Of Prostitution in Lapland and Sweden.
A notice of the Scandinavian populations would be incomplete, unless we touched particularly on the Laplanders; especially as they contrast very strongly with their neighbours the Swedes, notwithstanding that these are far more inflated with the pride of civilization. Forming a nomade race, known in their own region as Finns, they occupy a country little favoured by the prodigality of nature. Nevertheless, where they have settled into fixed communities, we find them adopting many forms of luxury, polishing their manners, and pursuing wealth with eagerness. But these scarcely belong to the body of the Laplanders, and it is only necessary to say of them that they are a happy, virtuous people, distinguished by the affection and harmony existing between men and women.
The genuine Laplander, among his free rocks and snows, lives partly in a tent, partly in a hut; but, whichever tenement he inhabits, he is content with the most simple economy. During the summer he wanders, and is equally industrious and frugal; during the winter he remains in one place, enjoying the fruits of his labour in ease and idleness. This is a peculiar mode of life, and has much influence on the manners of the people; for, during their leisure months, they invent many pleasures, few of which are indulged in by one sex apart from the other.
The Lapland families are generally small;—three or four children being the largest number habitually seen; but what they do bring forth, the women bring forth easily, scarcely ever requiring help, and speedily leaving their couch to fulfil their usual tasks.
The general character of the Lapland race is good. From whatever cause the circumstance proceeds, it is certain that their morals are strict and virtuous. Few strong passions of any kind prevail among them, and they are more especially distinguished by their continence.
The priest of a large parish assured one traveller that there had been but one instance of an illegitimate birth during twenty years, and that illicit intercourse between the sexes was almost unknown.
Old travellers have amused their readers with accounts of the conjugal infidelity common in Lapland, and asserted that the men are in the habit of offering their wives to strangers: this appears to be wholly untrue. So far from truth is it, indeed, that adultery is a crime almost unknown among them; they are, in fact, rather jealous than otherwise of their women. The intercourse of the sexes, nevertheless, is free and agreeable; their marriages are contracted, sometimes according to the choice of the young people, sometimes by that of their parents. Prostitution is unknown among them, except in the fishing towns, where a few wretched women have taken to that mode of life; but, on the whole, they are a chaste and virtuous race.
The great difference between the institutions of Norway and those of Sweden consist in this—that in the former, manners influence the law; while in the latter, law attempts to regulate every detail of public manners.
Men, says the public law of Sweden, attain their majority at the age of 21 years, but women remain in tutelage during the whole period of their lives, unless the king grants a privilege of exemption: widows, however, are excepted. Men cannot legally marry before the age of 21. Even to this rule there is an exception, for among the peasants of the north it is lawful for a youth of eighteen to take a wife—a device adopted to increase the population of those thinly-inhabited provinces. Women may marry immediately after their confirmation, which never takes place before fourteen. The nuptials are recognised by law, and are celebrated in the presence of a priest, by the gift of a ring. A man desiring to take his sister-in-law to wife, must have permission from the king. A few years ago an ordinance was abolished which required a similar formality to be gone through previous to the marriage of cousins. A man may marry without the consent of any one; but a woman must obtain the sanction of her parent or guardian. To render binding the contract, which stipulates for the rights of each with respect to property, it must be presented to the magistrates of the place, and signed by the priest, before the celebration of the wedding.
In default of such an agreement a division takes place, under rules which differ in the country and in the town. In the former, two-thirds of the property belong to the man, and one-third to the woman; in the latter, half is apportioned to each.
Marriage, when fully consummated, is not indissoluble. Divorce may be pronounced by the public tribunals of justice. First, for adultery on the part of the husband or of the wife; second, on the condemnation of one or the other, on account of a felonious crime, to loss of honour and liberty for ten years; thirdly, in cases of insanity; fourthly, for desertion, neglect, or the continued absence, without intelligence, of husband or wife. When a married person complains of having been abandoned, the magistrate fixes a certain interval during which the other may make answer; a notice is inserted in the gazette and the newspapers. If, at the expiration of this period, no reply is heard, the divorce is pronounced. The length of absence necessary to justify such a separation is left to the discretion of the judge. Fifthly, when one person is palmed off for another; sixthly, for ill-treatment; seventhly, for apostasy; eighthly, for incurable epilepsy. After the sentence of the civil tribunal, the divorce is held good in an ecclesiastical court.
A man is bound to support his natural children, and inquiries in cases of affiliation are frequent. When a girl accuses a man before a public tribunal, of being the father of her child, he may deny it upon oath, when her allegation is dismissed, unless she can prove by witnesses, or by any other evidence, that her claim is absolutely just. As such a proof is difficult to obtain, there are abundance of false oaths made at Stockholm. A girl sometimes accuses a peasant of being the parent of her child, demanding, perhaps, a sum of money equal to a sovereign of our coinage, by way of compensation. The man refuses to pay it, and offers to swear that he is not the child’s father. The magistrate then seeks by persuasion to induce him to confess the truth; but he persists in his refusal until the woman modifies her claim. He continues all the while to threaten her with the oath of repudiation, unless she is contented with his offer. If she accepts a miserable trifle, he acknowledges the debt; if not, he perjures himself, and the law allows him to escape, though morally convinced, beyond all question, of his profligacy and falsehood.
The illegitimate child has no claim on the property of its father, or even on that of its mother; but if the parents marry, however short a time before the child’s birth, it is saved from the stigma of bastardy. A legitimate child cannot be disinherited by its parents, unless for marrying against their consent, or being condemned for felony to a heavy and disgraceful punishment.
Death is the penalty attached to infanticide, but is almost invariably commuted to detention for a longer or shorter period, with hard labour in prison. In 1832 the House of Correction for females in Stockholm, which served for all Sweden, contained 290 women, of which 45 were condemned to hard labour for life; of these, 30 had murdered their children.
The punishments denounced against adultery endeavour to mark a distinction between particular degrees of the crime. Incest and bestiality are, however, punished only with a moderate fine. When a married man indulges in guilty intercourse with a married woman, they both suffer death by decapitation. When it is committed by a married man with a girl betrothed and pregnant by her lover, he receives 120 blows with a stick, and she 90 lashes with a whip. Punishments of this sort continually take place in a public square at Stockholm. At present, in whipping the girls on their naked persons, care is taken to protect their bosoms and their abdomens with plates of copper. Formerly, however, when this precaution was not adopted, the lash frequently lacerated the bosom and tore open the flesh, so as to expose the bowels. When adultery is committed by a married man with an affianced girl, or the reverse, a simple fine is exacted; in default of which, imprisonment on bread and water, or a public flogging, is inflicted. When one of the criminals only is married, and the other is entirely free, an inferior money penalty is adjudged.
An unmarried woman becoming a mother pays to the church penance money, to a certain amount. So also does every man: that is to say, the law enacts it; but it is, perhaps, needless to add that the priests get, in this respect, much less than is legally their due.
In 1836 prostitution was forbidden by law throughout Sweden. The public woman, being convicted, was imprisoned in a house of correction, until she had time to reclaim herself, and some one was willing to take her into service. The same, indeed, was done to any poor woman, whatever her character, who could not describe her occupation. Many little girls, some not more than eleven years old, were confined as a punishment for being without a regular avocation. Professional and open prostitution being thus severally prohibited by the law, there were, at that period, no regular brothels in Sweden; but the women of the lower orders were so corrupt, that prostitution was as common as possible. “Every servant girl,” says the advocate Angelot, who wrote in 1836, “may be considered as a public prostitute, and every house of public entertainment may be described as a brothel.”
So far the laws describe the manners of Sweden; that is, they indicate the profligacy they are unable to cure. The country is, perhaps, one of the most demoralized in Europe. During many years it continued to decline in population, prosperity, and character; and if during the last quarter of a century it has improved in these respects, it is because the old system of institutions is gradually wearing away.
Superficial travellers, who gather their ideas of other countries by no other light than that of the chandelier, and in no other society than that of fops and flirts, describe Sweden as a paradise of good breeding and elegance. Society is there often gay and lively, which satisfies the inquiries of such tourists. The ladies of that nation also possess many fascinations, with an apparent frankness and sincerity, which never fail to please. The women of the humbler orders wear, in the streets, the airs of modesty, and never shock the eye by exhibitions of wantonness or indecency. The intercourse of the sexes is extremely free; and therefore there are fewer signs of intrigue, because this is not necessary; but to infer from such circumstances that Sweden is a moral country, is to fall into a grievous error.
Sweden is immoral, and Stockholm is the most immoral place in Sweden. For many years it absolutely decayed under the moral disease which afflicted it. In 1830 it contained nearly 81,000 inhabitants; this number decreased in a year or two to 77,000, and the deaths during a period of ten years exceeded the births by an average of 895. Yet it is in a healthy situation; the people are well lodged; everything, indeed, is there to render it pure and salubrious; but the moral atmosphere is tainted by a continual epidemic of depravity.
The whole nation numbers about 3,000,000; but it is in the capital that the excess of profligacy is displayed. Three or four years ago the proportion of illegitimate children was as one to two and three-tenths, that is to say, one person out of every three was a bastard. Taking all Sweden, we find the proportion of the ten years, from 1800 to 1810, was one in sixteen; from 1810 to 1820, one in fourteen; from 1820 to 1830, one in fourteen and six-tenths. It was thus the town population which was to be charged with the immoral result of depravity. In Stockholm, however, statistics could not fully exhibit the general demoralization. Laing asserts his deliberate belief that the offspring of adultery and children saved from illegitimacy by the late marriage of their parents were there exceedingly numerous; and it is probable that the law forbidding young men to marry before they were 21 years of age had, in this respect, a very evil influence, as similar checks have undoubtedly had in Norway.
In 1837 the government of Sweden, finding that to prohibit prostitution was not to prevent it, and that the vice they sought to check increased in spite of their efforts, ran, at one impulse, to a contrary extreme. Formerly no public women were allowed, now they were created as a class; formerly no brothels were permitted to be kept by private individuals, now a huge brothel was instituted by the authorities. A large hotel was hired, was fitted up for the purpose, and opened to all the city. A number of unfortunate women were expected to inhabit this licensed resort of infamy, and it speedily overflowed. A code of regulations was framed for the government of the place; but the barbarity of this discipline prevented the scheme from succeeding. Prostitution, however, had been recognised by law. Therefore, though the government brothel was abandoned, others were multiplied in its place; and vice, which had rioted under a mask, appeared in her proper form, among the citizens of Stockholm. Nevertheless, numbers of the restaurants and houses of public entertainment still retain their original character as the secret resorts of prostitutes and their companions. One great cause of the immorality prevalent in Stockholm was, that no woman who could afford to do otherwise, or had any of the wretched pride of respectability, would suckle her own child. Wet nurses, therefore, were in great request. Unmarried girls were absolutely preferred, because the family was not troubled with their husbands. Their own offspring were meanwhile transferred to the foundling hospital, which remains another licence to immorality. There are in Stockholm two of these institutions, where the children are educated, on payment of a premium varying from five to ten pounds sterling of English coinage. In 1819 there were born in Sweden 14,000 illegitimate children, being nearly a seventh of the births. M. Alexandre Daumont says, that there was in Woesend, a canton of Finland, a special law which, granting to women equal rights of property with the men, improved the character of their morals. But no institutions will improve the manners of a country like Sweden, until the national sentiments are purified, for the example of the court and the nobility, says Mr. Laing, have instructed the people so far, that it is only a moral revolution which can reclaim them.
There is in Stockholm a separate hospital for the treatment of syphilis. It received in one year 701 patients, 148 being from the country and the rest from the city itself. In that year (1832) the number of unmarried persons, of both sexes, above the age of fifteen, was 33,581. Consequently, 1 person out of every 61 was afflicted by the venereal disease.
The condition of women in Sweden is low in comparison with the other countries of Europe, and offers a strong contrast with that which we discover in Norway. Tasks are assigned among the humble orders to the female sex against which true civilization would revolt. They carry sacks, row boats, sift lime, and bear other heavy labours. Among the middle classes they hold an inferior situation; but among the higher, though little respected, they are comparatively free[87].