[104] Corre (Les Criminels, p. 351) mentions that of thirteen priests convicted of crime, six were guilty of sexual attempts on children, and of eighty-three convicted lay teachers, forty-eight had committed similar offenses.  This was at a time when lay teachers were in practice almost compelled to live a celibate life; altered conditions have greatly diminished this class of offense among them.  Without going so far as crime, many moral and religious men, clergymen and others, who have led severely abstinent lives in youth, sometimes experience in middle age or later the eruption of almost uncontrollable sexual impulses, normal or abnormal.  In women such manifestations are apt to take the form of obsessional thoughts of sexual character, as e.g., the case (Comptes-Rendus Congres International de Medecine, Moscow, 1897, vol. iv, p. 27) of a chaste woman who was compelled to think about and look at the sexual organs of men.

[105] J.A.  Godfrey, The Science of Sex, p. 138.

[106] See, e.g., Havelock Ellis, “St. Francis and Others,” Affirmations.

CHAPTER VII.

PROSTITUTION.

I. The Orgy:—­The Religious Origin of the Orgy—­The Feast of Fools—­Recognition of the Orgy by the Greeks and Romans—­The Orgy Among
Savages—­The Drama—­The Object Subserved by the Orgy.

II. The Origin and Development of Prostitution:—­The Definition of
Prostitution—­Prostitution Among Savages—­The Conditions Under Which
Professional Prostitution Arises—­Sacred Prostitution—­The Rite of
Mylitta—­The Practice of Prostitution to Obtain a Marriage Portion—­The
Rise of Secular Prostitution in Greece—­Prostitution in the East—­India,
China, Japan, etc.—­Prostitution in Rome—­The Influence of Christianity on
Prostitution—­The Effort to Combat Prostitution—­The Mediaeval Brothel—­The
Appearance of the Courtesan—­Tullia D’Aragona—­Veronica Franco—­Ninon de
Lenclos—­Later Attempts to Eradicate Prostitution—­The Regulation of
Prostitution—­Its Futility Becoming Recognized.

III. The Causes of Prostitution:—­Prostitution as a Part of the Marriage
System—­The Complex Causation of Prostitution—­The Motives Assigned by
Prostitutes—­(1) Economic Factor of Prostitution—­Poverty Seldom the Chief
Motive for Prostitution—­But Economic Pressure Exerts a Real
Influence—­The Large Proportion of Prostitutes Recruited from Domestic
Service—­Significance of This Fact—­(2) The Biological Factor of
Prostitution—­The So-called Born-Prostitute—­Alleged Identity with the
Born-Criminal—­The Sexual Instinct in Prostitutes—­The Physical and
Psychic Characters of Prostitutes—­(3) Moral Necessity as a Factor in the
Existence of Prostitution—­The Moral Advocates of Prostitution—­The Moral
Attitude of Christianity Towards Prostitution—­The