This process of defloration of Indian virgins by the lingam idol is confirmed by the reports of John Fryer, Roe, Jeon Moquet, Abbé Guyon, Démeunier, and others.
The god Baal Peor, worshipped by the Moabites and Jews, seems also to have possessed such a divine power of defloration. His name, “Peor,” “to open,” is supposed to relate to the destruction of the hymen.[40]
This relationship is more distinctly expressed in the names of certain gods of the ancient Romans, such as Dea Perfica, Dea Pertunda, Mutunus Tutunus, regarding whose functions in connexion with defloration, shown unquestionably by the etymology of their names, I have referred to at greater length in my essay on “Ancient Roman Medicine” (published in Puschmann’s “Handbook of the History of Medicine,” p. 407; Jena, 1902).
For the honour of the sexual divinities, the bride was compelled, as Augustine, Lactantius, and Arnobius report, to seat herself upon the “fascinum”—that is, the membrum virile of the priapus statue—and in this way, either physically, or at least symbolically, sacrifice her virginity to the deity. According to the legend, the conception of Ocrisia was actually effected in this way![41]
According to the second method by which single acts of religious prostitution are effected, a representative of the deity exercises the latter’s right of defloration. It is a form of religious jus primæ noctis, which is given to the king, the priest, the father, and, above all, to a casual stranger, before the girl becomes the property of her husband or master. In cases in which the husband has effected defloration, the deity may be satisfied by the woman later giving herself once to his representative.
The best-known form of religious prostitution is the Mylittacult of the Babylonians, the worship of that goddess who, according to Bachofen, represents the uncontrolled life of Nature in its fullest creative activity, unchecked by any man-made laws—the goddess whose free nature is opposed to the constraining bonds of marriage. For this reason the goddess, as representative of the unrestrained nature principle, demands from every girl a free gift of herself to any man wishing to have intercourse with her. This demand is made in the name of Mylitta and in the temple devoted to her. The money paid by the man in return for his sexual indulgence belongs to the goddess, and is added to the treasures of the temple.[42]
Herodotus and Strabo give us additional accounts of this remarkable service of Mylitta. Women of rank, as well as those of the lower classes, must allow themselves to be possessed once by a stranger, and were not permitted to return home until they had given their tribute to the goddess. Moreover, the woman might not refuse herself to any stranger, whilst the man, on the other hand, had a free choice. Thus in this account we find all the characteristics of “prostitution” according to our present ideas.
This custom was abolished by the Emperor Constantine, as Eusebius informs us, in his biography of this Emperor. The accounts of Strabo and of Quintus Curtius show us that it had persisted from the time of Herodotus to the time of Constantine; in Cyprus, Phœnicia, Carthage, Judea, Armenia, and Lokris, the Mylittacult was diffused.[43]
The true origin of this cult was a consecration to the deity, a tribute to the goddess of voluptuousness. Secondarily only, other elements may have entered into the practice, as, for instance, the later widely diffused assumption of the uncleanness and poisonous properties of the blood which was shed in the act of defloration. At the same time the religious idea of a “sacrifice” may have become associated with the idea of “self-surrender” to an utterly strange and unloved man, so that it is possible that at the root of this peculiar custom there lay a kind of masochism on the part of the woman, whilst we cannot fail to recognize the existence of a sadistic basis in the demeanour of the betrothed man or husband, surrendering the woman to a strange man; both of these elements—sadism and masochism—having here a religious signification.
In Eastern Asia, and among many savage races, priests played the part of representatives of the deity to whom the defloration of the girls and the newly-married was assigned; for instance, in the Indian sect of the “Mahārājas,” founded by Vallabha, in which “immorality was elevated to the level of a divine law.”[44]