London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 4

by Henry Mayhew

It is seldom, however, that among barbarous races we find the sentiment of chastity in its abstract sense. Women are generally treated as though their inclinations were licentious, and in this consists one great line of distinction between civilization and barbarism. With the one, moral influence—with the other, material force, is employed as the guardian of female honour. The result is important to be noticed. Women are depraved by the rude and gross means devised to keep them virtuous. Where the moral sentiment is feebly developed, guilt is created by the efforts made to prevent it. The wife perpetually watched, as though her heart were full of adultery, becomes an adulteress. The young girl continually guarded, with the avowed object of compelling her to be chaste, loses insensibly any natural feeling she may have possessed, and covets the opportunity to sin.

In the South Sea Islands this truth is illustrated; in New Zealand it is still more strongly proved. It is taken for granted that a woman will prostitute herself if she can. The state of morality is consequently so low that it is difficult for parents to preserve a daughter’s virtue until she is given in marriage. To prevent her holding vicious intercourse she is forbidden to hold any intercourse with the opposite sex.

Another characteristic of civilized races is the separation of the vicious from the moral classes; they systematize the offences against society. Every class of vile persons becomes, as it were, an isolated community; the prostitute is segregated from the rest of her sex. In some barbarian states, as in Dahomey, the same division is effected; but the kings of that country have sought to mimic the forms of educated communities. The professional is distinguished from the habitual prostitute only by her open assumption of the title; but the immorality of the female sex in Dahomey is far from being represented by the order of confessed harlots.

The inhabitants of some islands, and the shores of bays and roadsteads, have discovered that in prostituting their women to the crews of trading ships they have a readier means of subsistence than was offered by their former industry. This has produced a frightful system of vicious commerce, which still prevails to a great extent in the Pacific, as well as in New Zealand and the ports of Africa. It is for Europeans to repair the evil created by the incontinence of their predecessors. Many captains of vessels have already effected much good by forbidding women to come on board.

In proportion as nations approach the higher stages of civilization does the respect for human life increase. Infanticide is practised with the least remorse by the most savage tribes. Among those communities with whom the means of existence are precarious this crime is most common. Wherever barbarians have been induced to labour, and secured in the enjoyment of their earnings, the natural feelings of the breast have revived; and mothers who have slain six infants cherish the seventh as a sacred possession. Missionary enterprise has produced much good in this respect; while the beneficent rule of our Indian government has bestowed incalculable blessings on the people of the East, among whom the system of infanticide is daily becoming rarer, and the condition of women more elevated.

The same may be remarked of that unnatural practice upon which, as indeed on all kindred subjects, writers are reluctant to touch—that, we mean, of destroying the unborn fruits of union. The savage regards it as an act rather meritorious for its ingenuity than abominable for its unnatural character. The cause that encourages infanticide encourages this, which, indeed, is the less horrible crime. The woman is less reluctant to extinguish the vitality of a being which has become to her dear only in anticipation, than to quench a life which has once been embodied before her eyes, and warmed in her bosom. The operation, so dangerous to females in civilized communities, is, like childbirth, far easier among savages. The native of the Bornean woods, without any of the delicacy engendered by luxury, may one moment be without a pang giving birth to an infant, and the next be washing it in a neighbouring brook. The Malayan lady, bred in a city in indolence and comfort, suffers agony under which she sometimes perishes before her offspring has breathed. So it is with the practice of destroying the unborn child. Civilization lessens in all creatures their means of independent life, and their powers of endurance; but it also enables them to discover or compound the elements by which these artificial ills may be remedied.

In proportion as the intercourse of the sexes is loose is the difficulty of learning the actual extent of immoral practices. The prostitute class, as we proceed from the pure savage to the highest point of civilization, becomes more and more distinct—being more conspicuous because more isolated. This is accompanied by another process, which is a superior standard by which to measure the social elevation of a people. Women respect themselves in proportion as men respect them. Where locks and bolts, scourges and cudgels, are the guardians of female chastity, it is only preserved when there is no opportunity to lose it. When the protecting influence springs from within, the woman moves a virtuous being, defended even from a licentious glance by the impenetrable cloud which her native modesty and virtue diffuse around her.

Of Prostitution among African Nations.

In the wide field of inquiry presented by the barbarian races of our own time, Africa occupies a prominent place. Some of the most wild and savage tribes of the human family are to be found on that immense peninsula. Many degrees in the inferior scale of civilization are represented, from the uncouth Hottentots of the south to the wandering Arabs of the desert, in whose blameless lives we have a picture of original simplicity—not far removed from the real refinement, though very far from the vices, of the most polished among the communities of Europe. The inquiry we have made into the condition of women and the state of manners in Africa, has confirmed us in our opinion, which is supported also by many circumstances observed among other races of men. The medium of refinement is accompanied by the least immorality. As in our own, among other civilized states, the ratio of profligacy is greatest at the opposite poles of society—the wealthiest and the most indigent—so in Africa it is among the basest savages and among the most highly polished communities that immorality prevails to the greatest extent. The brutal hordes on the western coast, with the populations of the half-civilized cities of the north, abound in vices, while the barbarian though innocent communities, with the wandering dwellers in the desert, are characterised by manners far more pure.

In ranging over Africa in search of facts to complete the present inquiry, we meet with numerous tribes belonging to seven separate races of mankind: the Hottentot, the Kaffir, the Negro, the Moor, the Abyssinian, the Arab, and the Copts or descendants of the true Egyptian stock. Among each of these we perceive some varieties of manners; but everywhere in Africa one circumstance is prominent—the degraded condition of the female sex. The women of Cairo and Algiers are in comparison treated with little more refinement than those of some purely savage states; but we shall not include such communities among the barbarian races, reserving Egypt and some of the other countries characterised by a mongrel civilization for separate notices. We may, as far as our present inquiry goes, present the subject clearly and without confusion by making a geographical arrangement, and, commencing from the south, pass over the continent, until we encounter a form of civilization in the valley of the Lower Nile.