In a subsequent portion of this work we have endeavored to analyze the causes of prostitution as it exists in the city of New York. It may be reasonably supposed that the same reasons would be applicable to the kindred people of Great Britain. We give the following, mainly deduced from English writers, as indicating the sentiments of the best-informed in that kingdom as to the sources of so deep-rooted an evil, which must be sought in a variety of circumstances, national as well as personal.
A professional man, Mr. Tait, to whose pages we have turned for information as to prostitution in Great Britain, classifies the causes as natural and accidental. The natural he subdivides into licentiousness of disposition, irritability of temper, pride and love of dress, dishonesty and love of property, and indolence. The accidental include seduction, ill-assorted marriages, low wages, want of employment, intemperance, poverty, defective education, bad example of parents, obscene publications, and a number of minor causes. Without assenting to the classification, we will accept the enumeration.
The operation of sexual desire on the female sex is a mooted question among English writers on prostitution. Whether it is latent, and never powerful enough to provoke evil courses until it is itself stimulated and roused into energy by external circumstances, or whether it be an active principle impelling the ill-regulated female mind to sacrifice self-respect and reputation in the gratification of dominant impulses, has been frequently discussed. Many consider that its influence on the inducement of prostitution is no less unsatisfactory of solution than the physiological problem, alleging that those who have followed the bent of their natural appetites would undoubtedly prefer to ascribe their lapse to other circumstances. This subject is treated more fully elsewhere, and it is needless to repeat here the views there expressed.
That sexual desire, once aroused, does exercise a potent influence on the female organization, can not be questioned. Self-abuse, which is a perverted indulgence of the natural instinct, is well known to English physicians as being practiced among young women to a great extent, though in a far less degree than among young men. Its frightful influences upon the latter have been the subject of the liveliest anxiety to those who have made the care of youth their profession, and this source of trouble is shared to some degree by female teachers. Such subjects seem by common consent to be banished from rational investigation by the majority of people, as if shutting one’s eyes to the fact would prove its non-existence. This false delicacy is more injurious than is commonly supposed; for the unchecked indulgence in such habits is not only destructive of health, but in the highest degree inimical to the moral feeling, and directly subversive of all self-respect, leaving but one step to complete the final descent.
Seduction.—The effect of undue familiarity, and too unrestrained an intercourse between the sexes, can not be exaggerated as paving the way for the last lapse from virtue. It is precisely these familiarities which, in ill-regulated minds, excite the first impulses of desire; and even where such a result does not immediately flow from too free an intercourse, it breaks down that modesty and reserve which so much enhance the beauty of woman, and constitute her best safeguard. The inclined plane by which the female who permits the first freedom glides unchecked to final ruin, though gradual, is very difficult to retrace. The unrestricted intercourse permitted, or rather encouraged between the sexes at places of public amusement much facilitates the opportunities of seduction. Prostitutes frequently, and we believe with truth, allege seduction as the first step toward their abandoned course of life, and the allegation itself should induce a sympathy for the misfortune of their present existence. Although in some cases the story can not be implicitly believed, at the same time there is no doubt that a heartless seduction is but too frequent a circumstance in such cases, and contributes its sad quota of heavy account to prostitution.
It is a general opinion that cases of (so called) seduction in England occur between employers and female servants, and that of these are vast numbers. By seduction in such circumstances is meant the inducement to do wrong by promises or other suasives, in opposition to the commonly received idea, which makes the fall the result of strong personal attachment. In a work like this we must notice the largest definitions, and can not consistently limit ourselves to the inducement customarily brought forward in law proceedings, namely, “a promise of marriage.” In this sense, illegitimate children may be said to be the consequence of seduction. Certainly not all of them, however, because many persons, voluntarily and with their eyes open, enter upon cohabitation arrangements; but doubtless many are. Once seduced, of course the female becomes herself the seducer of the inexperienced.
The policy of English law, of late years, has been to compel the woman to protect herself—in the main, a wise policy. But the balance of human justice is very unevenly maintained. The male, the real delinquent, incurs no legal punishment, and but little social reprobation. Actions for seduction are very unpopular, and those brought bear but an infinitesimal proportion to the occurrence of the crime. The onus of proof in bastardy affiliations of course rests upon the woman. Of late years the alterations in the law have thrown great difficulties in her way by what is called the necessity of corroborative evidence, namely, some kind of admission, direct or indirect, or some overt act which will furnish oral or documentary testimony other than the woman’s unsupported statement. This may be strictly expedient, but it renders the man almost irresponsible if he only play his part with knavish prudence. Lastly, popular feeling is against charges of rape: acquittal is very frequent, and the usual rebuttal is to impeach the character of the prosecutrix. The opinion of one of England’s greatest judges has passed into a proverb: “No charge so easy to make, none so difficult to disprove.” Queen Elizabeth’s mode of proving her disbelief of rape is also expressive of public opinion.
From the combination of these circumstances, it would seem that seduction must, almost as a matter of course, lead to prostitution, inasmuch as, in ordinary English parlance, the mother of a bastard and a prostitute are almost synonymous.
Overcrowded Dwellings.—The natural impulses of animal instinct in both sexes seem to be implicated in the effect of crowded sleeping apartments, as met with in the habitations of the poor both in town and country. In the latter we have the show, and sometimes the reality, of family life and virtuous poverty. In the towns we find abodes of poverty sometimes honest, sometimes in closest propinquity or intimacy with vice, and there too we have the dwelling-places of the lowest depravity and vagabondism.
Those who have not given their attention to the condition of the poor, and the relation which their lives hold to the ordinary habits of decency and morality, have much difficulty in comprehending, or even believing, statements which embody the plainest every-day truths. It is hard to realize things as they are, if the mind has been full of ideal pictures of things as they should be. The Dives of society has been often reproached with his ignorance of Lazarus. The sin lies exactly in that ignorance. As Carlyle finely says, “The duty of Christian society is to find its work, and to do it.” Negative virtue is of no practical use to the community. But yet the ignorance is natural enough, and no easier of removal than other ignorance. It has been generally attributed to the wealthy and upper classes of society, but it exists just the same, differing only a little in degree, in the middle class and moderately rich members of the English social system.