GREAT BRITAIN.—HISTORY TO THE TIME OF THE COMMONWEALTH.
Aboriginal Morals and Laws.—Anglo-Saxon Legislation.—Introduction of Christianity.—St. Augustine.—Prostitution in the Ninth Century.—Court Example.—Norman Epoch.—Feudal Laws and their Influences.—Civil and Ecclesiastical Courts.—General Depravity.—Effects of Chivalry.—Fair Rosamond.—Jane Shore.—Henry VIII.—Elizabeth.—James I.
The first references to prostitution which we find in the works of the early British annalists are so vague that it is difficult to derive from them any very definite idea as to its extent and character. Among the crude efforts at legislation there are laws to enforce chastity among women, but whether the necessity for these enactments was owing to general licentiousness or to the existence of a regular class of prostitutes does not appear.
At the period of the Roman invasion, the morals of the Britons were as low as might be expected from their nomadic habits. The population was divided into small communities of men and women, who appear to have lived promiscuously, no woman being attached to any particular man, but all cohabiting according to inclination, the carnal instinct being the feeling which regulated sexual intercourse. A sort of marriage was instituted, but with no idea that either of the parties to it should be restricted by its obligations. Its only object seemed to be to provide means for rearing the children, and to fix somewhere the responsibility of their nurture and support. A society constituted as this was can, of course, be considered scarcely a step removed from barbarism. The regulation to provide for the children was necessary to prevent depopulation; its tendency was to remove from the woman’s path every obstacle to lust; over the man it exercised but very slight control.
A still farther proof of the demoralized condition of the people is found in the gross ceremonies attending these marriages. The man appeared on his wedding day dressed in all the rude trappings of the time; the woman was entirely naked. A repulsive coarseness marked their licentiousness, and the rudeness of manners was nowhere more conspicuous than in the relations existing between the sexes.
It is to be presumed that the Anglo-Saxons imported into England the laws and customs prevailing in their own country. The rules they made against adultery were frightfully severe. When a couple were detected in the commission of the offense, the woman was compelled to commit suicide, to avoid the greater tortures awaiting her if she refused. Her body was then placed on a pile of brushwood and consumed. Nor did her partner in guilt escape punishment; he was usually put to death on the spot where her ashes lay collected. These penalties would appear to be sufficiently severe, but in some instances worse were inflicted. Where the case was one of peculiar aggravation, the adulteress was hunted down by a number of infuriate demireps of her own sex, each armed with a club, a knife, or some other formidable weapon, and stabbed or beaten to death. If one party of her pursuers became weary of the sport, another took their places until the victim expired beneath the blows.
These extremely rigid ideas of the Anglo-Saxons do not seem to have been consistent, for while adultery was punished in the severe manner described, incest was not only permitted, but commonly practiced; and it was even the custom for relations to marry within the closest degrees of consanguinity.
But they were not long located in England before the more savage traits of their character were softened down, and the women soon found amusement more suitable to their sex than that of chasing their erring sisters as quarry. The marriage ceremonies also assumed a more refined and decent character, although the wife continued to be regularly purchased by her husband, and the contract was still considered a mere matter of bargain and sale. By the laws of Ethelbert marriageable women were made commodities of barter, and enactments of this character are to be found in existence long subsequent to his reign.
As the Anglo-Saxons were a hardy, vigorous race, and existed chiefly by hunting, fishing, and a rude and imperfect system of agriculture, it is not probable that prostitution existed among them to any great extent. The fatigues of the chase and field exhausted the energy of the body, and diminished the desire and capacity for sexual indulgence, and, living in small detached communities as they did, they knew nothing of the stimulating incentives of city life.
Yet that prostitutes existed, and lived by the wages of their profession, is proved by the fact that women (who were entitled by law to hold and dispose of property) bequeathed their wealth to their daughters, with the occasional stipulation that they should live chaste lives in the event of their remaining single, and not earn money by prostituting their persons.