PROSTITUTION (Lat. prost it ut io. from prostit uerc, to expose publicly, to place before, from pro, before, for + stat Here, to place, from stare, to stand). Customary and common practice of lewdness for hire. Prostitution appears to have arisen in every race upon its emergence from the semi-promiscuity of barbaric life; certainly, no highly civilized people has ever been free from it. While it may thus be regarded as universal. it is not, however, a constant phenomenon. since its volume has unquestionably shown great ten -deney to variation.
The causes of prostitution are too complex for enumeration. hut its principal conditions may he briefly indicated. It is most common where large classes of men live under conditions which do not permit of the founding of families, and where numerous women exist in ,;(:) degraded an environ ment that they are not greatly influenced by the social abhorrence for professional vice. These con ditions are fulfilled in most large cities, and for this reason it is not unnatural that prostitution has increased in the last century, since the pro portion of the population living in cities has great ly increased. (Sec POPULATION.) It may there fore be regarded as a phenomenon of social pa thology, since it is closely dependent upon the social grouping of population and distribution of wealth. It may be pointed out that the use of alcoholic beverages increases the num her who live by vice, not only by increasing the attractiveness of such a life, but by creating in many homes conditions of so degraded a char acter thRt young children are early familiarized with evil. Recent changes in the mode of life of a large part of the race have no doubt given rise to many forms of physical degeneracy which nat urally find expression in this form of vice. Fur ther, the fact that a great deal of money finds its way into the hands of the prostitute renders it inevitable that a class of individuals should arise who make it their business to provide opportuni ties for vicious indulgence and to secure new victims for prostitution; and although there is no foundation for the popular belief that systematic procuration is responsible for the greater number of prostitutes, it remains true that in many cities there have existed and still exist agencies for procuring unwilling victims for vice.
Attempts to repress prostitution by penal laws have been common in all nations which have de veloped a high standard of personal purity. Such attempts were frequent in Jewish history. Pros titution was intimately associated with the wor ship of certain pagan deities (e.g. Astarte), and
was therefore more severely punished than a mere moral offense would have been. In the early Germanic tribes prostitution, like any other form of unchastity, was severely punished as an offense against social and religions institutions. The conquest of the Roman Empire by Chris tianity resulted in the promulgation of repressive laws against prostitution. By the capitularies of Charlemagne. Ivhipping, imprisonment, and ex posure were imposed upon the prostitute and those who sheltered her. Repressive enactments appear frequently in the later Middle Ages. espe cially after the great epidemic of syphilis in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. when many States and cities adopted the harshest measures of repression. employing imprisonment, mutila tion. and even capital punishment to this end. Upon her accession to the throne of Austria, Ma ria Theresa entered upon a systematic policy of repression, punishing severely both the prostitute and those who consorted with her. Repressive policies still appear sporadically in both Europe and America, but the inherent difficulties of po lice control of morals, together with the fruit lessness of past repressive policies, prevent their general adoption.
As an alternative to repressive measures. many governments have adopted the policy of tolerating prostitution itself, but under such regulations as might divest it of its attendant evils. These may be classed as social and hygienic. The social ef fect which was earliest recognized was its ten dency to lower the general standard of chastity. and thus to impair the integrity of the family and to undermine the whole constitution of so ciety. Classical and regulation endeav ored to meet this evil by drawing a clearly defined line between women devoted to vice and those of honorable life. The prostitute was com pelled to live in special quarters. and to wear a distinguishing garb. The same spirit evidently lies at the basis of modern police regulations. common in German cities and not uncommon in America, creating a 'reservation' within which prostitutes may live unmolested. It is assumed that when scattered among the general popula tion prostitutes net as centres of contagion of moral disease. In small cities such regulations have proved effective in centralizing vice, al though grave di u its have been cast upon the s. mai expudi(o y ( i such a policy: and in large cities it has nevi r proved satisfactory even to those who are c' nvincc•d of the expediency of regu lation.