THE ECONOMIC PROBLEM
(4) THE PROSTITUTE
“Jenny, you know the city now.
A child can tell the tale there, how
Some things which are not yet enroll’d
In market lists are bought and sold
Even till the early Sunday light,
When Saturday night is market-night
Everywhere, be it dry or wet,
And market-night in the Haymarket.
…
Of the same lump (as it is said)
For honour and dishonour made,
Two sister vessels. Here is one.
It makes a goblin of the sun.”
D. G. ROSSETTI.
When considering the reasons for women’s lower wages, reference was made
to the fact that women had other sources of income than those derived
from their work; and no discussion of the economic position of women
would be honest which did not take into account the undoubted fact that
women can make more money by the sale of their bodies than in any other
way. This may sound an extreme statement, but it is advisedly made.
Kings have given their mistresses titles, and have made their sons
peers. How many women have been ennobled for any other services? While
a first-class university woman rarely gets a higher salary than five
hundred pounds a year, an illiterate courtesan, if she plays her cards
well and has luck, may dip her hands into millions. The two cynical
volumes of Emil Reich, entitled, _Woman through the Ages_, give proof of
those qualities in woman which man has chosen to reward with the highest
titles and the greatest riches. Every poor sweated girl knows she can in
one night double her week’s wage if she chooses. This is a fact. If we do
not fearlessly face it, we may as well give up talking about the women’s
movement, for it will only be play. The clearest knowledge, the closest
thinking, are wanted on the part of women and men; hitherto, except for
those personally involved either as buyers or sellers, knowledge has been
confined to the police (almost entirely occupied with penalising one
only of the two parties to the transactions), to doctors and nurses and
officials of workhouses and asylums of many sorts, and to a small body of
rescue-workers. The list is significant.
It is to be wished that this subject could be approached free from the
falseness of sentimentality. It is not possible, nor is it desirable
to abolish all feeling when we come to act. Feeling is the property of
sentient beings, and actions are not right or wrong quite independently
of their effects on feeling. Women do well to feel intensely in matters
so closely affecting themselves, their sisters, their children and
their husbands. We are sometimes told that women must be kept out of
dealing with these things, because of their emotionalism: yet is it
not the passions and appetites of men which largely create the whole
problem, and are we to believe that men, when they come to making laws
and regulations, forget their passions and appetites, and become as
gods? We all know they do not, and the feeling of women is every bit as
respectable and deserving of attention. So we must feel, and we do well
to feel, when we come to act; but when we are studying the facts,—the
deeds of men and of women, and their consequences,—it is well to banish
feeling for a time, so that we may _know_ first.
It has been the easy custom of most men to divide women crudely into good
and bad. The good woman is superhuman, and she is a very homogeneous and
monotonous sort of person; the bad woman is subhuman, but often very
amusing and attractive. The good woman is put on a pedestal, where she
finds life very restricted and dull; the bad woman is segregated, either
literally or metaphorically, into compounds, where the delusion is nursed
that she will not infect the good woman, either with her wickedness or
her diseases. This is all unreal and tiresome and stupid and harmful
enough, but there is little to choose between it and a view of woman
which is too often put forward by women themselves, and that is the
view that all women are angels, and so angelic that nothing can corrupt
them. We may reverence the soul in every living person, we may keep our
faith strong in the miraculous power of recovery, we may humbly own that
none of us is entitled to cast a stone, we may even have come to see
that stone-throwing has not a reforming influence, and yet, if we are
honest, we must admit that there are women who have no personal pride
and no reverence for the body: covetous women; cold women, who do not
know the purification of passion; sensual women, who know only appetite;
lazy women; vain women; cowardly women. It is cant to insist that we
must reverence such women, any more than we would reverence covetous,
cold, sensual, lazy, vain or cowardly men. The life of prostitution tends
to encourage all these vices; that is one of the strongest reasons for
hating the life; but, undoubtedly, some persons have more aptitude for it
than others.
The questions we must ask ourselves are: (1) What is prostitution? (2) Is
it an evil? (3) Is it necessary? (4) If it is not necessary, how can it
be checked or prevented?
It is not easy to find a definition of prostitution which will be
accepted by all. I propose to define it as the yielding up for material
advantages only of something which should be given for other purposes.
A man prostitutes his pen if he takes money for writing lies; it is no
prostitution if he accepts money for writing what he believes to be
truth. A woman prostitutes her body when she yields it to a man for
whom she has no love, in return for money; it is not prostitution if
she accepts money from the man she loves. Many other definitions are
possible, but if we take this one, we have to admit that there is a vast
deal of prostitution within the marriage state, and here, in addition to
material advantage, there is often the added sop of social position. Even
when not entered into for gain, the marriage is often persisted in for
that motive. The effects on men and women and children are bad, but no
one has even suggested that reform should be introduced by any methods
other than educational ones: to give every girl the means of earning a
decent livelihood, so that she is not forced into marriage as into a
trade; to encourage reverence for the body and faith in the clean passion
of love in both men and women; to create a healthy public opinion in
which traffic in the appetites is regarded as repulsive, so that it will
be thought as shameful for men to buy as for women to sell gratification;
these are the only possible ways of dealing with loveless marriages. What
is commonly known as prostitution is, however, carried on outside of
marriage, and is promiscuous. It arises from the fact that large numbers
of men either have no wife or find one woman insufficient for their
gratification.
I have said that there are large numbers. Estimates vary enormously
as to what proportion of men resort to prostitutes. More facts are
badly wanted, but the Chicago Vice Commission of 1911, a commission
instituted and carried out by the municipality, states that the number
of prostitutes in the city _who do nothing else_ is approximately 5000.
It is impossible even to estimate the number of casual and clandestine
prostitutes, but they are certainly many. To arrive at some estimate,
the commission takes only the 1012 inmates of certain houses, from whose
books it appeared that there was a nightly average of _fifteen men per
inmate_,[4] and this gives the total of 5,540,700 visits per year.
It does not seem likely that Chicago is singular, and until we have
trustworthy evidence to the contrary, these facts form almost the only
basis for estimating the extent of these practices.
When we come to the question whether prostitution is an evil, we shall
find that some of the consequences are evil in themselves, and some are
evil because of the way society treats them. There can be no possible
doubt that the practice is of the greatest injury to the health of the
women engaged in it. Those who persist in it die young, though here the
Chicago Commission suggests there has been exaggeration. The injury
to the health of the men might be decreased if there were no disgrace
attached to the practice, and if medical advice were always invoked and
carefully followed; there would still, however, be considerable risk to
the health of the men, even if excess were not added, as a cause of
disease. The injury to the health of wives is very grave indeed, and
those who will take the trouble to consult such books as _Social Diseases
and Marriage_, by Prince A. Morrow, M.D., or _Hygiene and Morality_, by
Lavinia L. Dock (Secretary of the International Council of Nurses), will
find there justification enough for the statement that prostitution is
not only _an_ evil, but it is _the_ evil which is felt most disastrously
by women of all ages and classes. It affects the children, who are
afflicted with many ghastly diseases, as a result of their father’s
conduct; it affects the wives, who, besides the moral suffering they
may endure, are frequently rendered barren, and themselves diseased;
it affects all women wage-earners and, through them, men wage-earners.
Concerning the moral evil, a whole book might and I hope will be written,
from a modern standpoint. A great deal of purity-preaching fails because
it is out of touch with modern minds. If you want men to have a horror
of using a woman merely “as a convenience,” if you want women to resent
such a use of themselves, you will have to replace semi-savage tabus with
science. And this is not to say that religion has nothing to do here. For
those who believe in a God who made things must believe He meant us to
find out His law. There is a sense in which the sneer of the Pharisee is
bare truth, and “this people that knoweth not the law _is_ accursed.”
People have called it a “necessary evil,” and we shall do well to inquire
what they mean by “necessary,” for they generally use it in at least two
senses: (1) necessary for the health of men; (2) a necessary consequence
of the evil nature of men and women. It is impossible to believe that,
if it is necessary for the health of men, it can also be evil. It is
impossible to believe that a state of affairs can be natural in which
the health of men can only be secured by the degradation, barrenness,
disease and early death of women and children. Prostitution in itself
is degrading to both sexes, and cannot be necessary. What people mean
is that sexual intercourse is necessary for the health of men, and that
if they cannot have enough of it within marriage, it is necessary that
they should have it outside marriage. If we regard marriage as a divine
institution, it is impossible to believe that a good God would have made
it necessary to desecrate this divine institution. If we regard marriage
as a human institution, it is for us to adapt it to human needs and so
arrange society that men and women should have the intercourse necessary
for their health. The truth is that sexual intercourse is as necessary
for women as for men, and the opportunity of bearing children just as
much part of the wider scope that we desire for women as opportunities
for education and wage-earning. Because women have always been in
subjection, however, their needs have always been overlooked, and not
only law but custom has ignored them.
If one wife were not sufficient for a man, we should recognise the fact
and not outlaw the women who are rendering a service. There are about 3⅛
millions of unmarried men over 20 in England. Since we know that a very
large proportion of them do not forgo sexual intercourse, this argues
an immense discrepancy between our professions with regard to marriage
and our performance. If social conditions were altered, should we not
find that a large number of women at present unmarried would be willing
to enter into relations of love and affection with men, and might not
this greatly diminish the “necessity” for prostitutes? We can most of us
imagine a state of things infinitely preferable to the present, in which
the virginity of some 3¼ millions of women is secured by the holocaust
of the remaining quarter of a million, and all the attendant evils and
disasters to the rest of humanity. What does the bachelor condition of so
many men betoken? That they cannot, or will not undertake marriage. Is
it not time that some serious thought were given to finding out what is
wrong with marriage, or with women, or with men, or with all three?
But when “necessary” is used to signify the “necessary consequence of
evil human nature,” there is some truth in that; if we add, “and of
evil human institutions,” we may say that we have got the whole truth.
If human nature and human institutions are evil in this direction, can
we not alter them? Women certainly will not be content, with their
new knowledge and their growing powers, to sit down helpless before
these evils. We may be quite certain that they are going to move very
seriously, and it is to the interests of men and of the whole community
that there should be sympathy and understanding and co-operation between
men and women reformers. Women must beware of allowing themselves to be
infected, when they obtain more power, with the brutality which has for
ages robbed law of its moral sanctions, or with the legalism which has
robbed conduct of the grace of the spirit. The social evil is largely
the result of brutality, and brutal punishments are no remedy, even if
you can persuade men to inflict them. We do relapse periodically into
brutality, such as the introducing of flogging into a recent Act. But
it is remarkable that this particular lapse occurred in a measure that
had been hung up for a very long time and that was terribly overdue;
therefore feeling was exasperated and the measure was finally pushed
through on a wave of emotionalism when Members of Parliament scarcely
dared oppose the flogging, lest they should be accused of sympathy with
the offenders. One could not help feeling that a good many men found, in
the easy enactment of flogging, relief from the necessity of thinking
out and carrying out the far more difficult and searching reforms which
might have some permanent effect. The flogging clause was detestable,
both for what it did and for what it prevented being done. It is a matter
for regret that women did not oppose it, as women; but brutality has
had its effect on them too. If women were admitted to full citizenship
there might be more hope that reforms could be carried gradually and
thoughtfully. As it is, women must be excused for seizing any temporary
breeze of emotionalism (such as was caused by the death of W. T. Stead)
to move on their ship of reform from the doldrums where it lies neglected.
It is not reasonable to say off-hand that legislation can do nothing to
diminish the social evil, and a good deal of nonsense is talked about not
making men good by Act of Parliament. The causes of prostitution are very
many and complex, and though direct repressive legislation has always
been worse than useless, because its only effect has been to harry and
persecute and degrade still further the unhappy women, yet there are many
directions in which legislation could touch the causes.
The movement, now already strongly on the way, for further knowledge
is one of the most hopeful of all. Most thinking people are now agreed
that children should be taught the nature of their bodies, and respect
and care for them, and the only questions are how to give the teaching,
by whom and at what age. Adult women, as well as men, should also know
something of the pathology of sex, so that they can guard themselves, and
so that men may realise more than they do now the fearful suffering which
their excesses entail on the innocent. Purity has been preached to boys
and men far too much as a vague ideal. If the results of lust appeared
to them in their true form of hideous cruelty and cowardice, it would
make the most thoughtless pause. Girls must no longer be taught that
subservience and sacrifice to men is woman’s virtue; boys must be taught
to take a pride in a woman’s pride, achievement and independence. The
incredibly mean jealousy of these which we frequently see, has its roots
far back in childish days when “only a girl” was a phrase that passed
unrebuked by the mother. If a girl has not learned to value herself,
to respect her own body and soul, and dedicate them to some worthy
purpose, what wonder if she sells for cash that for which she herself
has so little value? The cult of the “womanly” woman is for much in the
venality of women. Besides this property of whispering humbleness, she is
to be all softness and weakness and yielding grace, and she is to be so
unlettered and inexperienced that the veriest scoundrel can impose upon
her. The law does much to encourage this low status of women, and until
women have attained full citizenship, it is not to be wondered at if
young men grow up with a slight contempt for them.
The fact that a woman can sell herself tends, as we have seen, to keep
women’s wages down, and the temptation to add to her income is increased
by the low wages. This is a vicious circle, from which escape can only
be made by raising wages, since you cannot directly stop prostitution.
The fact that men will probably always be richer than women, and that
men very much desire women, will perhaps always prevent the total
disappearance of prostitution, but at least we know that if we make
it possible for every woman to live decently, there will be an immense
reduction. It is in the highest degree unlikely that there are many women
who would deliberately choose the horrible life. They drift, fall and
are pushed into it and then cannot get out. One hears stories of actual
starvation leading to it. These may be true, but there are far more cases
(and this is proved by the fact that domestic servants and daughters
at home form the largest classes of recruits) where the natural love
of pleasure and finery, the natural sex attraction, and in many cases
aversion from hard or monotonous work have been the temptations. It is an
appalling thought that these, which are, at worst, faults and weaknesses,
should be seized hold of by men, to make, of what should be a woman—
“A cipher of man’s changeless sum
Of lust, past, present and to come,”
a creature whom law and society combine to treat as subhuman, a thing,
not a person.
Much indiscriminate abuse is hurled by sentimentalists at the
mistresses of households who discharge a servant leading an immoral or
irregular life, and many most worthy mistresses, feeling acutely their
responsibilities for young maids, and knowing of many temptations,
endeavour, by severe restrictions, to keep the girls straight. Both
seem to me mistaken. Employers of male labour do not keep workmen and
pay them good wages when they do their work badly. Especially not when
their delinquencies are voluntary. And the mistress of a household has
not only to consider the amount of work she is getting in return for the
wages she pays, she has also the grave responsibility of considering all
the other inmates of her house, the fellow-servants and her own family,
and the effect upon them of the presence, as a member of the household,
of a woman of loose character or conduct. It is almost always the best
thing for the woman herself to make a change in her life. But when we
come to the efforts of so many mistresses to keep their girls straight by
denying them pleasure, or prescribing to them the exact kind of pleasure
and refusing them liberty, these efforts appear often pathetically
misdirected, and only increase the contrast between the girl’s actual
life and what the tempter promises her. It is natural for a girl, whether
she be a servant or a young lady, to “have a young man.” The young lady
can see her young man as much as she likes, in drawing-rooms and at
legitimate entertainments; the servant, too often, can see her young man
only by stealth, alone, in the dark roads, on the bench of a park, or in
houses where there is little of the control of normal family life. And
her interviews with him are full of angry revolt against her mistress’s
prohibition, and of plots with him as to how to circumvent the tyrant.
The said tyrant is often desperately perplexed and anxious, but worse
than helpless, because of her ignorance and her sometimes wilful refusal
to admit the facts of human nature. I have known a woman who said, “I
don’t allow my girl to go anywhere without me, except to church and to
the G.F.S.”; but I had myself met the girl in a variety of other places.
Another employer, with two daughters who often went to dances, refused to
allow her pretty parlourmaid (who helped to dress the young ladies) to
go to a ball which her friends and brothers were attending. The employer
thought balls were not good “for that class of person.” Another lady, who
was constantly seen at dinner parties, theatres and receptions, said,
when asked that her servant should be allowed to join a social club,
where there was singing and dancing and acting and billiards, “I don’t
believe you can help that class of people except through religion.” Such
employers as these, and they are very many, bring into disrepute not
only the employment of domestic service, but the whole of the standard
of morals which they imagine themselves to be upholding. Young people
will have pleasure if they can get it, and to make their lives dreary and
lonely is to drive them underground for pleasure and for companionship.
The desolate loneliness of many domestic servants, far from home and
friends, and with well-meaning, puritanical mistresses, is a cause
perhaps quite as effective as service in a disorderly house or with an
immoral master. The living-in system is full of difficulties, and I
believe it is one of the systems which will have to go; but the only
chance of success is either to make the girl a part of the family she
serves, or to give her opportunities for a cheerful life of her own.
Another contributory cause, whose effect it is very difficult to
estimate, is the low state of public opinion, encouraged by the law, with
regard to physical brutality. Science recognises the close connection
between the lusts of cruelty and of sex. Public opinion must be brought
to support far more truly protective law for women and for little
children. We hear much just now of the segregation of feeble-minded
women, but we need, just as much, the segregation of men who have become
a danger to women and children. When women make public opinion much
more than they do now, and if only they will steer clear of retaliatory
brutality, we shall move much faster.
Again, consider what endless ripples of effects there will be when once
we begin seriously to tackle the housing question. What is the use of
talking about decency, when a girl or boy has never known it? When the
conditions of their daily life from childhood have been such as to make
decency and continence things never experienced?
Alcohol taken in excess loosens all the powers of inhibition, and
increases the appetites. When by improvements in the living conditions of
the masses we have tackled the disease of alcoholism, we shall find we
have made some way in other directions too.
It is a frequent easy generalisation that a “bad” woman is much worse
than a “bad” man. It is said that there is always hope for a fallen man
and none for a fallen woman. We shall have to be given far more proof of
this than we have ever had, before we will believe that it is a property
inherent in the sexes. If we must admit that we do not know how much of
the virtue of women is due to the severe penalties on vice, we must also
admit that we do not know how much of the incurable badness of women is
due to these severe penalties; for society makes it next to impossible
for a “fallen” woman to rise, whereas society does not trouble itself
even to know whether a man is “fallen” or not. When women think these
matters out, they will come to the conclusion that where it takes two to
commit an offence, the one who escapes scot-free and attempts to leave
the other to bear the double penalty, is perhaps the greater criminal of
the two. If two boys steal apples together and A escapes, leaving B to be
birched, public opinion is apt to think A rather a mean lad. If, instead
of receiving one birching, B were flogged daily for the rest of his life
because of A’s delinquency, what would public opinion say of A? or of the
wisdom of the schoolmaster? Prostitution will diminish when it is made
possible for women to recover lost ground; when a silly girl, who has
been enticed away by some man watching for her day of weakness, is not
treated as a pariah or expected to lead a life of penitential expiation
for ever after. The tone which some rescue-workers adopt towards such
girls makes one almost despair. It is an unfortunate thing that, owing
to the painful and distasteful nature of what is called rescue work,
so much of it is in the hands of women of a devoted and often exalted
temperament, which has almost no points of contact with that of the girl
who has drifted into an irregular life. Rescue work should be done by men
and women who realise that the appetite for pleasure is not an unhealthy
appetite, and that affection and a normal family life are the most
hopeful engines of rescue.