III. On the Toleration of Prostitutes and Certain Concubines

212. - No small controversy has arisen today concerning women who are accustomed to prostitute their modesty. From antiquity it was already tolerated that women, at least adults, should make gain from their body; indeed, private houses were admitted in which hired prostitutes stood for sale to all.

But by the laws of a more recent age, only those women are permitted to exercise that shameful commerce who, having been examined rather often by appointed physicians, can give assurance concerning a healthy body. Their names are inscribed in special registers.

Now, there are not lacking those who strongly attack these hygienic precautions. For they are shown to be ineffective in averting the dangers of diseases; the force of seduction is increased by the false security which they seem to give; moreover, that public, as it were, protection of lust is scandalous; finally, in order to evade these laws, not a few public officials are corrupted by money or even by a worse means by the patrons of prostitutes or by the prostitutes themselves.

Furthermore, the "feminists" thus insist: is it not to be borne indignantly that such laws introduce that scandalous inequality between the two sexes by which men are permitted with impunity to infect wretched women with their diseases, while only the male sex is protected from contagion? Are not most women corrupted by men?

Why, then, must women alone, but not the young men and men who enter brothels, exhibit their body to a physician?

Hence they propose laws, and indeed have already obtained them, for example in Denmark, by which, in place of that required bodily inspection, penalties are established against anyone who deliberately or imprudently infects another with venereal disease. And in several regions already, for example in England, decrees concerning the registration and examination of women have been abolished. Supporters and opponents of liberty contend among themselves over the better or worse state of morals and bodily vigor thence resulting, and they appeal to "statistical" rationales. (Cf. Moll, Handbuch, etc., p. 361 ff.)

There is no leisure to consider these things at greater length. But it can be asked more universally whether reasons still remain why brothels, indeed the infamous trade in one's own body, should be tolerated. Formerly they feared that, if prostitutes were suppressed, honorable girls would be too greatly molested by impure men ¹. Since we now employ a stronger and more skillful public discipline (police), is there reason why we should fear such things? Nor are hidden ways of satisfying lust lacking to vicious men. Most prostitutes are clandestine and evade the laws, by which argument also it is contended that those laws should be abolished. In the year 1911, the city of Berlin counted scarcely 3,706 prostitutes inscribed in the registers, while about 25,000 seem to make gain from their body there ². "In Berlin," says Noldin ³, "there are 5,000 public prostitutes and 40,000 clandestine; in Vienna, 2,000 public and 20,000 clandestine." In Brussels (in the city properly so called) in the year 1904, only six brothels existed, which, taken together, contained about 60 prostitutes; but in all, 190 prostitutes were entered in the registers. Add now the social scandal flowing from that legal recognition. Because of prostitutes, the institution of marriage is mocked, and those who pursue innovations thence inveigh against the present order ⁴. Certainly, in England, Mrs. Josephine Butler attacked the public tolerance of prostituting one's body. In Berlin and London, brothels have been proscribed; throughout Denmark and in the city of New York, prostitution itself is punished by penalties.

¹ Cf. St. Alphonsus, book 3, no. 434, where he cites the saying of Augustine: "Remove prostitutes from human affairs, and you will throw all things into confusion through lusts" (De Ordine, book 2, chapter 4, no. 12. M. 32, 1000). They also add that, if prostitutes were suppressed, worse sins of sodomy, bestiality, and masturbation would occur. But it has long since been answered that those sins are not removed by prostitutes, while many other evils are added. Cf. St. Alphonsus in the place cited.

² Moll, Handbuch, p. 371.

³ De sexto, no. 18, note 1.

⁴ Cf., for example, Forel, La question sexuelle, p. 327: Prostitution et proxénétisme.

These things are to be diligently observed by the theologian, lest he appear to adhere late to a useful reform, far from having laudably begun any himself ⁵.

⁵ Noldin also reports the controversy concerning public prostitution; but brothels seem to him by no means tolerable. (De sexto, no. 18, at the end.)

There is therefore no reason why we should despair of a better state of public morals. Meanwhile, we shall commend laws which, as in Belgium, strictly forbid taverns to be erected in a brothel; by this law alone the infamous houses have been greatly diminished in number. (Cf. Moll, Handbuch, p. 355.)

We shall also praise municipal authorities which attend with diligent care lest clandestine brothels be established.

Above all we shall praise laws and societies, such as the international association Pour combattre la traite des blanches, which everywhere endeavors to protect girls from seduction and servitude. For this end, the international work for the protection of girls (Oeuvre catholique de la protection de la jeune fille) also accomplishes many things.

213. - A related question, not yet treated by theologians, so far as we know, concerns the toleration of a certain concubinage in the colonies. For it is established that, in various regions of Africa or the Indies, not a few European officials of both the civil and military order, whether unmarried or separated from a spouse, take for themselves as a concubine a woman of an uncultivated people, for example of the Negroes, whom, while they remain there, they keep in place of a wife, but abandon when they return to Europe.

Certainly that manifestation of European corruption is to be lamented, by which our presence, which ought to have been beneficent and salutary, becomes scandalous and harmful; and the vices which, if the invitation of divine Providence is considered, ought to have been eradicated by us are confirmed.

There is added a most grave danger of abduction. For these women of a weak and little-cultivated people are commonly both lustful and exceedingly desirous of an easier life; many live in an abject condition of servitude; morally, all are in the hand and arbitrary power of some venal parent. How many occasions, therefore, can a European man seize to obtain these women by force, money, or seduction!

Wherefore these women, even when they consent to concubinage, cannot be compared with women of our regions who spontaneously and deliberately foster illicit relations; but their consent is to be regarded as proceeding from a minor.

Wherefore those commercial societies are greatly to be praised which endeavor so to select their agents that by their morals they may honor the name of Europeans and by their authority promote in no slight degree the preaching of the Gospel.

But so many and such kinds of men go to those distant shores that chaste morals cannot be hoped for from all. A law would attempt in vain to restrain or abolish concubinage with women of those regions.

In view of this difficulty, and in view of the opinion of those learned men who, in order to avoid the worse sins of sodomy, bestiality, and masturbation, did not condemn the toleration of prostitutes, at least in certain places ⁶, it seems that probable reasons can be adduced why the concubinage of which we speak can be tolerated - not positively approved.

⁶ Cf. the author of De regimine Principum, book 4, chapter 14; St. Alphonsus, book 3, no. 434.

Nevertheless, this public power or the magistrates ought solicitously to take care:

1. That no woman who is a lawful wife, and likewise no woman converted to the faith, be permitted to be admitted as a concubine, so that fitting honor may thus be preserved both for nuptials and for religion;

2. That every concubinage with a woman who has not fully reached maturity be severely repressed, as well as every abduction and artful seduction of any woman;

3. That provision be made for exterior decency. It cannot be permitted that these concubines be presented publicly as such and be conducted about and treated with favors as if legitimate wives. On the contrary, it is necessary that the necessity of in some manner veiling or concealing that shameful commerce should contain a tacit reproof of the matter;

4. That those who preserve chaste morals, as being of themselves better for fulfilling their offices, be preferred to the others, at least other things being equal.

Finally, it is to be desired that in Europe we prepare better cultivators of those regions; and that, after a compact has been entered, those who are good there may be protected more fully from human respect and the contagion of vices.