Lanterna Rally

Author: William W. Sanger

Publisher: Createspace Independent Pub

Published: 2013-04-17

Total Pages: 406

ISBN-13: 9781484136454

The History of Prostitution. Its Extent, Causes, and Effects Throughout the world. Prostitution - Slavery - Ownership William W. Sanger. SAMPLE: 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. 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. Hence it may be inferred that prostitutes by profession were unnecessary at Sparta, at all events until a late period of its history. Arguments are unnecessary to prove the existence of prostitution. The evil is so notorious that none can possibly gainsay it. But when its extent, its causes, or its effects are questioned, a remarkable degree of ignorance or carelessness is manifested. Few care to know the secret springs from which prostitution emanates; few are anxious to know how wide the stream extends; few have any desire to know the devastation it causes. Society has formally laid a prohibition on the subject, and he who presumes to argue that what affects one may injure all; he who believes that the malady in his neighbor's family to-day may visit his own to-morrow; he who dares to intimate that a vice which has blighted the happiness of one parent, and ruined the character of one daughter, may produce, must inevitably produce, the same sad results in another circle; in short, he who dares allude to the subject of prostitution in any other than a mysterious and whispered manner, must prepare to meet the frowns and censure of society.