Moral ideas concerning unchastity have also been influenced by the close association which exists in a refined mind between the sexual impulse and a sentiment of affection which lasts long after the gratification of the bodily desire. We find the germ of this feeling in the abhorrence with which prostitution is regarded by savage tribes who have no objection to ordinary sexual intercourse previous to marriage,[113] and in the distinction which among ourselves is drawn between the prostitute and the woman who yields to temptation because she loves. To indulge in mere sexual pleasure, unaccompanied by higher feelings, appears brutal and disgusting in the case of a man, and still more so in the case of a woman. After all, love is generally only an episode in a man’s life, whereas for a woman it is the whole of her life.[114] The Greek orator said that in the moment when a woman loses her chastity her mind is changed.[115] On the other hand, when a man and a woman, tied to each other by deep and genuine affection, decide to live together as husband and wife, though not joined in legal wedlock, the censure which public opinion passes upon their conduct seems to an unprejudiced mind justifiable at most only in so far as it may be considered to have been their duty to comply with the laws of their country and to submit to a rule of some social importance.
[113] E.g., the Chittagong Hill tribes (Lewin, Wild Races of South-Eastern India, p. 348). Cf. Westermarck, op. cit. p. 70 sq.
[114] Cf. Simmel, Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft, i. 201; Paulsen, System der Ethik, ii. 274.
[115] Lysias, quoted by Schmidt, Die Ethik der alten Griechen, i. 273.
Sexual intercourse between unmarried persons of opposite sex is thus regarded as wrong from different points of view under different conditions, social or psychical, and all of these conditions are not in any considerable degree combined at any special stage of civilisation. Sometimes the opinions on the subject are greatly influenced by the institution of marriage by purchase, sometimes they are influenced by the refinement of love; and between such causes there can be no co-operation. This is one reason for the singular complexity which characterises the evolution of the duty of chastity; but there is another reason perhaps even more important. The causes to which this duty may be traced are frequently checked by circumstances operating in an opposite direction. Thus the preference which a man is naturally disposed to give to a virgin bride may be overcome by his desire for offspring, inducing him to marry a woman who has proved capable of gratifying this desire.[116] It may also be ineffective for the simple reason that no virgin bride is to be found. Nothing has more generally prevented chastity from being recognised as a duty than social conditions promoting licentious habits. Even in savage society, where almost every man and every woman marry and most of them marry early in life, there are always a great number of unmarried people of both sexes above the age of puberty; and, generally speaking, the number of the unmarried increases along with the progress of civilisation. This state of things easily leads to incontinence in men and women, and where such incontinence becomes habitual it can hardly incur much censure. Again, where the general standard of female chastity is high, the standard of male chastity may nevertheless be the lowest possible. This is the case where there is a class of women who can no longer be dishonoured, because they have already been dishonoured, whose virtue is of no value either to themselves or their families because they have lost their virtue, and who make incontinence their livelihood. Prostitution, being a safeguard of female chastity, has facilitated the enforcement of the rule which enjoins it as a duty, but at the same time it has increased the inequality of obligations imposed on men and women. It has begun to exercise this influence already at the lower stages of culture. Prostitution is by no means unknown in the savage world.[117] It is a recognised institution in many of the Melanesian islands; “at Santa Cruz,” says Dr. Codrington, “where the separation of the sexes is so carefully maintained, there are certainly public courtesans.”[118] Prostitution prevails in many or most Negro countries;[119] and so favourably, we are told, is this institution sometimes regarded, that rich Negro ladies on their death-beds buy female slaves and present them to the public, “in the same manner as in England they would have left a legacy to some public charity.”[120] The Wanyoro even have a definite system of prostitution, governed by stringent laws which seem to be very old.[121] In Greenland, where it was “reckoned the greatest of infamies” for an unmarried woman to become pregnant,[122] there were professional harlots already in early times;[123] and the same was the case among many of the North American Indians.[124] Thus among the Omahas extra-matrimonial intercourse is, as a rule, practised only with public women, called minckeda; and “so strict are the Omahas about these matters, that a young girl or even a married woman walking or riding alone, would be ruined in character, being liable to be taken for a minckeda, and addressed as such.”[125] Public prostitution was tolerated, if not encouraged, among all the Maya nations, whilst intercourse with other unmarried women was punished with a fine or, if the affronted relatives insisted, with death.[126] “In order to avoid greater evils,” the Incas of Peru permitted public prostitutes, who were treated with extreme contempt;[127] but, with this exception, “to be lewd with single women was capital.”[128] Among all the civilised nations of the Old World prostitution has existed, and still exists, as a tolerated institution, even where legislators have endeavoured to suppress it.[129] Its prevalence in our modern society greatly increases the perplexity of public opinion in regard to sexual morality. Its victims are degraded and despised beyond description. At the same time their male customers are tacitly allowed to support the trade. That the demand for a merchandise increases the production of it is in this case seldom thought of. But secrecy must be observed. In sexual matters openness is indecent, and the chief crime is to be found out.
[117] See, e.g., Tutuila, ‘Line Islanders,’ in Jour. Polynesian Soc. i. 270; Powell, Wanderings in a Wild Country, p. 261 (natives of New Britain); Davis, El Gringo, p. 221 (Indians of New Mexico); Ploss-Bartels, Das Weib, i. 536, 540 sqq.
[118] Codrington, Melanesians, p. 234 sqq.
[119] Emin Pasha in Central Africa, p. 88.
[120] Reade, Savage Africa, p. 547 sq.