The Relations of the Sexes (Duffey)/Chapter 9

BEFORE I can come to any practical measures for the suppression of prostitution, and the amelioration of the condition of its victims, I must refer to the various means which men have employed against it. There have been in many countries, as there are now in this country, laws on the statute books against it; but they have proved inoperative, from the fact that the officers whose duty it is to execute them have found it for their interest to let them remain unexecuted. Seeing the apparent futility of prohibitory laws, another measure has been taken in certain quarters, and an attempt made to regulate the evil. France is prominent among European countries in having adopted this system in regard to prostitution. In America one single city adopted the same or a similar plan for a limited period.

Such a law as this did not, however, originate with modern society. Tacitus tells us that, in the Roman nation, prostitutes were required to register themselves, upon which they received a license to prosecute their ​calling. Sanger, in reference to this law, in his "History of Prostitution," says: The prostitute once inscribed, incurred the taint of infamy which nothing could wipe off. Repentance was impossible, even when she married and became the mother of legitimate children; the fatal inscription was still there to bear witness to her infamy. In Rome, as in so many other countries, the principle of the law was to close the door to reform, and to render vice hopeless." This testimony, coming from a writer who has made the subject of prostitution one of the most careful study, possesses great weight. Yet, strange to say, Sanger recommends the adoption of a similar system in this country.

The late law in St. Louis for the regulation of houses of ill-fame, was intended mainly to place a check upon venereal diseases among prostitutes. Women engaged in this business were required to place their names upon record and take out a license, and to submit to medical examination weekly, and, if found in a diseased condition, they were sent to a hospital, whence they were not allowed to depart until cured.

Physicians, and other men of St. Louis, spoke in the highest terms of the sanitary results of the law, during its presence upon the statute books. Its constitutionality was called into question, and a judge of the District Court decided against it on the ground that it was contrary to the spirit of the common law and of equity, for the reason that, while it recognized one-half of the of​fenders, and kept them under strict surveillance, the other, and by far the larger and guiltier half, were placed under no restrictions whatever; further, on the ground that the law had no right to license crime of any sort, and that in licensing prostitution, itself a crime, encouragement and protection were given to infanticide, drunkenness, gambling, theft, and other evils; all of which are inseparable from prostitution.

Let us examine in detail the effects of such laws. As a sanitary measure they may be productive of certain good results, though the fact is by no means assured, and the St. Louis law was ultimately repealed because it seemed to fail in this vital particular. But in their sanitary precautions they adopt only half-way measures, and those most unjust in their operations. The women are subjected to the closest watch, that they may not spread contagious diseases; but have themselves no protection. A rotting mass of corruption, bearing the form of a man, may visit among them with impunity, and scatter the seeds of disease broadcast. No physician is appointed to inspect him, and order him to be kept in the seclusion of a hospital until he can approach the other sex without doing them an injury. So it will be seen that such laws check disease with one hand while they spread it with the other.

As an aid to morality they fail utterly. Even their most strenuous advocates are forced to admit this, though that view of the matter is one which does not trouble ​then materially, for they rise superior to such petty considerations. The sin of prostitution is only regretted by them so long as its consequences are disastrous upon men. When these consequences can be averted, then it seems a good and desirable thing that men's sensual appetites should be promptly appeased. The physicians who took active part in the execution of the St. Louis law, admitted, somewhat unwillingly, no doubt, that immorality was greatly on the increase in consequence of the provisions of the act. Many men, both married and single, who never before in their lives were guilty of irregularities—being deterred therefrom by the fear of contracting disease—came to these physicians and asked them if they could give way to their passions now in perfect safety. Receiving an affirmative reply, their moral scruples were thrown to the winds. The increased demands upon these outcast women naturally caused an augmentation of their numbers. So that prostitution throve with unparalleled vigor, owing to the judicious pruning which the law gave it.

Let me consider its effects upon the women whom it took under its especial surveillance. First, they were obliged to register their names where all the world might read them, and thus they became, as it were, irrevocably pledged to a life of dishonor. This registration seemed to cut off all way of escape. As I have already quoted from Sanger, let their future efforts to lead a virtuous life be what they would, "the fatal inscription still re​mained to bear witness to their infamy." This law singled out these women and branded them with an infamy from which their partners in guilt escaped scot free. Then they were required to submit their bodies to the inspection of a male physician every week. There are few prostitutes so sunken that they do not have womanliness enough to shrink from this ordeal. And its constant repetition must have a blunting effect upon them, rendering them all the more irreclaimable. This outrage upon womanhood was committed for the protection of men. The women were afforded no such protection in return. They were required to hold a license, which, from its character, shut them out from all fellowship with the good and the pure of either sex; while men could go and come unquestioned, and if they took pains to keep their secret to themselves, the world did not trouble itself about them, and still considered them "respectable."

Such a law is a wicked, one-sided, masculine law, which ignores all justice, all humanity, and all morality. It says, in spirit, that as men have carnal desires towards women which they have no inclination to keep in check, therefore certain women, on whom they can satisfy their lusts, must be set apart and given over to them. These women are to be considered as no longer human beings. By this setting apart, they have forfeited the common rights of humanity, and the especial rights of sex. While God and nature have placed their seal of disapproval upon licentiousness, by making its physical consequences most ​dreadful in their character, we will, by human contrivances, evade these natural and divine laws, and will make the road of sin a safe and a pleasant path, that all who choose may walk therein. Do the makers and supporters of such laws fear no retributive justice? Do they not foresee the rottenness and decay which will attack the very foundations of society, through the increased corruption of its men, connived at by this law? Women can do much toward leading men, and holding them in paths of virtue. But women are also influenced by men; and as the husbands, fathers and brothers, sink lower and lower in this moral cesspool, they will end in dragging their wives, sisters and daughters down with them; since no woman can become fully reconciled to and satisfied with a lapse from virtue in the men who are dearest to her, without having lapsed from the strictest moral purity herself. Having suffered that lapse, it is but a matter of opportunity or temptation whether she descends farther in the moral scale.

St. Louis threatened to become the harlot of the Western world, rivalling Babylon in her debaucheries, but she drew back in time. Let all other cities shrink from taking the same misstep.

The virtuous women of St. Louis were shocked and outraged by this law, and petitioned for its repeal. That it was finally repealed, we may suppose was not, however, in answer to these petitions, but because it was found totally insufficient to accomplish the end it ​had in view—that of placing a check upon venereal diseases.

That protective measures of this class must always prove altogether inadequate to accomplish their confessed end, will be shown by the following extract from an article in the Medical Record of February, 1871: "Dr. Evans, an army surgeon, and the author of a work on venereal sores, remarks, that an altered secretion, impossible of detection, is sufficient for the production of disease; adding, that, when he attended the examinations of two hundred women of the lowest description, who were frequented by the soldiers of the army at Valenciennes, no disease could be detected in the women, and yet the hospitals were filled with diseased soldiers, infected by these very prostitutes. He noticed exactly the same thing at Lille, and observes, that the condition that communicates disease in the female is only to be known by its effects." If this statement be true, and I have read corroborative evidence, which leads me to think that it is, it will be seen how utterly futile to check venereal disease is any effort which looks after the sanitary condition of the women alone.

It is not likely that a body of men who should so utterly ignore women in the passing of a law like this, would listen to their remonstrances. The women were reminded in reply to their petitions, that the law was passed out of consideration for them, that they might not become afflicted with venereal diseases through their hus​bands, who frequented these houses. It seems to me this very reasoning contains a covert insult to womanhood. As though truly virtuous women would consort with profligate men! Are there no laws, then, in St. Louis, in punishment of adultery, that it should be thus openly recognized and provided for?

But this was not the worst. It secured a way for infidelity in every household, and tempted hitherto faithful husbands to prove traitors to loving and confiding wives. It said to every bride: "You must not expect an antenuptial chastity in your husband, because the law has taken special care that such purity of body is no longer necessary." My whole heart goes out with hatred and loathing towards these "regulating laws!" They insult and degrade women of every class, and ignore their feelings, their affections and their happiness. They rob them of their dearest earthly treasures, and trample all womanhood under foot, recognizing only a female, born to minister to the physical wants of man, and bow to his most arbitrary will. They exalt the sensual passions of man, and make him a brute—worse than a brute—a monster of selfishness and depravity. They are wicked, outrageous, terrible laws, that read like a nightmare, rather than a fact.

Yet other cities have debated the expediency of adopting such measures for the regulation of prostitution. A woman fought single-handed against their adoption in San Francisco—and won. She caused the proposed law to be ​printed in full, only in every provision she reversed the sexes. Then she distributed copies of this curiously amended law among the municipal officers. It brought out the injustice of the law in such a quaint manner, yet so palpably, before them, that they abandoned their purpose, and the city was saved from overwhelming moral disgrace.

In our national capital itself, our Congressmen sat under the cover of night, with shame on their faces, and wickedness in their hearts, and thought to pass a law for the "regulation" of prostitution for the District of Columbia: to hurry it through without deliberation or debate. But the watchfulness of a few brave women foiled them. They dared not pass it in the presence of a pure, protesting womanhood; and the lips which were half-formed to utter "yes," said "no" instead, in very shame.

No longer ago than 1874, an act similar in all its features to the St. Louis law was introduced into the Pennsylvania Legislature, but was tabled through outside pressure, for the time being. It was justly characterized by those who opposed it, as "a vain attempt to exempt man from God's righteous judgments against sin, and to visit all the penalty of crime upon woman, by degrading her to the condition of a dog."

In England there is a law of a similar nature, called "The Contagious Diseases Act," but applies only to military and seaport towns. In some of the outrages which it sanctions upon women, its features are even ​worse than those of the St. Louis law. Mrs. Butler makes some pertinent remarks in regard to it, which will apply equally well to the legislation of this character in America. "We wake up to the awful nature of the social evil, and to the corruption of our national life through its influence, just at a time when authority and power have set their official seal upon the abomination; just when our Parliament—the first in all the world which has done such a thing—has spoken with awful and unmistakeable voice the words which it is unlawful for any human judges to utter: 'He that is filthy, let him be filthy still.' For such is the verdict gone forth. This verdict pronounces that sin is our master, and must continue to be so; it says in the words of the Pall Mall Gazette, 'that fleshly instincts will outlive all moral crusades'; and that, since we can no more hope to get rid of the frightful tyranny of lust, we must aim only at getting rid of the annoyance of physical disease. This piece of legislation is the last expression of a nation's hopelessness—a nation's despair; it is the tocsin which gives warning of the impending assassination of a nation's faith in God! Therefore it is that, before all things, and at the very entrance upon the great work of which I have spoken—the war against harlotry—we feel the absolute necessity of bringing to nought this fatal legislation."

If legislation of this sort is the only really effective thing, and its advocates are desirous not only of mitigating the consequences of the evils of prostitution (which ​is a Christian work when it is not done for the avowed purpose of rendering crime safe), but of checking the crime itself, let this law be modified so that it shall be just in all its bearings. Let not only every prostitute be required to register, and to take out her card of license, but let every man who puts his foot inside a house of ill-fame, be also required to register his true name in a book which shall be kept open for public inspection. Let him also take out his card of license weekly, after submitting weekly to an examination of person by a physician who shall ascertain if he is in a condition to impart disease to the women with whom he comes in contact; and if this is the case, no matter what may be his station in society, let him be sent to, and retained in, a public hospital for the treatment of venereal diseases, until his cure is complete. I would have the examining physicians, in the cases of women, be themselves women. This would be paying a certain deference to womanhood, to say the least, and its effect might be beneficial upon the prostitutes. An earnest, conscientious woman physician, with her sympathies fully roused, might be the means of accomplishing much good among this class; while a male physician, with his standard of morality already lowered, regarding prostitutes as a necessary and legitimate prey of sensual manhood, would not see the necessity for, or care to undertake any reformatory work.

These suggestions are wholly practical in their character, and if adopted, would give the law known as the ​St. Louis Law, some semblance of justice and of regard for virtue. Their adoption would secure a better sanitary condition among prostitutes and those visiting them, than the late one-sided arrangement. There is no reason, in justice or in common sense, why men should be omitted in these regulations. The crime of both men and women, in this case, is equal. It is certain, prostitutes would not exist, if a demand was not made for them. Therefore, if there is any superiority in guilt, it must be in the party which creates, not in the party which is created. Considered from the matter-of-fact point of view of purchase and sale—and it is to this level that utilitarians bring the whole thing—the seller should be, as in all other branches of business, protected, equally with the buyer, against insult, rapacity, injustice and injury. But it is only the buyer who here receives protection. The seller is left uncared-for, at the buyer's mercy, or rather lack of mercy.

There is still another recommendation which may be urged in favor of my amended law: the wholesome restraint which the necessity of registering their names, before becoming visitants of houses of ill-fame, would have upon men; and the opportunity it would give all women of knowing the exact moral standing of their husbands and sons. Such a record would be found exceedingly convenient in applications for divorce, for it would at once furnish direct proof, without the trouble of looking for further evidence, of the guilt or innocence of the accused husband.

​I would not object to seeing my amended law in operation sufficiently long to watch its tendencies and results, though I agree with the St. Louis judge in considering any such measure incompatible with the true legal spirit. The same number of executive officers, performing their duties with the same faithfulness and zeal as were required to make the late St. Louis law effective, could put into execution still more efficient laws, which should not outrage the decency and morality of the community, and would drive prostitution actually beyond the limits of society. "But," say the law-maker and the upholder of the enactment, "this law brings a handsome revenue into a city treasury, which it would be impossible to obtain under any form of laws other than the license system." So then we have the shameful proposition of a city literally prostituting herself for gain.

It is useless to have laws in this matter, unless they are to be carried out; yet legal measures seem very desirable. If I were called upon to draft a perfect code for the suppression of prostitution, the first enactment I would prepare would be one making the keeping of a house of prostitution a crime punishable by imprisonment. I would hold the keeper of the house, and its owner who rented it for such a purpose, or who rented it without making sure that it was not to be used for such a purpose, equally culpable, and subject to punishment, and that without regard to sex or social station; nor would I allow money in any manner to procure a release ​from punishment. Next, I would punish all inmates of such houses in a somewhat less degree, allowing extenuating circumstances to modify their punishment, and also making them objects of judicial clemency when they ex. pressed a determination to reform. The same punishment I would impose on every frequenter of the house, regardless of sex; and I would make the testimony required in the case of such a nature, that, when the fact was morally certain, conviction could not be escaped by any quibble of law, or apparent insufficiency of evidence. A man or woman being seen to enter such a house, or being found in one, should be considered prima facie evidence of guilt, unless they could bring better evidence to the contrary; and punishment should be awarded accordingly.

Whenever in society a case of fornication, together with general light character, could be clearly proved, I would punish both parties in the same manner. Adultery should be recognizable and punishable alike in man and woman, giving in either case the right to the offended married partner, of divorce. I would not have the law wait for a wronged husband or wife to complain; but when the fact was known I would make it incumbent on the executors of the law to prosecute of their own accord. Seduction of an unmarried woman by an unmarried man should be pronounced marriage, without appeal of any sort. Between parties, one of whom was married and the other unmarried, sexual commerce should be pro​nounced bigamy, punishable by imprisonment of both with equal or unequal severity, according to age and attending circumstances. Let sins of this class be recognized by law as the crimes they really are against the comfort and well-being of society, and we shall soon find a healthier social tone.

Dumas the younger says: "It is the complicity of our laws that creates the corruption of our morals. Hold men accountable for 'irresistible passion,' and they will immediately resist it with a virtue of which they never believed themselves capable, in the same way that they resist the desire of putting into their own pockets the glittering gold of money-changers, because there is a law which pronounces the execution of the desire theft."

My code of laws would be practical, just to both sexes, and effective. Vice should not be driven from the public places to take refuge in private ones. Nor should it be allowed to run riot abroad, that there might be the greater virtue at home. There should be no temporizing whatever in the matter. Men and women should learn that infringement of moral law brought speedy legal punishment and social disgrace; and in consequence a man would as soon be called a thief as a profligate. Let the punishment be alike in both sexes, and sufficiently severe, and a sense of shame will attach itself to both, that is now only felt by one; and in its unequal operation works ten times more harm than good. It is much ​easier to regulate statute law than social law; but the latter would in time become greatly modified, if it found itself in direct opposition to the former. An effective, well executed law would soon change public sentiment in relation to such matters.

In depending upon legal measures for the suppression of any evil, however, we must remember that laws are operative only so far as we make them so. And let us pass as many enactments as we will against prostitution, if the wishes and desires of the community do not earnestly second their execution, they will remain inoperative. Herbert Spencer says on this general point: "In those whose modes of thought we have been contemplating, there is a tacit supposition that a government moulded by themselves, has some efficiency beyond that naturally possessed by a certain group of citizens subsidized by the rest of the citizens. True, if you ask them, they may not deliberately assert that a legislative and administrative apparatus can exert power either mental or material, beyond the power proceeding from the nation itself. They are compelled to admit, when cross-examined, that the energies moving a governmental machine are energies which would cease were citizens to cease working and furnishing the supplies. But, nevertheless, their projects imply an unexpressed belief in some store of force that is not measured by taxes. When there arises the question—why does not government do this for us? there is not the accompanying thought—​why does not government put its hands in our pockets, and, with the proceeds, pay officials to do this, instead of leaving us to do it ourselves; but the accompanying thought is—why does not government, out of its inexhaustible resources, yield us this benefit?" Thus it is plain that it is useless to hope that government, by the means of laws, can suppress this or any other evil, unless we, as the government, are ready to have it done, and to co-operate fully with the legal measures. Statute laws are but empty words, if they do not express the sentiments and wishes of the people. They are not a power which rule us whether we will or not, but a force which serves us as we will, and in the measure that we will. Keeping this fact in view, it seems sometimes almost hopeless to expect any abatement of the social evil, since the law-making powers of the land are only half-hearted in considering prostitution an evil at all, and would be almost sure, in any measures they might adopt, to leave some loop-hole by which the law might be evaded. In the matter of prostitution, as in intemperance, there is little hope in securing effective laws, and having them properly executed, until women have a voice also in the government.

But to return to the subject under consideration: the penalties which should attach to violation of laws to preserve the morals of the public. In regard to the punishment of proprietors of all classes of infamous houses, I think it could scarcely be too severe. Their ​crime should rank next to that of murder, and no money payment should have power to effect the release of offenders from punishment.

I have before me a description of the scenes one Saturday night in the city of New York, when the police made a descent upon a number of disreputable houses, and arrested their inmates. The male visitors were of course allowed to depart unmolested. The proprietors got off at a nominal price; the women alone bore the insults, the abuse, and the punishment. I make the following extract from one of the metropolitan dailies:

"Will these unfortunates be made better by the brand burned into their souls on Saturday night? Do you call them abandoned? Amid the wreck of womanhood one spark of Divinity is still left—the spark that redeemed Nancy Sykes. Hardly one among them but turned despairingly to the man she loved, and for whom, in many cases, she had erred. The woman capable of loving, though it be a Bill Sykes, is not lost; the woman plying a bad career, who never neglects her children, is still a woman. And shall women be treated like beasts of prey? If they are treated as such, will they not become such? 'Why don't they arrest the proprietors, and let us alone?' exclaimed one woman in desperation. 'If they were put out of the way,' cried another, 'there would be no places in which to entangle us.' A little girl shook her small fist in the face of her proprietor, saying, 'were it not for ​you I should not be here to-night. You first enticed me to work in your saloon.' And the destroyer of this girl's innocence coolly smoked a cigar, knowing that his illgotten gains would soon secure his release, and that it little mattered what became of his victims when poverty and ignorance were always ready to furnish fresh material for seduction." The same writer adds a little further on in the same article: "Now what shall be done to put an end to this carnival of vice? Bring the real sinners to justice. We do not say that women shall be allowed to follow an evil calling with impunity, but we do insist upon equality before the law in the punishment of offenders. Proprietors of concert saloons and houses of ill-fame, who, nine times out of ten, are men, could not possibly carry on their business did owners of the buildings thus occupied refuse to let them for disreputable purposes. If laws be inefficient, make new ones. Of what use is a reformed legislature, if the interests of morality are not furthered? It should be a penal offence to let buildings for other than decent purposes. The world should be told not only the fictitious cognomens of wretched women, but the real names of men whose church rates are paid at the expense of damned souls. These are the original criminals. Exterminate them, and the greatest cause of evil is at once removed. And when next the police undertake to be virtuous, let them march to the station, buyers as well as sellers of vice. Let the former be put on exhibition, their names blazoned abroad, and ​let them be made to feel that society accords no more tolerance to male than to female prostitution. Make men responsible for vice, and they will soon recognize the expediency of virtue. Fear of consequences produces far greater results than the admonitions of conscience."

There will probably be objection urged by some, that I would make my law inoperative by the very heaviness of its penalties; that it must constantly be broken, and its provisions could not be carried out. My desire would be to make the penalties so heavy that people would be impressed with the idea that it was possible and expedient to practice virtue, rather than to fall into the clutches of that law.

As for my suggestion concerning seduction, I have an excellent but old-fashioned authority for it. "And if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife." Exodus, Chapter xxii, Verse 16. Again there is a similar injunction in Deuteronomy, Chapter xxii, Verses 28 and 29. "He may not put her away all his days."

The spirit of the Catholic Church has remained tolerably true to this teaching. And here let me say in defense of that church, that, owing probably to the severity of its discipline in cases of seduction, and to the further discipline of confession, there is no class of young people among whom so few irregularities of this sort are found—who are so invariably moral in their behavior, and modest in their speech, as those who remain within the ​pale of this church, and pay strict attention to its requirements. All who have had an opportunity to compare other youth in the same ranks of society with them, will readily endorse what I say.

Though it may be true that a perfect marriage of man and woman consists of much more than mere bodily conjunction, still, when that is present, the marriage is actual, and there should be no law of either church or state setting it aside. Law does not pretend to make marriage; it only claims to control and regulate it. People would be married, and truly married, all the same, if our statutes said nothing about the institution. Thus, those who enter into the bonds of marriage lightly, and without permission of church and state, may be guilty of gross misdemeanor; nevertheless their marriage cannot be gainsaid, if we have any regard either for Divine command, or for the interests of common morality. Moreover, such a check-mate to the arts of the seducer would most effectually arrest his course, unless he was willing to accept the consequences. Even in the occasional cases in which the woman is the seducer instead of the seduced, and I will be told, no doubt, that these cases would be multiplied with such a law as I propose, if the man exposed to the temptation of seduction knew its result would be an irrevocable marriage, the knowledge would, perhaps, if such a marriage was distasteful, lend some strength to his weak virtue, and place it beyond conquest. At all events, the consequences to him would ​not be one tithe as bad as they now are to the female victim of seduction.

That seduction and desertion should be punished severely, cannot be doubted by any one whose moral bias is not perverted. The woman who deserts her child, is looked upon as culpable in the greatest degree. But the seducer and deserter is guilty of at least an equal sin, for he not only deliberately evokes a new existence, but as deliberately condemns that existence to a certain inheritance of shame and misfortune. His desertion is just as unquestionable as, and far less excusable than, that of the unnatural mother; since hers is the result of a desire to escape the consequences of her error, and his whole action in the matter has been from mere wantonness, and for selfish pleasure.

These are the legal means I would employ for the suppression of prostitution and kindred crimes. But to make these laws operative the public sentiment must be educated up to the point of recognizing them as crimes. Otherwise all laws relating to subjects of this kind are necessarily inoperative, as we already see. There are no insuperable obstacles to the execution of such laws, any more than there is to legal enactments against theft and murder. These latter crimes injure society and individuals no more than the former; nor will the former prove more difficult to manage, if dealt with in a proper manner. The secret of the inefficiency of all present or previous laws is, that they are and have been framed from ​a masculine standpoint, men's interests alone being consulted, and women considered and treated only as they affected those interests. There have been virtually two codes of morals for the sexes, recognized by our legal enactments; the one for men, regarded as a crime any act which infringed upon the rights of, or injured, another man; the one for women also made those actions criminal which injured men, while they left the interests of woman, whether those of the offended or the offender, totally uncared-for. Such laws did not, of course, appeal to the justice and honor of women. They felt no concern in seeing them executed. They likewise appealed in vain to the consciences of fair-minded men, who could only recognize such statutes as inflicted equal severity of punishment upon offenders of all classes and both sexes. Bad men of course did not care to see these laws in operation; therefore, as there was no one to execute them, or to insist upon their execution, they have ever remained practically dead letters; and they will so remain as long as they disgrace our statute books. And I am glad that this is so. But the inefficiency of these laws cannot be justly used as an argument against any law. Let a law perfectly just and equal in all its provisions and requirements, be framed and give the matter a fair trial. Such a law would have, in the first place, a vast majority of women in favor of it. It would also be sustained by all good men—and let us hope that these are not so few as some would have us believe. There would be left to op​pose its execution those only who desired to violate its provisions, and feared to incur its penalties. It would, in short, be reduced to precisely the same status of any law against any crime whatsoever. The criminal portion of society would denounce it, and try to obstruct its operation; while all the rest would be concerned, without division of opinion or interest, in seeing its provisions carried out.

But I would not be satisfied with legal enactment, nor flatter myself that suppression was eradication. The work would be only half done, even with these legal measures in full operation. In fact, it would not be half done. Other efforts must be employed, thoroughly, and without cessation.

I have enumerated as the principal direct causes of prostitution, frivolity, indolence, aimlessness in life, vanity, desire for admiration, want of remunerative employment, seduction, love of gain, and strong physical passions.

The proper manner of dealing with the seducer I have already intimated. Those who saw in a life of prostitution a means of making money, and cared nothing for the degradation they brought upon themselves, or the woes upon others, I would teach, by the intervention of the law, that it was not a remunerative employment, as it would incur both loss of property and personal liberty. Those who seek this life from the mere love of it, are the hardest class to deal with. They are a sort of ​moral monstrosities, many of whom should be regarded as fit subjects for the physician's care; and if that failed to effect a cure, then they should be placed in restraint, both for their own good, and for the benefit of society. Hygienic measures would do much good to reduce the fierce passions of these women. Tepid sitz baths, warm applications, a scant, rigorous diet, excluding all spices and viands of a stimulating nature, abundant exhausting physical exercise, and constant employment for their minds, would in many cases, no doubt, work wonderful results, where the sensuality springs from physical causes merely. Where it is ingrained in their moral nature, and they are bad because there is no goodness in them, and where all moral restraints fail in effect, I confess I can suggest no means for their salvation. Physicians would probably suggest marriage, but I shrink from recommending this, out of pity for their offspring, who might inherit their sensual natures.

All the other causes may be removed by the same class of remedies. Let girls be more thoroughly educated; let them be more carefully disciplined, both intellectually and morally; let them be encouraged—nay, required—to select some occupation in life which shall not only fill their minds, keeping them from frittering away their youth, longing for the admiration of the other sex, and waiting for husbands—a course which tends to encourage in them idle, foolish, and even sensual thoughts—but which shall also enable them to be independent and self-​supporting, in case they remain unmarried, or become widows; and we shall find the brothels closed for want of inmates. Do not let us crowd our girls into the ranks already overflowing with struggling womanhood, where the pay for labor barely suffices to keep soul and body together. Let us send them out into new paths, making them printers, engravers, artisans of all sorts—carpenters even, if they show any fitness for the occupation. Let us, if they display any aptitude for them, encourage them, as we encourage our sons, to enter the professions, and afford them the same opportunity for preparation in their chosen pursuits. I fully believe that, for every girl who goes into a new and remunerative business,—for every woman who enters a profession, and for every one who takes a college course, the world contains one prostitute the less. Not that I would be understood that these women were likely, by any combination of circumstances, to become prostitutes themselves; but they have stepped up just so much higher, and left just so much more room for the struggling, fainting womanhood beneath them.

Let no girl think that her chances of marriage will decrease by taking this independent and somewhat aggressive course. I have good reason to know that they are greatly augmented thereby: for men, after all, no matter how much they may admire the butterfly woman have for the intelligent worker a genuine respect which they fail to feel for the other. More than this, the class of men whose attention they will attract, and whose af​fections they will engage, are worth a hundred-fold more than those who would be pleased by the inane, doll-like, characterless creature, women are usually taught to consider that men most admire.

I would throw open the schools, the colleges, the work-shops, and the offices, to both sexes, and let them abor and study together. I believe the general tone of morals would be improved by this means, and that men and women would get to know each other better, understand each other more fully, and have a most beneficial effect upon each other's characters. And I do not speak from theory alone on this point.

With the intellectual, moral and practical training which I have suggested as absolutely needed by our girls, there would naturally follow a wholesome disregard for the more arbitrary dictates of fashion. Dress would not consume the time or the money it does now among the wealthy, nor would it seem so all-important—to be obtained at all hazards—by the indigent.

​I am not theorizing. I am speaking from what I know. The moral salvation of woman, and through her, of the entire race, lies in a broader and fuller intellectual culture, with full developed faculties, and a wider field for their use. Bardach, a French writer on sexual matters, after insisting that women suffer far more than men from abstinence from sexual pleasures, and laying many forms of female disease to this cause (wrongly, I believe), admits that "the health is preserved when their thoughts are occupied, and where they are gratified with a sphere of action in harmony with their faculties." There is the whole thing in a nutshell, though the man who says it probably does not see it himself. If girls are to be saved from prurient ideas, if they would avoid hysteria, chlorosis, and other nervous feminine affections, give them something to think about and to do, that shall interest them. To tell them to wash dishes and make beds is not to the purpose at all. Those are physical labors, but the mind is left as unoccupied as ever. It is the old story of the oriental woman repeating itself. An idle woman, whose thoughts are directed in a sensual channel, and who is encouraged to no intellectual activity, is liable to develope into a sensualist, and expend her wasted energies in that direction.

I have received the testimony of more than one person who has made the subject of prostitution a matter of earnest study, that by far the largest number of its votaries are girls of little or no mental culture. Belong ​ing to the lowest classes, uneducated, and untrained for the emergencies of life, they naturally drift into it for want of any apparently better or more desirable field of occupation. Even those who seem ladies in manner, and with a certain show of accomplishments, are more so in seeming than in reality, owing to the strong contrast presented to them by their ignorant companions. Their accomplishments, when tested, prove to be of the most superficial character, not in any manner to be trusted for purposes of support. The South supplies this kind of material largely to the brothels; the indolent, luxurious life which women of a certain rank are permitted to lead in that section of the country, naturally tending towards voluptuousness; while the mere smattering of education they receive, and the discouragements they meet on every hand from taking a course which would render them liable to the charge of masculinity, makes them helpless waifs, if they happen to be cast defenceless on the world. The brothel is really their only apparent resource.

There is one exception to the rule I have given in my last paragraph. New England, and especially Boston, contributes largely of intelligent, refined and well-educated women, who seem to have chosen a life of prostitution from sheer love of sensuality. It is hard to account for this class. Descending from Puritan ancestry, we should look for better things from them. May it not be a natural outgrowth of the stifled emotions, the suppressed expressions of affection, which characterize ​New Englanders as a race? May not the air of forbidden mystery in which good but unwise New England mothers have enwrapped all subjects such as I am discussing in this book, while preventing a healthy outgrowth of feeling, and a better understanding, have provoked in their daughters a prurient curiosity, resulting in an unhealthy tone to their moral natures?

I want to say two words more before closing this chapter. First, I would defend women from a charge which has rested somewhat unjustly upon them, of turning with contempt and scorn from their fallen sisters, while they receive with smiles those sisters' accomplices in sin. There is a certain seeming truth in this, I must admit, but a good reason lies underneath. A profligate man, when he comes into the presence of virtuous women, puts on at least the semblance of virtue. A profligate woman makes no such pretence, out of deference to her own sex. It is her delight to render herself as obnoxious as possible to them. Therefore, if women would not have their sense of decency continually outraged, they must avoid the society and contact of lewd women altogether. Besides, very few women know, or even guess the exact moral status of their male acquaintances, and so long as they know nothing to their detriment, whatever they may surmise, they are compelled to treat them with the courtesy due to ordinary acquaintances. A bad woman takes no pains to conceal her moral delinquencies, or, if she does not seek to make them public herself, society does it ​for her, and there is no mistaking her position. Secondly, these women are not always as deserving of pity as we sometimes, in our morbid sympathies, are inclined to think. Great wrong has been done them in many ways; still they are the seducers of youth, and of the innocent of the other sex, and as such must be held in abhorrence. Probably, for every one woman seduced by a bad man, there are two men, and may be more, seduced from paths of virtue and integrity by bad women. It is their business in life to prey upon men, and to ruin them in every possible way. Therefore no woman can regard with very kindly feelings the probable or possible seducer of her son. No doubt in each mother's mind the fault of the woman is exaggerated, and the willingness with which the son goes to the sacrifice of his manhood is entirely overlooked. But there is truth in the fact nevertheless.

Still, with women largely rests the great work of redeeming this fallen class, and of preventing its ranks being replenished by fresh recruits. And they must perform their labor with love and charity and untiring patience, and with so perfect a faith in themselves, and in the God who will help them, that it shall override all discouragements. But let us remember our work is first with our sons and daughters; after that, with the world.