“Thus, throughout nearly all Senegal, the European, who has a taste for maidenheads, can easily be satisfied, provided he is willing to pay the price.[3] At St. Louis women of ill-fame procure young girls, who bear the significant name of the ‘unpierced,’[4] and vary from eight or nine years to the nubile age. It is even easier to obtain a young girl before she is nubile than afterwards, on account of the certainty of her not bearing any children. The price is within the range of all purses, according to quality, and you can have a negro girl, warranted ‘unpierced’ (belonging to the category of domestic slaves), for the modest sum of from eight to sixteen shillings. Of course, the respectable matron pockets half this sum for her honorarium....
“ ... The ‘unpierced’ soon lose their right to the title when they have to do with a Toubab, but, on account of the size of their genital parts, the loss of their maidenhead is not such a serious affair for them as it would be for a little French girl who was not yet nubile. I have never remarked in a little negress, who had been deflowered by a White, the valvular inflammation, which, with us, is noticed as the result of premature copulation before the parts are sufficiently developed.... If the reader will remember that the European, who is below the average dimensions in regard to his penis, is like a little boy in proportion to the negress of ten or twelve years old, it is not difficult to imagine that the negress he has deflowered can entirely take in the yard of the White, the dimensions of which are much less than that of the adult black.
“ ... When the girl has to do later with a negro husband, an astringent lotion will render the bride a pseudo-virgin. The deceived husband, not having the anatomical knowledge necessary to assure himself of the real existence of the signs of virginity, feels a difficulty in copulating, and is far from suspecting any trick.[5]
“Does not much the same kind of thing prevail also in Europe? How many girls who have been deflowered get married without their husband ever suspecting anything, although he has not the same physical disadvantages that the black has to prevent his seeing through the trick? Is it to this amorous blindness that the Greeks and Romans alluded when they represented Cupid with a bandage over his eyes? One is almost tempted to believe it.
“ ... In opposition to those who exact the virginity of the bride, there are others who attach no importance whatever to it.... The ancient Egyptians used to make an incision in the hymen previous to marriage, and St. Athanasius relates that among the Phœnicians a slave of the bridegroom was charged by him to deflower the bride.[6] The Caraib Indians attached no value to virginity, and only the daughters of the higher classes were shut up during two years previous to marriage.
“It appears that among the Chibcha Indians in Central America virginity is not at all esteemed; it was considered to be a proof that the maiden had never been able to inspire love.
“In ancient Peru the old maids were the objects of high esteem. There were sacred virgins called ‘Wives of the Sun,’ somewhat similar to the Roman vestals.[7] (The nuns of the present day, do they not style themselves the ‘Spouses of Christ’?). They made a vow of perpetual chastity.... It is also said they were buried alive when they happened to break their vow of chastity, unless indeed they could prove having conceived, not from a man, but from the sun.
“Several authors worthy of credence assure us that these vestals were guarded by eunuchs. The temple at Cuzco had one thousand virgins, that of Caranqua two hundred. It would appear, however, that the virginity of these vestals was not so very sacred after all, for the Inca Kings used to choose from among them concubines for themselves or for their principal vassals and favourite friends.
“Marco Polo narrates how young girls were exposed by their mothers on the public highway in order that travellers might freely make use of them.[8] A young girl was expected to have at least twenty presents earned by such prostitutions before she could hope to find a husband. This did not prevent them from being very virtuous after marriage, nor their virtue from being much appreciated.[9]
“Waitz assures us that in several countries of Africa a young girl is preferred for wife when she has made herself remarked by several amours and by much fecundity. (C.f. Havelock Ellis, op. cit., vol.6: ‘Equally unsound is the notion that the virgin bride brings her husband at marriage an important capital which is consumed in the first act of intercourse and can never be recovered. That is a notion which has survived into civilisation, but it belongs to barbarism and not to civilisation. So far as it has any validity it lies within a sphere of erotic perversity which cannot be taken into consideration in an estimation of moral values. For most men, however, in any case, whether they realise it or not, the woman who has been initiated into the mysteries of love has a higher erotic value than the virgin,[10] and there need be no anxiety on this ground concerning the wife who has lost her virginity.’)