Of Prostitution among the Jews and other Ancient Nations.
A slight and rapid view of the subject in connection with the Jews, and more obscure nations of antiquity, is all that can here be attempted. With reference to the republic of the Hebrew race, though the ingenuity of modern writers has built up very pleasing theories, described as the manners and customs of the Jews, we can look nowhere for information except to the Bible, and, in a later age, to Josephus.
The position of woman among the Jews was by no means exalted. She was seldom consulted by her friends, when an union with her was desired by a wealthy suitor. Indeed, in the patriarchal times she was regarded more as her husband’s property than as his companion. Such must invariably be the case where polygamy and concubinage are institutions of society. At a still earlier period the customs of society were even more at variance with our ideas. Of course the sons of Adam must have married their sisters, and the practice continued after the necessity for it had ceased. Abraham formed such an union without exciting surprise. The patriarchs permitted men to wed two sisters at once, but the law of Moses brought a reform of marriage customs among the Jews[16]. They discontinued the intercourse between blood-relatives long before it was abandoned by the surrounding nations. Marriages with sisters not by the same mother were forbidden in the Mosaic code. Previously, however, none were unlawful except those of a man with his mother, or mother-in-law, or full sister. In the new dispensation the widow of a deceased brother was placed within the prohibited degree of consanguinity.
The laws against adultery were severe; death was ordained for both the guilty persons, and the punishment appears always to have been by stoning. Many victims, doubtless, perished under this cruel code; but the example of Jesus Christ gave a new lesson to mankind. The woman was brought before him, and the Jews claimed her condemnation. They asked him “should she be stoned.” Had he said no, they might have charged him with favouring adultery, and denying the Mosaic law; had he said yes, the Romans might have impeached him, for they had assumed the distribution of justice, and abolished the punishment of death for adultery. But he evaded their malice, and gave the law of mercy. “Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone.” They all went out, and when he was alone with her he said, “Hath no man condemned thee?” She answered, “No man, Lord.” And he again said, “Neither do I condemn thee—go, and sin no more.”
That sentence should ever be in remembrance when we frame our moral code.
Adultery, however, was a crime only to be committed with a married woman, or one who was betrothed. The man’s marriage placed him under no obligation to abstain from intercourse with other than his wife. Wives to the number of four were allowed, while concubinage was unlimited. The first wife, however, was superior to the others. Jealousy, therefore, among the Jewish women could not have been a powerful feeling. Indeed we find strong proofs to the contrary. When Sarah found herself barren, she gave Hagar, her Egyptian maid, to Abraham, as a concubine or inferior wife. Other women, frequently, on discovering themselves to be sterile, begged their husbands to procure another companion of the bed, that they might not die childless. Similar instances are common in the social history of the East.
Marriage with an idolater was forbidden; but a man might marry a proselyte captive. When he saw a beautiful woman among his prisoners of war, he was to take her home, shave her head, pare her nails, change her raiment into that of a free person, and as he had humbled her, was forbidden to make merchandise of her again. The possession, nevertheless, of two wives by a private individual was a rare thing. Popular feeling was generally averse to it. The personages who most commonly practised it were the great men and kings, who were most expressly prohibited. In the Book of Deuteronomy, when the degraded Israelites had clamoured for a king, the law was given, “Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, so that his heart turn not away.” No command was more frequently broken in the palaces of Israel. David had an immense harem; it seemed to be reckoned among the regalia. Solomon, who married Pharaoh’s daughter, had seven hundred wives—princesses—and three hundred concubines; but we find that he “did evil in the sight of the Lord,” and that “his heart was turned away.”
Respecting the children born to these parents there was a change in the law. In Genesis a man was allowed to transfer the inheritance to a favourite child; but, probably from the many flagitious actions committed, it was in Deuteronomy ordained, that if a man had two wives, of whom he hated one and loved the other—each bearing a child, the first-born, whether of the loved or the hated woman, should enjoy the right of inheritance.
From all the passages in Scripture referring to this subject, it appears that women among the Jews held but an indifferent position, being made the subject of barter, and that marriage was not a sacred but a civil institution,—a legal bond, which might be broken by a legal act. Matches were usually made by the woman’s kindred, she herself being a secondary actor in the transaction.
Throughout the Bible, notwithstanding, we find women held by the inspired writers in great respect, their treatment by the rebellious Jews, as they sank through various degrees of corruption, being continually set forth among the abominations practised by that flagitious people.
In the Scriptures we discover innumerable references to women, and to prostitutes in particular; but, collecting and comparing them all, we find for our present purpose materials by no means abundant: there is no exact information. Prostitutes, we know, existed, and we are told in what estimation they were held; that they stood at the corners of streets, that they practised many seductive arts, and sold themselves at a very cheap rate: but how many they were, how they lived, what was the nature of their places of resort, we are left uninformed, or guided only by obscure allusions. Nevertheless, sufficient is known upon which to base a view of the condition of women, and the extent of morality among the most ancient nation recognised in history.
In the book of Genesis, whence we obtain our first glimpses of the social history of mankind, we find interesting, though imperfect, sketches of a curious state of society. We meet, even so early as this, with a woman wearing a veil, not taking her meals in company with men, living in separate apartments, and presenting a model of the system still prevalent in the East. Simplicity and luxury in strange combination characterized the manners of that remote age. Their morals appear to have been at all times gross; and one of the principal tasks of legislation was to restrain the licentiousness to which the people were so prone to abandon themselves. Many barbarous races present at this day social institutions similar to those of the Jews, whence many writers have traced them to that stock. It is more probable, however, that similar manners grow out of a similar condition.
Several writers, we know, contend for the purity of manners among the Jews, and point to the rigid laws which ruled them. The social history of mankind, however, if it proves anything, proves this, that it is not by any means the nation with the severest code which is the most virtuous. Examples of the contrary might be multiplied. No state, savage or civilized, could ever have more rigorous laws than Achin and Japan, and nowhere have the people been more flagitious. While the Draconic code was in force, morals in Greece went to rot. Consequently, if we are to consider the Jews to have been a moral people, it must certainly not be on the ground of their severe laws. Arguing from that, a contrary inference should be drawn. The direct evidence, however, tends the other way. Chastity appears to have been by no means a favourite virtue. Not to allude to the unnatural abominations mentioned in the Bible, it is certain that there existed a considerable class of public women, who prostituted themselves to any one for a certain reward.
The story of Tamar is a curious illustration of this subject. To impose on Judah, and bear a child by him, and in spite of him, she assumes the habit and appearance of a regular prostitute. She then goes out, and sitting down by the highway covers her face. Judah thought her to be a harlot, “because she covered her face,” which, as the commentators tell us, it was the custom for such women to do, as among the same class of females in Persia, in mimicry of a shame they did not feel. Judah speaks to her, and says, “Go to, I pray thee, let me come in unto thee.” She answers, “What wilt thou give me, that thou mayest come in unto me!” He promises to give her a kid from his flock, but she demands a pledge; this he gave, and went with her.
The circumstance is related in a manner which seems to show that the practice was common with men, nor does any particular disgrace appear to attach to it. When, however, Judah learns that his daughter-in-law Tamar is “with child by whoredom,” he condemns her to the punishment of death by burning, on the secret being at length revealed to him[17]. We have here a singular illustration of manners among the primitive tribes of that great family of mankind. The corruption of manners reached, it is probable, a high degree before the laws were given.
Where concubinage was practised, feminine virtue could not be held as a precious possession. The intercourse accordingly of a married man with an unmarried woman was esteemed simply as a proof of deficient chastity. At the same time, the encouragement of prostitution, or “the feeding of whores,” is denounced as the conduct of foolish and profligate men, who unwisely waste their substance. The class of prostitutes was held in very low esteem; they were, in general, foreigners and heathens, and are spoken of usually as “strange women.” Delilah, who beguiled Sampson, was probably a Philistine, though it is not certain that she was not an Israelite. At any rate, there appear to have been many Jewish women, of the lowest order, who followed this degrading occupation. To render them as few as possible, a law was passed forbidding men, under severe penalties, from bringing up their daughters to prostitution for gain. Legislation, however, could not entirely restrain the vicious from such a course of life.
Apparently the prostitutes, among the Jews, sometimes obtained husbands. Priests, however, were forbidden on any account to marry a harlot, or indeed any woman with even a breath of imputation on her fame. For the daughter of a priest, who took to the calling of a prostitute, the punishment was death by burning. For any woman it was infamous, but in spite of what was laid down in the law, or by the public opinion of the Jews, cities never wanted prostitutes, and women walked the streets, or stood in groups at the corners, ready to entrap the young men who came forth in quest of pleasure. Among the exhortations of parents to their sons, and of patriarchs to youth, we always find an injunction to beware of strange women, which implies a considerable prevalence of the system. The readers of the Bible will at once remember the many passages of this kind contained in that volume[18].
With respect to prostitution among the Jews, an illustration is afforded by the story of the two mothers who came before Solomon for judgment. They were harlots, though bearing children, and they said they dwelt in one house, and “there was no stranger with us in the house.” Another is afforded by the account of the two men whom Joshua sent out as spies. They came into a harlot’s house at Rabbah—a brothel, in fact, where, as at Rome in the Imperial age, the woman sat impudently, without a veil, at the door, and solicited the passers by. They wore peculiar clothing. In addition to the vile customs of the East, we find, “Thou shalt not bring into the temple the price of a whore.” This was to guard against the introduction of a practice not uncommon among some ancient and modern nations, of the priests enriching themselves and their temple by hiring out prostitutes[19].
Another state, known to us from Scripture, is Babylon, surnamed the Whore, as well from its profligacy as its idolatry. The one, indeed, was accompanied by the other. Luxury and debauch were carried to the highest excess. The Temple of Venus,—a goddess known there as Mylitta,—was sacred to prostitution. The priests had, in immemorial time, invented a law that every woman should once in her life present herself at the temple, and prostitute her body to any stranger who might desire it. Consecrated by religion, this act appeared odious to few of the Babylonian citizens. The woman came, dressed brilliantly, and crowned with a garland of flowers; she sat down with her companions in a place where the strangers who filled the galleries might observe and make choice of their victims. Numbers were found always ready enough to enjoy the privilege procured for them by the priests. When a man had selected one of the women who pleased him most, he came down, and making her a present of money, which she was compelled to take, took her hand and said, “I implore in thy favour the goddess Mylitta!” He then led her to a retired spot and consummated the transaction. Having once entered the temple it was impossible for any ordinary woman to return home without having prostituted herself. Nevertheless, the priests allowed some ladies of rank and wealth to make a bargain for their chastity, which they probably desired to dispose of more agreeably to their own caprice. These few privileged persons went through the ceremonies without performing the usual act of prostitution. At the taking of Babylon by Cyrus, men were found ready to hire out their daughters and prostitute them for profit, while in the Alexandrian age men sent their wives to strangers for a sum of money[20].
Throughout the countries of the East, upon the history of which at that early period any light has been thrown, we discover the prevalence of similar customs. The most celebrated appear the most licentious, but probably only because they have been the most strictly investigated. The wealthy and luxurious capitals, in which the spoils of great conquests were piled up, never failed to supply a sufficient number of abandoned women, supported by the looser sort of men, in various degrees of position, from penury to splendour. Though circumstances of time and place, of religion and civilization, imparted peculiar characteristics to the prostitute class of each age and country, the general features of the system were invariably the same, and the prostitutes of Babylon resembled very much the prostitutes of New Orleans and London. We turn next to ancient Egypt, a country of whose laws and manners we have had interesting, if not complete, accounts bequeathed us.