Prostitution

PROSTITUTION. — This is sexual activity carried out outside marriage, especially by women and usually for profit, with anyone who requests II. It is said “especially by women” because examples of men are not lacking; “usually for profit” because this is its principal motive. Not infrequently, this activity appears in public forms and is even organized as though it were an ordinary service. This organized activity is more properly called p. Its fundamental characteristic is professionalism.

Because of this characteristic, p. has quite different consequences. On the moral level, it facilitates, especially among the young, intemperance in the exercise of sexual activity; at the same time, however, it removes the dangers of seduction. On the public-health level, it can easily be a vehicle for venereal diseases.
I. P. AND PUBLIC AUTHORITY, PARTICULARLY IN ITALY. - With regard to it, public authority has historically adopted the most diverse attitudes: from the most complete and drastic prohibition to explicit recognition.

In recent centuries, the attitudes most widespread among civilized peoples were two: tolerance and regulation of the « house », and its abolition. The second group includes: Bulgaria, Ceoslovacchia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Yugoslavia, Luxembourg, Malta, Gibraltar, Norway, Holland, Poland, U.R.S.S., Sweden, Switzerland, Hungary, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, the United States, Japan, various States of India, South Africa, New Zealand, etc. Italy belongs, among others, to the first group. The surveillance service concerning p. was initially regulated in Italy by the regulation of 15 September 1860, then by ministerial decrees of 1888, by the regulation approved by royal decree of 27 October 1891, by the new Consolidated Text of the law on public security, approved by royal decree of 18 June 1931, no. 773, and by the regulation approved by royal decree of 6 May 1940, no. 635.

Current Italian legislation does not prohibit the « house », but regulates II. First of all, it controls its opening, reserving the right, for example, to prohibit it « whenever it deems this appropriate in the interest of public morality, public decency and public order », and in particular does not permit « the use of premises which, by reason of their location and especially because they are near buildings intended for instruction, education or worship, or near barracks, markets or other places of public assembly, may, in the judgment of the Public Security Authority, provide an occasion for scandal » (cited Consolidated Text, no. 773, no. 192). It also regulates the life of the « house » itself. Minor women may not be admitted to it; in the case of adult women, it must be established that they are free from contagious manifestations of venereal diseases; for this purpose they must undergo periodic examinations; moreover, no woman may be detained there against her will (art. 198). Males may not be admitted before the age of 18 (art. 196); thereafter, they may not enter carrying weapons of any kind, or pointed or cutting instruments capable of causing injury, or while intoxicated (art. 196); finally, « games, dances, festivities of any kind, or the sale of food and beverages » may not be organized in the house (art. 195). Above all, the possession or administration of narcotic substances is prohibited (art. 204).

The legislation of the various States—or at least of many of them—is notably fluid. Thus, by virtue of the law of 13 April 1946, France moved from regulation to abolition; now, however, perhaps exaggerating the hygienic consequences, attributable above all to a hasty application of the law, proposals for reopening have been submitted to the Assembly.

In Italy too, the abolitionist tendency has numerous and determined supporters. The Merlin bill of the P.S.I. and the Caronia bill of the D. C. are well known: although differing on not a few points, and on points of no little importance, they agree in proposing the abolition of the « house », either in absolute form, as desired in the Caronia bill (« The operation of brothels is prohibited within the territory of the State » [art. 1 of the bill]), or in a more mitigated form, as desired by Senator Merlin (The operation of houses of p... is prohibited throughout the national territory and in every territory subject to the administration of Italian authorities, 'house of p.' being understood to mean any building, apartment or other enclosed place in which two or more women practice p. « [arts. 1 and 2 of the bill]). The Merlin bill, partly amended by the rapporteur of the bill, Senator Boggiano-Pico, was approved by the Senate on 5 March 1952; approval by the Chamber is now awaited.
II. THE ATTITUDE OF MORALISTS. – The attitude of moralists, too, has not always been (and perhaps is not yet) entirely uniform. Or, more precisely: moralists usually distinguish two questions, that of the licitness of p. and that of its tolerability on the part of the State.

As regards the first question, there are, nor have there ever been, any doubts or disagreements among moralists. All unanimously and without hesitation condemn p. For Catholic morality takes it as settled that the use of the sexual faculty is licit only in marriage, and even there subject to certain conditions; every other use of it, for whatever reason and in whatever form, is illegitimate. In particular, they also advance the following reasons: 1) because of its indiscriminate character, the person who prostitutes herself and the person who makes use of her accept from the outset the possibility of having sexual relations even with persons previously bound by the marriage bond, thus adding to the immorality of the abuse of the sexual faculty the specific culpability of adultery; 2) the woman who prostitutes herself places herself in the occasion of adopting contraceptive or even abortive practices, thus adding to the malice of sexual abuse that specific to onanism and abortion; 3) bearing in mind the manner in which p. is practised, even where regulation is in force, the woman places herself in the occasion and almost the necessity of compromising her own health, thus adding to the guilt of sexual abuse that arising from her own physical impairment. For all these reasons moralists condemn p. in all its forms. Nor does it matter greatly whether it is public or private, whether it occurs in “houses” or clandestinely. These circumstances may, at most, add other grounds for condemnation; they cannot eliminate those indicated.

Agreement ceases, however, when one turns to consider the attitude that the State ought to assume. In this regard there are—above all, there were in the past—two currents: according to some, the State may, or indeed must, tolerate p.; according to others, the State must prohibit II.
The first current, whose principal representatives are the professors of the former Carmelite College of Salamanca (cf. Cursus theol. moral., Venice 1728; tr. XXVI, chap. 2, part 4ᵃ, § 2), and which still has some supporters today (e.g., J. Bricout, Prostitution, in Dict. pratique des connaissances, religieuses, V, col. 863), is based chiefly on two sets of reasons: 1) the authority of the popes and of theologians such as s. Augustine and s. Thomas; it is well known, in fact, that the popes tolerated p. in their States; now, if rulers so sensitive to moral values adopted such an attitude, how could it be prohibited to other rulers? It is also well known that both s. Augustine and s. Thomas were tolerant. The former is usually cited for a passage from the De ordine I, II, chap. 4 (Aufer meretrices de rebus humanis, turbaveris omnia libidinis: PL 32, 1000); of the latter, two passages from the Summ. Theol. are chiefly recalled (1ᵃ-2ᵃ, q. 101, a. 3 ad 2: Sapientis legislatoris est minores transgressiones permittere, ut maiores cævantur; and 2ᵃ-2ᵃ, q. 10, a. 11 c.: in regno humano illi qui præsentant, recte aliqua mala tolerant, ne aliqua bona impediantur, vel etiam ne aliqua mala peiora incurrantur). 2) The other reason is that prohibition of p. would produce greater evils.

The second current, whose most illustrious representative is s. Alfonso (cf. Theol. mor., I, III, n. 434, ed. L. Gaudé, I, Rome 1905, pp. 678–79) and which counts among its supporters almost all recent moralists (cf., e.g., C. Frassinetti, Comp. della teol. morale di s. Alfonso, 8ª ed., Genoa 1882, n. 154, p. 237; P. Scavini, Theol. mor. universa, I, 16ª ed., Milan 1901, n. 768; L. Wouters, Tract. dogmatico-moralis de virtute castitatis... ed. altera, Bruges 1932, p. 26; J. Aertnys – C. A. Damen, Theol. mor., 11ª ed., tr. I, n. 603, Turin 1928, p. 411; L. Piscetta – A. Gennaro, Elem. theol. mor., VII, 2ª ed., Turin 1934, n. 146, pp. 121–23, etc.), points out that, by admitting the “house” and regulating it, the State brings about greater evils than those it avoids, when it does not actually become an accomplice in “an organization which assumes the appearance of a public service to which young men would have a right in order to satisfy an irresistible appetite without danger of venereal contamination” (J. Salamans, L'abolitionnisme, in Nouvo. rev. théol., 52 [1925], p. 553 ff.). As for the authority of s. Augustine and s. Thomas, they point out that the former had in mind only clandestine p.: hence his words are abused when they are transferred without further qualification to the meticulous organization of tolerance; s. Thomas, moreover, in the two passages cited, does nothing more than enunciate the general principle of tolerance, without the slightest application to p.; here too his authority is abused by attributing to him an application that he in no way made. On reflecting upon the differing positions of the theologians, one cannot dispel the impression that the object examined by the opposing currents is not always the same. Indeed, it seems that what the so-called tolerationists do not wish to exclude is p. in the simple and unqualified sense; in their view, some form of p. appears historically ineradicable and therefore the State may and must tolerate II. On the other hand, what the so-called abolitionists seem to be aiming at is a specific form of p., namely that of the “house” regulated by the State, admitted in some way as a legitimate, though dangerous, form of activity, legally protected and fiscally prosecuted. Beneath the apparent diversity there may perhaps be greater agreement than might appear upon a first, hasty comparison. Even the most ardent abolitionists admit that clandestine p. “will always be practised and must to some extent be tolerated” (J. Salamans, op. cit., p. 553). In any case, if there is divergence, it is not in the principle but in the assessment of the concrete circumstances that determine and vary its application. Both sides hold that one must seek the greater good and tolerate the lesser evil; they would not agree in identifying where the lesser evil and the greater evil lie.

This divergence should not be surprising. The social effects of tolerating and prohibiting p. are multiple and changeable; they vary from place to place and from one period to another; in the same place and at the same time they present diverse and complex aspects; they depend on the degree of moral development and on the economic and sanitary conditions of individual societies. It should not be surprising that theologians who lived in different times and places have reached such divergent judgments: each looked to his own time; each considered matters from his own point of view, with the limitations and imperfections proper to human nature, which is limited and wounded even in the most refined theologians and the most erudite scholars. This should oblige us to formulate the question very precisely and not to bind ourselves a priori to one or another theological school. The question should be posed as follows: what is better today, in Italy, with regard to organized p.? Should tolerance and regulation be continued, or should they be abolished? And the answer should come not from the authority of a group of theologians, but from a careful consideration of present-day Italian reality. Such consideration seems to indicate that toleration of the “house” can no longer be admitted, even in Italy. Undoubtedly, the house offers advantages for the common good: a certain protection against the spread of venereal diseases and against the intensification and expansion of sexual solicitation; but it creates extremely serious disadvantages. First of all, it contributes considerably to weakening the moral sense: for many people it is not easy to distinguish between “tolerating” and permitting, between permitting and approving; hence they are easily led to regard as approvable what is merely tolerated in order to avoid worse evils; moreover, the house greatly facilitates, especially for the weak-willed, the violation of the rule of conduct; finally, it makes the commercial organization of sexual abuse and the white slave trade almost inevitable.

In any case, however the question indicated may be resolved, it is absolutely necessary to distinguish between the individual question and the social question; within the latter, between clandestine p. and organized p.; with regard to the latter, between the principle of tolerance and its application; and, in applying it, between one period and another, one place and another.

Finally, it can never be repeated often enough that nothing is resolved merely by approving a decree or issuing a law. There remains the whole task of vigilance and of the moral disinfection of radio, the press, advertising, etc., so as to create as few obstacles as possible to the correctness of ideas and to the realization of the will. It is not clear why certain protective measures should be imposed against poisons of the body and neglected against those of the spirit. Still less can it be said that a State has seriously eliminated p. when normally the overwhelming majority of young people cannot marry at a suitable age, or when a woman left alone—through the fortuitous intersection of events or through the malice of men—has no other way of procuring bread for herself and her children than theft or prostitution.

1) Among certain totemistic peoples, a form of prostitution among women is connected with the so-called men’s houses; these retreats—that is, places established in most cases precisely to keep the young men away from the women of the tribe, who are strictly forbidden to enter—are, among certain peoples, the place where an unrestrained commerce takes place between all the girls, or a particular portion of them, and the young men of the clan. Ordinarily, as Fr. Schmidt observes, this occurs when, in order to keep the young men free for warlike enterprises, marriage is delayed as long as possible, often until the age of thirty. Prostitution is thus connected with the men’s houses among the Nandi of East Africa, the Bororo of South America, and several tribes of the Dravida and Munda in the Indian subcontinent, as well as among the inhabitants of the islands of S. Crux, Yap, and Palau in Micronesia, where married men and women also participate in these excesses. Among the Masai and the Zulu of Africa, this form of prostitution also exists without the institution of men’s houses.

2) There is also sacred prostitution, which is of two kinds: casual and permanent. In India it is connected with the worship of Durga, Kali, or Parvati, the wife of Siva; there are Hindu sects, such as that of the Sciakti, which has followers in Assam and Bengal, and that of the Thug, prohibited in 1840, whose members engage in genuine orgies during certain religious festivals. In the temples there are also women consecrated to prostitution for the benefit of the devotees, whom the Portuguese called “baiaderes,” dancing women. There are also itinerant baiaderes, 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. Various forms of sacred prostitution existed among the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians. Herodotus reports that in Babylon it was customary for every woman once in her life to give herself in the temple of Mylitta, and to leave the money she received for this with the temple itself. Sacred prostitution was connected with the worship of Ištar, called the procreating mother (= ummu alittu, from which the name Mylitta in Herodotus may perhaps derive) and prostitute of the gods. In the temples of Ištar, the sacred prostitutes occupied special buildings. During the festivals of Ištar of Assur, orgies took place in a place called the house of the women (bit aštamme), or the house of love (bit ru'ōm).

The worship of Ištar, from the Valley of the Two Rivers (the Tigris and Euphrates), had spread wherever Assyro-Babylonian civilization had extended, reaching even the Hittite Empire of Asia Minor. Similar to the worship of Ištar was that of the Canaanite goddess ‘Ašerah. The sacred prostitutes sat in the temple. The proceeds from prostitution practiced in honor of the goddess were assigned to the temple treasury or spent on sacrifices. The same occurred in the worship of Aphrodite and Venus among the Greeks and Romans. It is said that in Acrocorinth Aphrodite Pandemos had a famous shrine where a thousand prostitutes served the goddess. In the valley of the Ganges, before marriage, virgins were forced to give themselves in the temple dedicated to Jaggernaut. The same custom existed at Pondicherry and Goa and among the ancient Phoenicians. Today it is held that all these cults were pre-Indo-European and pre-Semitic and were furthermore connected with a lunar mythology; their origin should be sought ethnologically, although not directly, as Koppers observes (v. op. cit. in bibl., p. 264), in the secret societies of primitive matriarchal agrarian civilizations. The erotic character of spring festivals among certain peoples, for example the Tai, has also been noted. These were festivals during which betrothals took place publicly, with alternating songs sung by young men and women of the two sexes, with games and dances, among the youth of two or more villages gathered for the occasion; but they also had a magical character, because it was believed that sexual rites determined the fertility of the year. Indeed, even more extensive effects were attributed to the festivals. Thus, the Tai of the Chinese province of Kuang-si believed, according to Beauvais, that if these gatherings were prevented or prohibited for any reason, the crops of the year would not reach maturity and numerous epidemic diseases would afflict the population.

3) Another form of prostitution is that connected with hospitality. In his study on “The Law of the Polar Peoples,” König describes it as a custom according to which the head of a 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 Arctic peoples, although he found no trace of it among those of central northern Asia, except the Tungus (Udche). It has, on the contrary, 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 regard such hospitality as generous. Connected with hospitality prostitution is the so-called marriage with the belt, which exists among the T’u-jen, a Turco-Mongol people of the Chinese province of Kan-su, because it arises from 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 Fr. Schram, a missionary of the region, the guest must give his belt in exchange and leave it with the girl. The guest departs in the morning and perhaps will never return. But if the girl becomes pregnant, she is given new clothes, a hat, and the hairstyle of a married woman. Some neighbors are invited; the belt is placed on the red felt spread on the ground; the girl kneels and makes a great prostration before the belt, her relatives, and those present, declaring herself the guest’s wife. Later she will give her son the guest’s name, and she herself will be called by that same name by all her neighbors. Any further children born will continue always to be called by the guest’s name. It is strange, however, that these children are granted no inheritance rights in their mother’s family, since they are regarded as the children of a woman married to some individual belonging to another family.

4) One may call sporadic or occasional prostitution that which would constitute a kind of ius primae noctis. Among the Masai of East Africa, newly married men offer their wives to one or two former companions in war. According to Merker, this custom is frequent, but not ge-

general, though if the husband refuses the concession, he is insulted and his companions steal some oxen from him, without his being able to bring a complaint against them. Ancient authors report that among the Nasamones and the Angili, two Libyan tribes, the ius primae noctis was granted to all those invited to the wedding. Gargilaso de la Vega says that in Peru, in the province of Manta, marriages were permitted on condition that the bride first give herself to all the relatives and friends. According to Diodorus Siculus, in the Balearic Islands the bride, during the first night, was regarded as the common property of all the guests, and then became the exclusive property of her husband. Langsdorf speaks of a similar custom in Nuša-Hiva, where, however, the bride’s consent was required. It seems that such a custom also existed in China, where during the first night the bride was left at the disposal of the bridegroom’s friends, or, if she was a widow, of the young men of the village. Among certain other peoples, such as those of New South Wales, the Riverina, and the Wa-taita of central-eastern Asia, the ius primae noctis is connected with the ceremony of the bride’s abduction, after which she is placed at the disposal of her abductors. Among other peoples this ius was reserved for the priest, as among the Eskimos and the Caribs for the Piache, in Nicaragua (within the temple); among still others, for the chief or king: thus among certain Brazilian tribes, among the Tahua of ancient Mexico, among the indigenous people of Teneriffe (in the fifteenth century), and the Bagele of Adamaua; for the king among the ancient Adirmachidae (Herodotus) and on the coasts of Malabar, where the bride spent eight days in the king’s palace; in Russia, the great landowners claimed it until the eighteenth century.

Connected with p. is the custom of the aforementioned Masai, according to which sexual relations are permitted among members of the same age class, whether married or unmarried; moreover, a woman may have relations with all the companions in her husband’s age class. In any event, her consent is necessary for these relations within the said class, although, if it is continually refused, the husband must pay a fine. Something similar is found in the pirraura in Australia (v. POLIANDRIA). Among the Masai themselves there also exists the custom of exchanging wives from time to time; the children born of these exchanges, although they belong to their mother’s husband, also call their natural father “father.” The custom has also been observed in North America, Polynesia, Greenland, and elsewhere, as a sign of great intimate friendship, of noble character, or as an offering made to obtain a favor from the gods (thus at Caindu in eastern Tibet).

P. developed considerably in more advanced civilizations, and consequently became the object of legislation. Among the ancient Mexicans, brothels were not permitted, and action was taken against public prostitutes when they generally gave themselves without payment, if this caused scandal. The penalty of infamy was imposed on the intermediary: his hair was burned with torches of pitch. In the more serious cases, such as when the intermediary was 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, not only in the hospitable cities but also in the surrounding regions, especially in the coastal provinces of the Gulf of Mexico. Those guilty of sodomy were punished by hanging, and priests by burning at the stake. The death penalty was imposed on those who wore clothing not corresponding to their sex, precisely in order to prevent sodomy. Although the crime of bestiality was rare, it was punishable by death. The same penalty was established for the rapist, who nevertheless escaped all punishment if the rape had been committed with a public prostitute.

P. originated and developed through a lowering of moral and religious values, a decline observed especially in the civilizations called, in ethnology, secondary. Fr. Schmidt points to p. in the cultural cycle which he calls that of free patriarchy. Divorce, the growth of successive and simultaneous polygamy, and p. were first and principally felt by woman, who was degraded to a level unknown in primitive and even later civilizations.