The History of Prostitution: Its Extent, Causes, and Effects throughout the WorldSanger, William W.
History
The History of Prostitution: Its Extent, Causes, and Effects throughout the World
Sanger, William W.
Prostitution
Still, notwithstanding this falling off, it would appear that Athens was
more moral than her neighbors, Corinth and Sparta. The former, then the
most flourishing sea-port of Greece, was filled with a very low class of
prostitutes. No laws regulated the subject. Any female who chose could
open house for the accommodation of travelers and seamen, and, though
Corinth was yet far from the proverbial celebrity it afterward obtained
for its prostitutes, there is no doubt they bore a fearful proportion to
the aggregate population of the port. At Sparta the case was different. In
the system of legislation which bears the name of Lycurgus, the individual
was sacrificed to the state; the female to the male. Women were educated
for the sole purpose of bearing robust children. Virgins were allowed to
wrestle publicly with men. Girls were habited in a robe open at the
skirts, which only partially concealed the person in walking, whence the
Spartan women acquired an uncomplimentary name.[30] A Spartan husband was
authorized to lend his wife to any handsome man for the purpose of
begetting children. That these laws, the skillfully contrived appeals to
the sensual appetites, and the constant spectacle of nude charms, must
have led to a general profligacy among the female sex, is quite obvious.
Aristotle affirms positively that the Spartan women openly committed the
grossest acts of debauchery.[31] Hence it may be inferred that prostitutes
by profession were unnecessary at Sparta, at all events until a late
period of its history.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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