That modesty and chastity, which we now esteem as the chief ornament of
the female character, does not appear in times of remote antiquity to
have been much regarded by either sex. At Babylon, the capital of the
Assyrian empire, it was so little valued, that a law of the country
even obliged every woman once in her life to depart from it. This
abominable law, which, it is said, was promulgated by an oracle,
ordained, That every woman should once in her life repair to the temple
of Venus; that on her arrival there, her head should be crowned with
flowers, and in that attire, she should wait till some stranger
performed with her the rites sacred to the goddess of debauchery.
This temple was constructed with a great many winding galleries
appropriated to the reception of the women, and the strangers who,
allured by debauchery, never failed to assemble there in great numbers,
being allowed to choose any woman they thought proper from among those
who came there in obedience to the law. When the stranger accosted the
object of his choice, he was obliged to present her with some pieces of
money, nor was she at liberty to refuse either these, or the request of
the stranger who offered them, whatever was the value of the money, or
however mean or disagreeable the donor. These preliminaries being
settled, they retired together to fulfil the law, after which the woman
returned and offered the goddess the sacrifice prescribed by custom, and
then was at liberty to return home. Nor was this custom entirely
confined to the Babylonians; in the island of Cyprus they sent young
women at stated times to the sea-shore, where they prostituted
themselves to Venus, that they might be chaste the rest of their lives.
In some other countries, a certain number only were doomed to
prostitution, as it is supposed, by way of a bribe, to induce the
goddess of debauchery to save the rest.
When a woman had once entered the temple of Venus, she was not allowed
to depart from it till she had fulfilled the law: and it frequently
happened that those to whom nature had been less indulgent than to
others, remained there a long time before any person offered to perform
with them the condition of their release. A custom, we think, some times
alluded to in scripture, and expressly delineated in the book of Baruch:
"The women also, with cords about them, sitting in the ways, burn bran
for perfume; but, if any of them, drawn by some that passeth by, lie
with him, she reproacheth her fellow that she was not thought worthy as
herself, nor her cord broken." Though this infamous law was at first
strictly observed by all the women of Babylon, yet it would seem that,
in length of time, they grew ashamed of, and in many cases dispensed
with it; for we are informed that women of the superior ranks of life,
who were not willing literally to fulfil the law, were allowed a kind of
evasion; they were carried in litters to the gates of the temple, where,
having dismissed all their attendants, they entered alone, presented
themselves before the statue of the goddess, and returned home. Possibly
this was done by the assistance of a bribe, to those who had the care of
the temple.