We have already studied prostitution. It is the sale of voluptuousness, the possession of bodies without love, the swindling and deceiving of nature; and if nature, only too often cruel, causes a new creature to be generated through a purchased embrace, that creature will enter the world with the mark of infamy on its brow, and, anonymous child of vice, will be cast by society into the most obscure corner of the social vaults, where the things lie which we wish to efface, forget and allow to die. Prostitution is a safety-valve only too necessary in our immoral and hypocritical society, wretchedly constituted, and it exists to prove with most cruel eloquence that many men cannot love, that very many men should not love. We have also dealt with rape in the house of others. Even this greatest of the crimes of love we have been compelled to discuss: secret agreement of two traitors who, in the shadow of a social and holy compact, violate the faith of the family and bastardize the world; vile contract of the thief with the procurer, who assassinate in the dark and conceal the victim in the wide folds or the deep fissures of our written codes. Concubinage in many imperfect societies, and even among us, is a form of matrimony which lacks only religious and civil consecration. It is more despicable for its origin than for the nature of the compact that binds it, because if it lasted eternally, supported only by the word of honor of two creatures who love each other, it would be a true and proper marriage, sealed by the faith of two lovers. Only too often, however, concubinage has an obscure and even shameful origin: it is domestic lechery which has become a habit; it is a vulgar custom that has a periodical type: mustiness of the kitchen or stench of the hospital. Born between the Turkish babooshes and the nightcaps, between the after-dinner yawns and the advices of the hygienist, it has a tinge of prostitution and rape, but knows neither the inebriation of the one nor the pungent remorse of the other. It is a vulgar pickpocket, who begs pardon of the public and is ashamed of himself and weeps when caught in the act; it is something low, plebeian and shameful, that does not admit of public confession, and hides like a wound in the leg or a false tooth; it debases love to pygmy proportions, lowers the level of the spouse and elevates that of the chambermaid. It is an upstart who can dress well, but smells of the stable; a despicable, often even ridiculous creature, who is merely tolerated.