Owen laughed outright. "Too late, old man; too late! I know we used to think so. We did use to call it a 'social necessity,' didn't we? Come, now, tell me what necessity it was to the women."
I stopped my march and looked at him.
"To the women," he repeated. "What did they want of prostitution? What good did it do them?"
"Why—why—they made a living at it," I replied, rather lamely.
"Yes, a nice, honorable, pleasant, healthy living, didn't they? With all women perfectly well able to earn an excellent living decently; with all women fully educated about these matters and knowing what a horrible death was before them in this business; with all women brought up like human beings and not like over-sexed female animals, and with all women quite free to marry if they wished to—how many, do you think, would choose that kind of business?
"We never waited for them to choose it, remember! We fooled them and lied to them and dragged them in—and drove them in—forced them in—and kept them as slaves and prisoners. They didn't really enjoy the life; you know that. Why should they go into it if they do not have to—to accommodate us?"
"Do you mean to tell me there are no—wantons—among women?" I demanded.
"No, I don't mean any such thing. There are various kinds of over-developed and morbidly developed women as there are men, and we haven't weeded them out entirely. But the whole thing is now recognized as pathological—cases for medical treatment, or perhaps surgical. Besides, wantonness is not prostitution. Prostitution is a social crime of the worst order. No one thing did more harm. The women stamped it out."
"Legislated us all into morality, did they?" I inquired sarcastically.
"Legislation did a good deal; education did more; the new religion did most; social opinion helped. You remember we men never really tried to legislate against prostitution—we wanted it to go on."