[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, _Criminalite 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 a 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 Maennerbuende_, 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] Athenaeus, 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 fuer 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-Duchatelet, _La Prostitution a 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'Antiquite_). 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 pro 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 Duehren's _Neue Forshungen ueber 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 oeffentlichen Sittlichkeit in Deutschland_,
pp. 26-36) gives many details concerning the important part played by
prostitutes and brothels in mediaeval German life.

[152] They are described by Rabutaux, op. cit., pp. 90 _et seq._

[153] _L'Annee 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. Despres
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. Despres, _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. Berault, _La Maison de Tolerance_, These 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 a 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] Stroehmberg, as quoted by Aschaffenburg, _Das Verbrechen_, 1903, p.
77.

[168] _Monatsschrift fuer 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-Borostyani 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-Duchatelet, _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. Despres, _La Prostitution en France_, 1883.

[176] Bonger, _Criminalite et Conditions Economiques_, 1905, pp. 378-414.

[177] _La Donna Delinquente_, p. 401.

[178] Raciborski, _Traite 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
prostitutes, remarks that he has seen no reason to suspect sexual coldness
(_Monatsschrift fuer Harnkrankheiten und Sexuelle Hygiene_, 1906, Heft 2,
p. 85), although, as he has elsewhere stated, he is of opinion that
indolence, rather than excess of sensuality, is the chief cause of
prostitution.

[180] See "The Sexual Impulse in Women," in the third volume of these
_Studies_.

[181] Tait stated that in Edinburgh many married women living with their
husbands in comfortable circumstances, and having children, were found to
be acting as prostitutes, that is, in the regular habit of making
assignations with strangers (W. Tait, _Magdalenism in Edinburgh_, 1842, p.
16).

[182] Janke brings together opinions to this effect, _Die Willkuerliche
Hervorbringen des Geschlechts_, p. 275. "If we compare a prostitute of
thirty-five with her respectable sister," Acton remarked (_Prostitution_,
1870, p. 39), "we seldom find that the constitutional ravages often
thought to be necessary consequences of prostitution exceed those
attributable to the cares of a family and the heart-wearing struggles of
virtuous labor."

[183] Hirschfeld states (_Wesen der Liebe_, p. 35) that the desire for
intercourse with a sympathetic person is heightened, and not decreased, by
a professional act of coitus.

[184] This has been clearly shown by Hans Ostwald (from whom I take the
above-quoted observation of a prostitute), one of the best authorities on
prostitute life and character; see, e.g., his article, "Die erotischen
Beziehungen zwischen Dirne und Zuhaelter," _Sexual-Probleme_, June, 1908.
In the subsequent number of the same periodical (July, 1908, p. 393) Dr.
Max Marcuse supports Ostwald's experiences, and says that the letters of
prostitutes and their bullies are love-letters exactly like those of
respectable people of the same class, and with the same elements of love
and jealousy; these relationships, he remarks, often prove very enduring.
The prostitute author of the _Tagebuch einer Verlorenen_ (p. 147) also has
some remarks on the prostitute's relations to her bully, stating that it
is simply the natural relationship of a girl to her lover.

[185] Thus Moraglia found that among 180 prostitutes in North Italian
brothels, and among 23 elegant Italian and foreign cocottes, every one
admitted that she masturbated, preferably by friction of the clitoris; 113
of them, the majority, declared that they preferred solitary or mutual
masturbation to normal coitus. Hammer states (_Zehn Lebenslaeufe Berliner
Kontrollmaedchen_ in Ostwald's series of "Grosstadt Dokumente," 1905) that
when in hospital all but three or four of sixty prostitutes masturbate,
and those who do not are laughed at by the rest.

[186] _Jahrbuch fuer Sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, Jahrgang VII, 1905, p. 148;
"Sexual Inversion," vol. ii of these _Studies_, Ch. IV. Hammer found that
of twenty-five prostitutes in a reformatory as many as twenty-three were
homosexual, or, on good grounds, suspected to be such. Hirschfeld
(_Berlins Drittes Geschlecht_, p. 65) mentions that prostitutes sometimes
accost better-class women who, from their man-like air, they take to be
homosexual; from persons of their own sex prostitutes will accept a
smaller remuneration, and sometimes refuse payment altogether.

[187] With prostitution, as with criminality, it is of course difficult to
disentangle the element of heredity from that of environment, even when we
have good grounds for believing that the factor of heredity here, as
throughout the whole of life, cannot fail to carry much weight. It is
certain, in any case, that prostitution frequently runs in families. "It
has often been my experience," writes a former prostitute (Hedwig Hard,
_Beichte einer Gefallenen_, p. 156) "that when in a family a girl enters
this path, her sister soon afterwards follows her: I have met with
innumerable cases; sometimes three sisters will all be on the register,
and I knew a case of four sisters, whose mother, a midwife, had been in
prison, and the father drank. In this case, all four sisters, who were
very beautiful, married, one at least very happily, to a rich doctor who
took her out of the brothel at sixteen and educated her."

[188] This fact is not contradicted by the undoubted fact that prostitutes
are by no means always contented with the life they choose.

[189] This point has been discussed by Bloch, _Sexualleben unserer Zeit_,
Ch. XIII.

[190] Various series of observations are summarized by Lombroso and
Ferrero, _La Donna Delinquente_, 1893, Part III, cap. IV.

[191] _History of European Morals_, vol. iii, p. 283.

[192] Similarly Lord Morley has written (_Diderot_, vol. ii, p. 20): "The
purity of the family, so lovely and dear as it is, has still only been
secured hitherto by retaining a vast and dolorous host of female outcasts
... upon whose heads, as upon the scapegoat of the Hebrew ordinance, we
put all the iniquities of the children of the house, and all their
transgressions in all their sins, and then banish them with maledictions
into the foul outer wilderness and the land not inhabited."

[193] Horace, _Satires_, lib. i, 2.

[194] Augustine, _De Ordine_, Bk. II, Ch. IV.

[195] _De Regimine Principum_ (_Opuscula XX_), lib. iv, cap. XIV. I am
indebted to the Rev. H. Northcote for the reference to the precise place
where this statement occurs; it is usually quoted more vaguely.

[196] Lea, _History of Auricular Confession_, vol. ii, p. 69. There was
even, it seems, an eccentric decision of the Salamanca theologians that a
nun might so receive money, "licite et valide."

[197] Lea, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 263, 399.

[198] Rabutaux, _De la Prostitution en Europe_, pp. 22 et seq.

[199] Burton, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part III, Sect. III, Mem. IV, Subs.
II.

[200] B. Mandeville, _Remarks to Fable of the Bees_, 1714, pp. 93-9; cf.
P. Sakmann, _Bernard de Mandeville_, pp. 101-4.

[201] These conditions favor temporary free unions, but they also favor
prostitution. The reason is, according to Adolf Gerson (_Sexual-Probleme_,
September, 1908), that the woman of good class will not have free unions.
Partly moved by moral traditions, and partly by the feeling that a man
should be legally her property, she will not give herself out of love to a
man; and he therefore turns to the lower-class woman who gives herself for
money.

[202] Many girls, said Ellice Hopkins, get into mischief merely because
they have in them an element of the "black kitten," which must frolic and
play, but has no desire to get into danger. "Do you not think it a little
hard," she added, "that men should have dug by the side of her foolish
dancing feet a bottomless pit, and that she cannot have her jump and fun
in safety, and put on her fine feathers like the silly bird-witted thing
she is, without a single false step dashing her over the brink, and
leaving her with the very womanhood dashed out of her?"

[203] A. Sherwell, _Life in West London_, 1897, Ch. V.

[204] As quoted by Bloch, _Sexualleben Unserer Zeit_, p. 358. In Berlin
during recent years the number of prostitutes has increased at nearly
double the rate at which the general population has increased. It is no
doubt probable that the supply tends to increase the demand.

[205] Goncourt, _Journal_, vol. iii, p. 49.

[206] Vanderkiste, _The Dens of London_, 1854, p. 242.

[207] Bonger (_Criminalite et Conditions Economiques_, p. 406) refers to
the prevalence of prostitution among dressmakers and milliners, as well as
among servants, as showing the influence of contact with luxury, and adds
that the rich women, who look down on prostitution, do not always realize
that they are themselves an important factor of prostitution, both by
their luxury and their idleness; while they do not seem to be aware that
they would themselves act in the same way if placed under the same
conditions.

[208] H. Lippert, in his book on prostitution in Hamburg, laid much stress
on the craving for dress and adornment as a factor of prostitution, and
Bloch (_Das Sexualleben unsurer Zeit_, p. 372) considers that this factor
is usually underestimated, and that it exerts an especially powerful
influence on servants.

[209] Since this was written the influence of several generations of
town-life in immunizing a stock to the evils of that life (though without
reference to prostitution) has been set forth by Reibmayr, _Die
Entwicklungsgeschichte des Talentes und Genies_, 1908, vol. ii, pp. 73 _et
seq._

[210] In France this intimacy is embodied in the delicious privilege of
_tutoiement_. "The mystery of _tutoiement!_" exclaims Ernest La Jennesse
in _L'Holocauste:_ "Barriers broken down, veils drawn away, and the ease
of existence! At a time when I was very lonely, and trying to grow
accustomed to Paris and to misfortune, I would go miles--on foot,
naturally--to see a girl cousin and an aunt, merely to have something to
_tutoyer_. Sometimes they were not at home, and I had to come back with my
_tu_, my thirst for confidence and familiarity and brotherliness."

[211] For some facts and references to the extensive literature concerning
this trade, see, e.g., Bloch, _Das Sexualleben Unserer Zeit_, pp. 374-376;
also K.M. Baer, _Zeitschrift fuer Sexualwissenschaft_, Sept., 1908;
Paulucci de Calboli, _Nuova Antologia_, April, 1902.

[212] These considerations do not, it is true, apply to many kinds of
sexual perverts who form an important proportion of the clients of
brothels. These can frequently find what they crave inside a brothel much
more easily than outside.

[213] Thus Charles Booth, in his great work on _Life and Labor in London_,
final volume (p. 128), recommends that "houses of accommodation," instead
of being hunted out, should be tolerated as a step towards the suppression
of brothels.

[214] "Towns like Woolwich, Aldershot, Portsmouth, Plymouth," it has been
said, "abound with wretched, filthy monsters that bear no resemblance to
women; but it is drink, scorn, brutality and disease which have reduced
them to this state, not the mere fact of associating with men."

[215] "The contract of prostitution in the opinion of prostitutes
themselves," Bernaldo de Quiros and Llanas Aguilaniedo remark (_La Mala
Vida en Madrid_, p. 254), "cannot be assimilated to a sale, nor to a
contract of work, nor to any other form of barter recognized by the civil
law. They consider that in these pacts there always enters an element
which makes it much more like a gift in a matter in which no payment could
be adequate. 'A woman's body is without price' is an axiom of
prostitution. The money placed in the hands of her who procures the
satisfaction of sexual desire is not the price of the act, but an offering
which the priestess of Venus applies to her maintenance." To the Spaniard,
it is true, every transaction which resembles trade is repugnant, but the
principle underlying this feeling holds good of prostitution generally.

[216] _Journal des Goncourt_, vol. iii; this was in 1866.

[217] Rev. the Hon. C. Lyttelton, _Training of the Young in Laws of Sex_,
p. 42.

[218] See, e.g., R.W. Taylor, _Treatise on Sexual Disorders_, 1897, pp.
74-5. Georg Hirth (_Wege zur Heimat_, 1909, p. 619) narrates the case of a
young officer who, being excited by the caresses of his betrothed and
having too much respect for her to go further than this, and too much
respect for himself to resort to masturbation, knew nothing better than to
go to a prostitute. Syphilis developed a few days after the wedding. Hirth
adds, briefly, that the results were terrible.

[219] It is an oft-quoted passage, but can scarcely be quoted too often:
"You see that this wrought-iron plate is not quite flat: it sticks up a
little, here towards the left--'cockles,' as we say. How shall we flatten
it? Obviously, you reply, by hitting down on the part that is prominent.
Well, here is a hammer, and I give the plate a blow as you advise. Harder,
you say. Still no effect. Another stroke? Well, there is one, and another,
and another. The prominence remains, you see: the evil is as great as
ever--greater, indeed. But that is not all. Look at the warp which the
plate has got near the opposite edge. Where it was flat before it is now
curved. A pretty bungle we have made of it. Instead of curing the original
defect we have produced a second. Had we asked an artisan practiced in
'planishing,' as it is called, he would have told us that no good was to
be done, but only mischief, by hitting down on the projecting part. He
would have taught us how to give variously-directed and specially-adjusted
blows with a hammer elsewhere: so attacking the evil, not by direct, but
by indirect actions. The required process is less simple than you thought.
Even a sheet of metal is not to be successfully dealt with after those
common-sense methods in which you have so much confidence. What, then,
shall we say about a society?... Is humanity more readily straightened
than an iron plate?" (_The Study of Sociology_, p. 270.)




CHAPTER VIII.

THE CONQUEST OF THE VENEREAL DISEASES.

The Significance of the Venereal Diseases--The History of Syphilis--The
Problem of Its Origin--The Social Gravity of Syphilis--The Social Dangers
of Gonorrhoea--The Modern Change in the Methods of Combating
Venereal Diseases--Causes of the Decay of the System of Police
Regulation--Necessity of Facing the Facts--The Innocent Victims of
Venereal Diseases--Diseases Not Crimes--The Principle of Notification--The
Scandinavian System--Gratuitous Treatment--Punishment for Transmitting
Venereal Diseases--Sexual Education in Relation to Venereal
Diseases--Lectures, Etc.--Discussion in Novels and on the Stage--The
"Disgusting" Not the "Immoral."


It may, perhaps, excite surprise that in the preceding discussion of
prostitution scarcely a word has been said of venereal diseases. In the
eyes of many people, the question of prostitution is simply the question
of syphilis. But from the psychological point of view with which we are
directly concerned, as from the moral point of view with which we cannot
fail to be indirectly concerned, the question of the diseases which may
be, and so frequently are, associated with prostitution cannot be placed
in the first line of significance. The two questions, however intimately
they may be mingled, are fundamentally distinct. Not only would venereal
diseases still persist even though prostitution had absolutely ceased,
but, on the other hand, when we have brought syphilis under the same
control as we have brought the somewhat analogous disease of leprosy, the
problem of prostitution would still remain.

Yet, even from the standpoint which we here occupy, it is scarcely
possible to ignore the question of venereal disease, for the psychological
and moral aspects of prostitution, and even the whole question of the
sexual relationships, are, to some extent, affected by the existence of
the serious diseases which are specially liable to be propagated by sexual
intercourse.

Fournier, one of the leading authorities on this subject, has well said
that syphilis, alcoholism, and tuberculosis are the three modern plagues.
At a much earlier period (1851) Schopenhauer in _Parerga und Paralipomena_
had expressed the opinion that the two things which mark modern social
life, in distinction from that of antiquity, and to the advantage of the
latter, are the knightly principle of honor and venereal disease;
together, he added, they have poisoned life, and introduced a hostile and
even diabolical element into the relations of the sexes, which has
indirectly affected all other social relationships.[220] It is like a
merchandise, says Havelburg, of syphilis, which civilization has
everywhere carried, so that only a very few remote districts of the globe
(as in Central Africa and Central Brazil) are to-day free from it.[221]

It is undoubtedly true that in the older civilized countries the
manifestations of syphilis, though still severe and a cause of physical
deterioration in the individual and the race, are less severe than they
were even a generation ago.[222] This is partly the result of earlier and
better treatment, partly, it is possible, the result also of the
syphilization of the race, some degree of immunity having now become an
inherited possession, although it must be remembered that an attack of
syphilis does not necessarily confer immunity from the actual attack of
the disease even in the same individual. But it must be added that, even
though it has become less severe, syphilis, in the opinion of many, is
nevertheless still spreading, even in the chief centres of civilization;
this has been noted alike in Paris and in London.[223]

According to the belief which is now tending to prevail, syphilis was
brought to Europe at the end of the fifteenth century by the first
discoverers of America. In Seville, the chief European port for America,
it was known as the Indian disease, but when Charles VIII and his army
first brought it to Italy in 1495, although this connection with the
French was only accidental, it was called the Gallic disease, "a monstrous
disease," said Cataneus, "never seen in previous centuries and altogether
unknown in the world."

The synonyms of syphilis were at first almost innumerable. It was in his
Latin poem _Syphilis sive Morbus Gallicus_, written before 1521 and
published at Verona in 1530, that Fracastorus finally gave the disease its
now universally accepted name, inventing a romantic myth to account for
its origin.

Although the weight of authoritative opinion now seems to incline
towards the belief that syphilis was brought to Europe from
America, on the discovery of the New World, it is only within
quite recent years that that belief has gained ground, and it
scarcely even yet seems certain that what the Spaniards brought
back from America was really a disease absolutely new to the Old
World, and not a more virulent form of an old disease of which
the manifestations had become benign. Buret, for instance (_Le
Syphilis Aujourd'hui et chez les Anciens_, 1890), who some years
ago reached "the deep conviction that syphilis dates from the
creation of man," and believed, from a minute study of classic
authors, that syphilis existed in Rome under the Caesars, was of
opinion that it has broken out at different places and at
different times, in epidemic bursts exhibiting different
combinations of its manifold symptoms, so that it passed
unnoticed at ordinary times, and at the times of its more intense
manifestation was looked upon as a hitherto unknown disease. It
was thus regarded in classic times, he considers, as coming from
Egypt, though he looked upon its real home as Asia. Leopold Glueck
has likewise quoted (_Archiv fuer Dermatologie und Syphilis_,
January, 1899) passages from the medical epigrams of a sixteenth
century physician, Gabriel Ayala, declaring that syphilis is not
really a new disease, though popularly supposed to be so, but an
old disease which has broken out with hitherto unknown violence.
There is, however, no conclusive reason for believing that
syphilis was known at all in classic antiquity. A.V. Notthaft
("Die Legende von der Althertums-syphilis," in the Rindfleisch
_Festschrift_, 1907, pp. 377-592) has critically investigated the
passages in classic authors which were supposed by Rosenbaum,
Buret, Proksch and others to refer to syphilis. It is quite
true, Notthaft admits, that many of these passages might possibly
refer to syphilis, and one or two would even better fit syphilis
than any other disease. But, on the whole, they furnish no proof
at all, and no syphilologist, he concludes, has ever succeeded in
demonstrating that syphilis was known in antiquity. That belief
is a legend. The most damning argument against it, Notthaft
points out, is the fact that, although in antiquity there were
great physicians who were keen observers, not one of them gives
any description of the primary, secondary, tertiary, and
congenital forms of this disease. China is frequently mentioned
as the original home of syphilis, but this belief is also quite
without basis, and the Japanese physician, Okamura, has shown
(_Monatsschrift fuer praktische Dermatologie_, vol. xxviii, pp.
296 et seq.) that Chinese records reveal nothing relating to
syphilis earlier than the sixteenth century. At the Paris Academy
of Medicine in 1900 photographs from Egypt were exhibited by
Fouquet of human remains which date from B.C. 2400, showing bone
lesions which seemed to be clearly syphilitic; Fournier, however,
one of the greatest of authorities, considered that the diagnosis
of syphilis could not be maintained until other conditions liable
to produce somewhat similar bone lesions had been eliminated
(_British Medical Journal_, September 29, 1900, p. 946). In
Florida and various regions of Central America, in undoubtedly
pre-Columbian burial places, diseased bones have been found which
good authorities have declared could not be anything else than
syphilitic (e.g., _British Medical Journal_, November 20, 1897,
p. 1487), though it may be noted that so recently as 1899 the
cautious Virchow stated that pre-Columbian syphilis in America
was still for him an open question (_Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie_,
Heft 2 and 3, 1899, p. 216). From another side, Seler, the
distinguished authority on Mexican antiquity, shows (_Zeitschrift
fuer Ethnologie_, 1895, Heft 5, p. 449) that the ancient Mexicans
were acquainted with a disease which, as they described it, might
well have been syphilis. It is obvious, however, that while the
difficulty of demonstrating syphilitic diseased bones in America
is as great as in Europe, the demonstration, however complete,
would not suffice to show that the disease had not already an
existence also in the Old World. The plausible theory of Ayala
that fifteenth century syphilis was a virulent recrudescence of
an ancient disease has frequently been revived in more modern
times. Thus J. Knott ("The Origin of Syphilis," _New York Medical