Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6: Sex in Relation to SocietyEllis, Havelock
Science
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6: Sex in Relation to Society
Ellis, Havelock
Sex; Sex (Psychology)
that she ought to be under the absolute control of the police.
The problem of prostitution, when we look at it narrowly, seems to be in
the same position to-day as at any time in the course of the past three
thousand years. In order, however, to comprehend the real significance of
prostitution, and to attain a reasonable attitude towards it, we must look
at it from a broader point of view; we must consider not only its
evolution and history, but its causes and its relation to the wider
aspects of modern social life. When we thus view the problem from a
broader standpoint we shall find that there is no conflict between the
claims of ethics and those of social hygiene, and that the coördinated
activity of both is involved in the progressive refinement and
purification of civilized sexual relationships.
_III. The Causes of Prostitution._
The history of the rise and development of prostitution enables us to see
that prostitution is not an accident of our marriage system, but an
essential constituent which appears concurrently with its other essential
constituents. The gradual development of the family on a patriarchal and
largely monogamic basis rendered it more and more difficult for a woman to
dispose of her own person. She belongs in the first place to her father,
whose interest it was to guard her carefully until a husband appeared who
could afford to purchase her. In the enhancement of her value the new idea
of the market value of virginity gradually developed, and where a "virgin"
had previously meant a woman who was free to do as she would with her own
body its meaning was now reversed and it came to mean a woman who was
precluded from having intercourse with men. When she was transferred from
her father to a husband, she was still guarded with the same care;
husband and father alike found their interest in preserving their women
from unmarried men. The situation thus produced resulted in the existence
of a large body of young men who were not yet rich enough to obtain wives,
and a large number of young women, not yet chosen as wives, and many of
whom could never expect to become wives. At such a point in social
evolution prostitution is clearly inevitable; it is not so much the
indispensable concomitant of marriage as an essential part of the whole
system. Some of the superfluous or neglected women, utilizing their money
value and perhaps at the same time reviving traditions of an earlier
freedom, find their social function in selling their favors to gratify the
temporary desires of the men who have not yet been able to acquire wives.
Thus every link in the chain of the marriage system is firmly welded and
the complete circle formed.
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