When the appropriation of women, polygamic as much as possible, became general, the more than fickle instincts of primitive man persisted none the less; and, as a matter of fact, it is then that prostitution, in the modern sense of the word, first arose. Outside the majority of women, regularly belonging to husband-proprietors, there existed, in much smaller numbers, women trafficking their persons, either voluntarily for their own profit, or for that of their legal possessors. At Senaar, for example, and in many other countries, merchants and slave-dealers trade very profitably in their feminine live stock. We know also that, in primitive Athens, the most eminent men possessed troops of prostitutes, and drew a large revenue from them; for it is very slowly that prostitution, and all that relates to it, has awakened any scruple in the human conscience. Even at the most glorious period of Hellenic civilisation, with what consideration were the most distinguished hetaïræ still regarded, since Socrates and Pericles willingly met at the house of Aspasia! In all the more or less cultivated societies of the old or new world prostitution has flourished or continues to flourish. It is even in refined societies alone that prostitution becomes specialised and legalised, and ends by being regulated, by becoming, in short, a kind of institution, supplementing legal marriage and being concurrent with it. Everywhere--in all countries, and among all races--prostitution has been, or continues to be, tolerated, and sometimes even honoured. It existed in the great states of Central America, in ancient Peru, in ancient Mexico, and in Nicaragua, where there were already prostitutes and brothels. In this last country the morals were still so impure, and continence, although very relative, so difficult to bear, that at a certain annual festival the women of all classes were authorised to abandon themselves to whomsoever they pleased.[452] In the great societies founded by the Mongoloid races, or the Mongols of Asia, prostitution displays itself in the open day. In China, tea-houses abound, although the ancient morality of the Celestial Empire makes chastity a moral duty for unmarried girls and women. In Cochin-China and Japan, on the contrary,[453] practice and theory are in accord. No moral brand of shame attaches to the prostitute. In Cochin-China, says Finlayson,[454] a father has the right to give his daughter, for a small sum of money, to a visitor or even a stranger, without the reputation of the young girl suffering any harm, and without any hindrance to her finding a suitable husband afterwards. In Japan the tea-houses (_tsiaya_) are more numerous still than in China; in the large towns they form vast quarters, and some of them are very luxurious. The mode of recruiting for inmates seems at first improbable to a European, and this alone suffices to show the relativity of morality.