A fairly typical example of the conditions existing among savages is to be found in the South Sea Island of Rotuma, where "prostitution for money or gifts was quite unknown." Adultery after marriage was also unknown. But there was great freedom in the formation of sexual relationships before marriage (J. Stanley Gardiner, Journal Anthropological Institute, February, 1898, p. 409). Much the same is said of the Bantu Ba mbola of Africa (op. cit., July-December, 1905, p. 410).
Among the early Cymri of Wales, representing a more advanced social stage, prostitution appears to have been not absolutely unknown, but public prostitution was punished by loss of valuable privileges (R. B. Holt, "Marriage Laws and Customs of the Cymri," Journal Anthropological Institute, August-November, 1898, pp. 161-163).
Prostitution was practically unknown in Burmah, and regarded as shameful before the coming of the English and the example of the modern Hindus. The missionaries have unintentionally, but inevitably, favored the growth of prostitution by condemning free unions (Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle, November, 1903, p. 720). The English brought prostitution to India. "That was not specially the fault of the English," said a Brahmin to Jules Bois, "it is the crime of your civilization. We have never had prostitutes. I mean by that horrible word the brutalized servants of the gross desire of the passerby. We had, and we have, castes of singers and dancers who are married to trees—yes, to trees—by touching ceremonies which date from Vedic times; our priests bless them and receive much money from them. They do not refuse themselves to those who love them and please them. Kings have made them rich. They represent all the arts; they are the visible beauty of the universe" (Jules Bois, Visions de l'Inde, p. 55).
Religious prostitutes, it may be added, "the servants of the god," are connected with temples in Southern India and the Deccan. They are devoted to their sacred calling from their earliest years, and it is their chief business to dance before the image of the god, to whom they are married (though in Upper India professional dancing girls are married to inanimate objects), but they are also trained in arousing and assuaging the desires of devotees who come on pilgrimage to the shrine. For the betrothal rites by which, in India, sacred prostitutes are consecrated, see, e.g., A. Van Gennep, Rites de Passage, p. 142.
In many parts of Western Asia, where barbarism had reached a high stage of development, prostitution was not unknown, though usually disapproved. The Hebrews knew it, and the historical Biblical references to prostitutes imply little reprobation. Jephtha was the son of a prostitute, brought up with the legitimate children, and the story of Tamar is instructive. But the legal codes were extremely severe on Jewish maidens who became prostitutes (the offense was quite tolerable in strange women), while Hebrew moralists exercised their invectives against prostitution; it is sufficient to refer to a well-known passage in the Book of Proverbs (see art. "Harlot," by Cheyne, in the Encyclopædia Biblica). Mahomed also severely condemned prostitution, though somewhat more tolerant to it in slave women; according to Haleby, however, prostitution was practically unknown in Islam during the first centuries after the Prophet's time.
The Persian adherents of the somewhat ascetic Zendavesta also knew prostitution, and regarded it with repulsion: "It is the Gahi [the courtesan, as an incarnation of the female demon, Gahi], O Spitama Zarathustra! who mixes in her the seed of the faithful and the unfaithful, of the worshipper of Mazda and the worshipper of the Dævas, of the wicked and the righteous. Her look dries up one-third of the mighty floods that run from the mountains, O Zarathustra; her look withers one-third of the beautiful, golden-hued, growing plants, O Zarathustra; her look withers one-third of the strength of Spenta Armaiti [the earth]; and her touch withers in the faithful one-third of his good thoughts, of his good words, of his good deeds, one-third of his strength, of his victorious power, of his holiness. Verily I say unto thee, O Spitama Zarathustra! such creatures ought to be killed even more than gliding snakes, than howling wolves, than the she-wolf that falls upon the fold, or than the she-frog that falls upon the waters with her thousandfold brood" (Zend-Avesta, the Vendidad, translated by James Darmesteter, Farfad XVIII).
In practice, however, prostitution is well established in the modern East. Thus in the Tartar-Turcoman region houses of prostitution lying outside the paths frequented by Christians have been described by a writer who appears to be well informed ("Orientalische Prostitution," Geschlecht und Gesellschaft, 1907, Bd. ii, Heft 1). These houses are not regarded as immoral or forbidden, but as places in which the visitor will find a woman who gives him for a few hours the illusion of being in his own home, with the pleasure of enjoying her songs, dances, and recitations, and finally her body. Payment is made at the door, and no subsequent question of money arises; the visitor is henceforth among friends, almost as if in his own family. He treats the prostitute almost as if she were his wife, and no indecorum or coarseness of speech occurs. "There is no obscenity in the Oriental brothel." At the same time there is no artificial pretence of innocence.
In Eastern Asia, among the peoples of Mongolian stock, especially in China, we find prostitution firmly established and organized on a practical business basis. Prostitution is here accepted and viewed with no serious disfavor, but the prostitute herself is, nevertheless, treated with contempt. Young children are frequently sold to be trained to a life of prostitution, educated accordingly, and kept shut up from the world. Young widows (remarriage being disapproved) frequently also slide into a life of prostitution. Chinese prostitutes often end through opium and the ravages of syphilis (see, e.g., Coltman's The Chinese, 1900, Ch. VII). In ancient China, it is said prostitutes were a superior class and occupied a position somewhat similar to that of the hetairæ in Greece. Even in modern China, however, where they are very numerous, and the flower boats, in which in towns by the sea they usually live, very luxurious, it is chiefly for entertainment, according to some writers, that they are resorted to. Tschang Ki Tong, military attaché in Paris (as quoted by Ploss and Bartels), describes the flower boat as less analogous to a European brothel than to a café chantant; the young Chinaman comes here for music, for tea, for agreeable conversation with the flower-maidens, who are by no means necessarily called upon to minister to the lust of their visitors.
In Japan, the prostitute's lot is not so degraded as in China. The greater refinement of Japanese civilization allows the prostitute to retain a higher degree of self-respect. She is sometimes regarded with pity, but less often with contempt. She may associate openly with men, ultimately be married, even to men of good social class, and rank as a respectable woman. "In riding from Tokio to Yokohama, the past winter," Coltman observes (op. cit., p. 113), "I saw a party of four young men and three quite pretty and gaily-painted prostitutes, in the same car, who were having a glorious time. They had two or three bottles of various liquors, oranges, and fancy cakes, and they ate, drank and sang, besides playing jokes on each other and frolicking like so many kittens. You may travel the whole length of the Chinese Empire and never witness such a scene." Yet the history of Japanese prostitutes (which has been written in an interesting and well-informed book, The Nightless City, by an English student of sociology who remains anonymous) shows that prostitution in Japan has not only been severely regulated, but very widely looked down upon, and that Japanese prostitutes have often had to suffer greatly; they were at one time practically slaves and often treated with much hardship. They are free now, and any condition approaching slavery is strictly prohibited and guarded against. It would seem, however, that the palmiest days of Japanese prostitution lay some centuries back. Up to the middle of the eighteenth century Japanese prostitutes were highly accomplished in singing, dancing, music, etc. Towards this period, however, they seem to have declined in social consideration and to have ceased to be well educated. Yet even to-day, says Matignon ("La Prostitution au Japon," Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle, October, 1906), less infamy attaches to prostitution in Japan than in Europe, while at the same time there is less immorality in Japan than in Europe. Though prostitution is organized like the postal or telegraph service, there is also much clandestine prostitution. The prostitution quarters are clean, beautiful and well-kept, but the Japanese prostitutes have lost much of their native good taste in costume by trying to imitate European fashions. It was when prostitution began to decline two centuries ago, that the geishas first appeared and were organized in such a way that they should not, if possible, compete as prostitutes with the recognized and licensed inhabitants of the Yoshiwara, as the quarter is called to which prostitutes are confined. The geishas, of course, are not prostitutes, though their virtue may not always be impregnable, and in social position they correspond to actresses in Europe.
In Korea, at all events before Korea fell into the hands of the Japanese, it would seem that there was no distinction between the class of dancing girls and prostitutes. "Among the courtesans," Angus Hamilton states, "the mental abilities are trained and developed with a view to making them brilliant and entertaining companions. These 'leaves of sunlight' are called gisaing, and correspond to the geishas of Japan. Officially, they are attached to a department of government, and are controlled by a bureau of their own, in common with the Court musicians. They are supported from the national treasury, and they are in evidence at official dinners and all palace entertainments. They read and recite; they dance and sing; they become accomplished artists and musicians. They dress with exceptional taste; they move with exceeding grace; they are delicate in appearance, very frail and very human, very tender, sympathetic, and imaginative." But though they are certainly the prettiest women in Korea, move in the highest society, and might become concubines of the Emperor, they are not allowed to marry men of good class (Angus Hamilton, Korea, p. 52).