external
female sexual organs, who believe that strong
development of the external
genital organs accompanies libidinous tendencies, has
not found such
development to be common among prostitutes.
[179] Hammer, who has had much opportunity of studying the psychology of