Society in England seems resolutely determined not to face and answer the question: Is prostitution necessary or unnecessary? If it is necessary to the kind of civilization we have evolved, then the only honourable, the only humane, the only magnanimous course to take, is to face it bravely and honestly, and do all we can for those women who are contributing their lives to a public service, just as we do all we can for soldiers and sailors in war-time, and for all public workers who perform useful and dangerous duties for the public weal. If it is unnecessary, then steps should be taken to find out why it continues to exist, what flaw in our social system accounts for its survival, despite the fact that it is superfluous; and how that flaw can be best removed. The general consensus of opinion among European legislators and the European public must be to the effect that prostitution is necessary. It is inconceivable that it should be allowed to survive as flourishingly as it does in England and on the Continent, if public opinion and the legislators in each country could find no excuse for it. What is still more inconceivable, however, is the diabolical hypocrisy of a public, which at the same time tacitly assents to it as a social need, and yet covers with shame and contempt those who devote their lives to making it possible. Truth to tell, there are many grave reasons why prostitution[122] still constitutes a necessary adjunct to our topsy-turvy, hare-brained social system, and as long as it remains as topsy-turvy and hare-brained as it is, the prostitute will continue to be indispensable. In view of this fact, it is but rational, not to mention humane, to regard with more solicitude and charity those who from what motive, or through what circumstances soever, supply the means for its existence. I will touch but lightly on two aspects of society which seem to contribute chiefly to the causes making prostitution a public necessity. I refer to (_a_) the virgin ideal in marriage, or _parthenogamy_, and (_b_) the economic system which compels thousands among the men of the struggling classes to marry at a date very much later than their physiological development would indicate as reasonable.[123] (_a_) In order to preserve the custom of parthenogamy in conjunction with (_b_) it is obvious that there must be some safety-valve, some outlet for the expression of virile passions, which while being normal is capable of safeguarding a certain large body of virgins annually, and of preserving them from pre-connubial amours. The fact that, at present, this safety-valve or outlet, though countenanced by society, is entirely neglected, despised and concealed by the public, and is thus allowed to breed many evils which are not necessary to prostitution _per se_, is not so much a reflection on the prostitute as upon the administration which leaves this department of social life utterly uncared for and unorganized.