PROSTITUTION. — It is sexual activity exercised outside of marriage, primarily by women and usually for profit, with anyone who requests II. The phrase “primarily by women” is used because examples of men do not lack; “usually for profit” because this is the principal motive. Not infrequently, this activity appears in public forms and is even organized as if it were a normal service provision. This organized activity is more properly called prostitution. Its fundamental characteristic is its professional nature.
Due to this characteristic, prostitution presents itself in very different ways. Morally, it facilitates incontinence in sexual activity, especially among young people, while at the same time reducing the dangers of seduction. Medically, it can easily become a vehicle for venereal diseases.
I. PROSTITUTION AND PUBLIC AUTHORITY, ESPECIALLY IN ITALY. — Historically, public authority has assumed the most varied attitudes toward it: from the most complete and drastic prohibition to explicit recognition.
In recent centuries, the most widespread attitudes among civilized peoples have been two: tolerance and regulation of the “house,” or the abolition of the same. The following belong to the second group: Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Yugoslavia, Luxembourg, Malta, Gibraltar, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland, the U.S.S.R., Sweden, Switzerland, Hungary, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, the United States, Japan, various states of India, South Africa, New Zealand, etc. To the first group, among others, belongs Italy. The surveillance service over prostitution was first regulated in Italy by the regulation of September 15, 1860, then by ministerial decrees of 1888, by a regulation approved by royal decree of October 27, 1891, by the new Consolidated Text of the Public Security Law, approved by royal decree of June 18, 1931, no. 773, and by a regulation approved by royal decree of May 6, 1940, no. 635.
Current Italian legislation does not prohibit the “house” but regulates II. First, it controls its opening, reserving the right, for example, to prohibit it “whenever it deems it expedient in the interest of public morality, decency, and public order,” and in particular does not allow the use of “a premises which, due to its location—especially if near buildings intended for instruction, education, or worship, or near barracks, markets, or other places of public gathering—may, in the judgment of the public security authority, offer occasion for scandal” (Consolidated Text cited, no. 773, art. 192). Furthermore, it regulates the life within the “houses.” Minors may not be admitted; for adult women, it must be established that they are free from contagious venereal diseases; for this purpose, they must be examined periodically; no woman may be detained against her will (art. 198). Men may not be admitted before the age of 18 (art. 196); even after that age, they may not enter with weapons of any kind, or pointed or cutting instruments capable of causing injury, or in a state of intoxication (art. 196); finally, in the house, “games, dances, parties of any kind, or the sale of food and beverages” may not be organized (art. 195). Above all, it is prohibited to possess or administer narcotic substances (art. 204).
The legislation of various states—or at least of many of them—is notably fluid. Thus, by virtue of the law of April 13, 1946, France moved from regulation to abolition; however, perhaps exaggerating the unhygienic consequences—due more than anything to a hasty application of the law—proposals for reopening have been presented to the Assembly.
Even in Italy, the abolitionist tendency has numerous and determined supporters. The Merlin bill of the Italian Socialist Party (P.S.I.) and the Caronia bill of the Christian Democracy (D.C.) are well known: although they differ on several points of no small importance, they agree in proposing the abolition of the “house,” either in absolute terms as desired in the Caronia bill (the operation of brothels is prohibited on state territory) (art. 1 of the bill), or in a more mitigated form as desired by Senator Merlin (the operation of brothels is prohibited throughout the national territory and in any territory under Italian administration) (art. 1 and 2 of the bill), understood as “any building, apartment, or other enclosed place where two or more women practice prostitution”). The Merlin bill, partially amended by the rapporteur Senator Boggiano-Pico, was approved by the Senate on March 5, 1952; approval by the Chamber of Deputies is now awaited.
THE ATTITUDE OF MORALISTS. — The moralists’ stance has not always been (and perhaps still is not) entirely uniform. More precisely: moralists usually distinguish two questions, that of the liceity of prostitution and that of its tolerability by the state.
As to the first question, there have never been doubts or disagreements among moralists. All unanimously and without hesitation condemn prostitution. For Catholic morality, it is clear that the use of the sexual faculty is lawful only within marriage, and even then under certain conditions; any other use of it for any reason and in any form is illicit. In particular, they adduce the following reasons: 1) due to its indiscriminate nature, the person who prostitutes herself and the one who uses her services accept from the outset the possibility of sexual relations even with persons previously bound by the marital bond, thus adding to the immorality of the abuse of the sexual faculty the specific malice of adultery; 2) the woman who prostitutes herself exposes herself to the occasion of adopting contraceptive or even abortive practices, thus adding to the malice of sexual abuse that of anonymous intercourse and abortion; 3) considering how prostitution is practiced, even where regulation exists, the woman exposes herself to the occasion and almost the necessity of compromising her own health, thus adding to the guilt for sexual abuse that for physical harm. For all these reasons, moralists condemn prostitution in all its forms. Nor does it matter much whether it is public or private, whether it occurs in “houses” or clandestinely. These determinations may, if anything, add further grounds for condemnation, but they cannot eliminate those already indicated.
Agreement ceases, however, when considering the attitude the state should assume. In this regard, there have been—especially in the past—two currents: according to some, the state may or even must tolerate prostitution; according to others, the state must prohibit II.
The first school, whose leading representatives are the professors of the ancient Carmelite college at Salamanca (cf. *Cursus theol. moral.*, Venice 1738; tr. XXVI, cap. 2, parte 4, § 2), and which still has some supporters today (e.g., J. Bricout, *Prostitution*, in *Dictionnaire pratique des connaissances religieuses*, V, col. 863), is based primarily on two sets of arguments: 1) the authority of the popes and theologians such as St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. It is well known that the popes tolerated prostitution in their own states; if rulers so sensitive to moral values adopted such an attitude, how can it be forbidden to other rulers? It is also well known that both St. Augustine and St. Thomas were tolerantists. The former is usually cited for a passage from *De ordine* II, cap. 4 (*Aufer meretrices de rebus humanis, turbaveris omnia libidinibus*: PL 32, 1000); the latter is recalled especially for two passages from the *Summa Theologiae* (I-II, q. 101, a. 3 ad 2: *Sapientis legislatoris est minores transgressiones permittere, ut maiores caveantur*; and II-II, q. 10, a. 11: *in regno humano illi qui praesunt, recte aliqua mala tolerant, ne aliqua bona impediantur, vel etiam ne aliqua mala peiora incurrantur*). 2) The other argument is that prohibiting prostitution would lead to greater evils.
The second school, whose most illustrious representative is St. Alphonsus Liguori (cf. *Theologia moralis*, III, n. 434, ed. L. Gaudé, Rome 1905, pp. 678-79), and which counts among its supporters almost all modern moralists (cf., e.g., C. Frassinetti, *Compendio della teologia morale di s. Alfonso*, 8th ed., Genoa 1882, n. 154, p. 237; P. Scavini, *Theologia moralis universalis*, I, 16th ed., Milan 1901, n. 768; L. Wouters, *Tractatus dogmatico-moralis de virtute castitatis*..., 2nd ed., Bruges 1932, p. 26; J. Aertnys - C. A. Damen, *Theologia moralis*, 11th ed., vol. I, n. 603, Turin 1928, p. 411; L. Piscetta - A. Gennaro, *Elementa theologiae moralis*, VII, 2nd ed., Turin 1934, n. 146, pp. 121-23, etc.), points out that by legalizing and regulating prostitution, the state brings about greater evils than it avoids, or even becomes complicit in “an organization that assumes the appearance of a public service to which young men would have a right to satisfy an irresistible urge without danger of venereal contamination” (J. Salsmans, *L'abolitionnisme*, in *Nouvelle revue théologique*, 52 [1925], pp. 553-54). As for the authority of St. Augustine and St. Thomas, they note that the former was only concerned with “distance”: hence his words are misused when transferred wholesale to the detailed organization of tolerance; St. Thomas, for his part, in the two passages cited, merely enunciates the general principle of tolerance without the slightest application to prostitution; here too his authority is misused by attributing to him an application he never made. Reflecting on the differing positions of the theologians, one cannot help feeling that the object under consideration by the opposing schools is not always the same. It seems, in fact, that what the so-called tolerantists do not wish to exclude is prostitution in its simplest form; in their view, some form of prostitution appears historically ineradicable, and thus the state may and must tolerate II. By contrast, what the so-called abolitionists seem to aim at is a specific form of prostitution, namely the state-regulated brothel, one admitted in some way as a legitimate, if dangerous, form of activity, legally protected and fiscally pursued. Beneath the apparent diversity, there may be greater agreement than might appear at first glance. Even the most ardent abolitionists admit that clandestine prostitution will always exist and must in some measure be tolerated (J. Salsmans, *op. cit.*, p. 553). In any case, if there is a divergence, it is not in principle but in the evaluation of the concrete circumstances that determine and vary its application. Both sides agree that the greater good must be sought and the lesser evil tolerated; they disagree, however, on where the lesser and greater evils lie.
Such a divergence should not be surprising. The social implications of tolerating or prohibiting prostitution are manifold and shifting; they vary from place to place and from time to time; in the same place and at the same time they present different and complex aspects; they depend on the degree of moral development, the economic and sanitary conditions of individual societies. It should not be surprising that theologians, living in different times and places, have given such disparate judgments: each has looked to his own time; each has considered matters from his own point of view, with the limitations and imperfections inherent in human nature, limited and wounded even in the most refined theologians and the most learned scholars. This should oblige us to frame the question with great precision and not to bind ourselves spiritually to one or another school of theologians. The question should be posed as follows: what is better today, in Italy, regarding organized prostitution? Should we continue with tolerance and regulation, or abolish it? And the answer should not come from the authority of a group of theologians, but from a careful consideration of present-day Italian reality. From such consideration it seems that the tolerance of brothels can no longer be admitted even in Italy. Undoubtedly, the brothel offers certain advantages for the common good: a certain protection against the spread of venereal disease and against the increase and spread of sexual provocation; but it generates very serious drawbacks. First, it greatly weakens moral sense: for many it is not easy to distinguish between “tolerating” and “permitting,” between permitting and approving; hence they are easily led to consider as approvable what is merely tolerated to avoid worse evils; moreover, the brothel greatly facilitates, especially for the weak-willed, the violation of the norm of conduct; finally, it almost inevitably leads to the commercial organization of sexual abuse and the trafficking of women.
In any case, however the question is resolved, it is absolutely necessary to distinguish between the individual question and the social question, within the latter between clandestine prostitution and organized prostitution, and regarding the latter between the principle of tolerance and its application; in its application, between one time and another, one place and another.
Finally, it cannot be emphasized enough that not everything is settled by the approval of a decree or the enactment of a law. There remains the entire work of vigilance and moral disinfection of the radio, the press, advertising, etc., so as to create as few obstacles as possible to the clarity of ideas and the realization of the will. There is no reason why certain protective measures should be enforced for poisons of the body and neglected for poisons of the spirit. Nor can it be said that a state has seriously eliminated prostitution when normally the vast majority of young men cannot marry at a suitable age or when a woman left alone—through a chance concatenation of events or the malice of men—has no other way to obtain bread for herself and her children than theft or prostitution.
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III. ETHNOLOGY
Prostitution does not exist among the most ancient ethnological peoples; among those of later civilization it exists only accidentally and sporadically.1) Among some totemistic peoples a kind of prostitution of women is connected with the so-called youth houses; those recesses, that is, which in most cases are established precisely to keep the young men of the tribe away from the women, to whom access is strictly forbidden, are the place where, among certain peoples, unrestrained commerce takes place between all the girls, or a certain part of them, and the young men of the clan. Ordinarily this is the case, as Father Schmidt notes, when, wishing to keep the young men free for warlike enterprises, marriage is postponed as long as possible, often until the thirtieth year of age. Prostitution is thus linked with the youth houses among the Nandi of East Africa, the Bororo of South America, and among several tribes of the Dravida and Munda in northern India, among the inhabitants of the islands of St. Croix, Yap, and Palau in Micronesia, where married men and women also participate in these activities. Among the Masai and Zulu of Africa, moreover, this kind of prostitution exists even without the institution of youth houses.
2) There is also sacred prostitution, which is twofold: casual and stable. In India it is linked with the cult of Durga, Kali, or Parvati, the wife of Śiva; there are Hindu sects, such as that of the Śakti, which has spread in Assam and Bengal, and that of the Thugs, prohibited in 1840, who in certain religious festivals perform actual sacrifices. In the temples, however, there are also women consecrated to prostitution for the devotees, who were called by the Portuguese “baiadere,” dancing women. There are also itinerant baiadere, invited to dance in public at festivals. According to Strabo, in Armenia the daughters of certain families were consecrated to Anahita and gave themselves to her worshippers. Among the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians there were various forms of sacred prostitution. Herodotus reports that in Babylon every woman had to give herself once in her life in the temple of Mylitta and had to leave the money she received there to the temple itself. Sacred prostitution was connected with the cult of Ištar, called the procreative mother (= ummu alittu, from which perhaps comes the name of Herodotus’ Mylitta) and prostitute of the gods. In the temples of Ištar, sacred prostitutes occupied special buildings. During the festivals of Ištar of Assur, orgies took place in a place called the house of women (bit astamme), or house of love (bit ru'ami).
The cult of Ištar from the land of the two rivers (Tigris and Euphrates) had spread wherever Assyro-Babylonian civilization had extended, even into the Hittite empire. Similar to the cult of Ištar was that of the goddess ‘Aserah of the Canaanites. The sacred prostitutes sat in the temple. The earnings from prostitution practiced in honor of the goddess were given to the temple treasury or spent on sacrifices. The same occurred in the cult of Aphrodite and Venus among the Greeks and Romans. It is said that in Acrocorinth, Aphrodite Pandemos had a famous sanctuary where a thousand prostitutes served the goddess. In the valley of the Ganges, virgins, before marriage, were forced to give themselves in the temple dedicated to Jaggernaut. The same custom existed in Pondicherry and Goa and among the ancient Phoenicians. Today it is believed that all these cults are pre-Indo-European and pre-Semitic and moreover linked with a lunar mythology; their origin must be sought ethnologically, though not directly, as Father Koppers notes (v. op. cit. in bibliography, p. 264), in the secret societies of the marital civilizations of primitive societies. Even the spring festivals among certain peoples, e.g., the Tai, have been noted for their erotic character. These are festivals in which public betrothals between the young people of two or more villages gathered for the occasion took place through songs alternating between the sexes, with games and dances, but they also had a magical character, because it was believed that sexual rites determined the fertility of the year. Indeed, even broader effects were attributed to the festivals. In fact, the Tai of the Chinese province of Kwangsi, according to what Beauvais reports, believed that if these gatherings were prevented or forbidden for any reason, the crops of the year would not ripen and numerous epidemic diseases would afflict the population.
3) Another kind of prostitution is that connected with hospitality. König, in his study on the “Law of the Polar Peoples,” says that it is a custom according to which the head of the family or clan offers the guest not only lodging and sustenance but also his wife or daughter. According to the same author, this custom is widespread among the Arctic peoples, though he found no traces of it among those of central northern Asia, except for the Tungus (Udche). It has, however, been found among the tribes of the coast of British Columbia and in Madagascar, where the daughter is offered. Such prostitution would be a sign of great honor and affection toward the guest. The Eskimos consider such hospitality generous. To hospitality prostitution is linked the so-called marriage with the belt, which exists among the T’ujen, a Turkic-Mongolian people of the Chinese province of Kansu, because it is occasioned by the custom of offering a daughter or a woman for the night to a passing guest. When the father offers his daughter to a passing guest, writes Father Schram, a missionary of the place, the guest must give his belt in exchange and leave it to the daughter. The guest leaves in the morning and perhaps will never return. But if the girl becomes pregnant, new clothes and a hat and the hairstyle of a married woman are made for her. Some neighbors are invited, the belt is placed on the red felt spread on the ground; the girl kneels and makes a great prostration to the belt, to her relatives, and to those present, declaring herself the wife of the guest. Later she will give her son the name of the guest, and she herself will be called by the same name by all her neighbors. The children who are born subsequently will continue to be called by the name of the guest. Strangely, however, these children are not recognized as having any right of inheritance in the family of their mother, being considered as children of a woman married to an individual of any other family.
4) One may call sporadic or occasional prostitution that which would be a kind of ius primae noctis. Among the Masai of East Africa, newly married men offer their own wife to one or two former comrades in arms. According to Merker, this custom is frequent, but not
General; however, if the husband refuses the concession, he is insulted and his companions steal some of his oxen without his being able to bring a complaint. Ancient authors report that among the Nasamones and the Angili, two Libyan tribes, the right of the first night was conceded to all the guests at the wedding. Gargilaso de la Vega says that in Peru, in the province of Manta, marriages were permitted on condition that the bride first gave herself to all the relatives and friends. According to Diodorus Siculus, on the Balearic Islands the bride, during the first night, was considered the common property of all the guests, after which she became the exclusive property of the husband. Langsdorf speaks of a similar custom also in Nuka-Hiva, where, however, the consent of the bride was required. A custom of this kind seems to have existed also in China, where during the first night the bride is left at the disposal of the groom’s friends; if she is a widow, she is left to the young men of the village. Among some other peoples, such as those of New South Wales, the Riverina, and the Wa-taia of central-eastern Asia, the right of the first night is connected with the ceremony of the bride’s abduction, after which she is made available to her abductors.
Among other peoples this right belonged to the priest, as among the Eskimos, the Caribs of Picache in Nicaragua (within the temple); among others it belonged to the chief or the king: thus it was among some Brazilian tribes, the Tahus of ancient Mexico, the natives of Tenerife (in the 15th century), and the Bagele in Adamawa; to the king among the ancient Adirmachidae (Herodotus) and on the Malabar coast, where the bride spent eight days in the king’s palace; in Russia the great landowners claimed it until the 18th century.
To this is related the custom of the Masai, according to which sexual relations are permitted between members of the same age class, whether married or not; moreover, a woman may have relations with all the age-mates of her husband. In any case, her consent is necessary for these relations within the said class; only if it is continually refused must the husband pay a fine. Something similar is found in pirarau in Australia (cf. POLYANDRY). Among the same Masai there is also the custom of occasionally exchanging wives; the children born of these exchanges, although they belong to the mother’s husband, call the natural father “father” as well. This custom has been observed also in North America, Polynesia, Greenland, and elsewhere, as a sign of great intimacy of friendship, or of noble character, or as an offering to obtain a favor from the gods (thus in Khamdu in eastern Tibet).
The right of the first night developed considerably in more advanced civilizations, so much so that it became the object of legislation. Among the ancient Mexicans brothels were not permitted, and public prostitutes were prosecuted when they gave themselves for the most part without payment if this led to scandal. There was the penalty of infamy for anyone who acted as an intermediary; his hair was burned with pitch. In more serious cases, such as when the role of intermediary was played by a married woman or a noble person, the penalty was death by hanging. At the time of the conquest of Mexico sodomy was very widespread and not only in the hospitable cities but also in the surrounding regions, especially in the coastal provinces of the Gulf of Mexico. For those guilty of sodomy the penalty was hanging; for priests it was burning. There was the death penalty for those who wore clothing not corresponding to their sex, precisely to prevent sodomy. Although the crime of bestiality was rare, it was punishable by death. The same penalty was established for the rapist, who, however, was exempt from any penalty if the rape had been committed with a public prostitute.
The right of the first night originated and developed through an abandonment of moral and religious values, a decline that was especially noted in the so-called secondary cultures in ethnology. P. Schmidt points out the right of the first night in the cultural cycle, which he calls that of free patriarchy. Of divorce, the subsequent increase of polygamy, and the right of the first night, woman primarily and principally suffered, being degraded to a level unknown to primitive and even later civilizations.