As a more spiritual conception of religion developed, and as the growth of civilization tended to deprive sexual intercourse of its sacred halo, religious prostitution in Greece was slowly abolished, though on the coasts of Asia Minor both religious prostitution and prostitution for the purpose of obtaining a marriage portion persisted to the time of Constantine, who put an end to these ancient customs.[140] Superstition was on the side of the old religious prostitution; it was believed that women who had never sacrificed to Aphrodite became consumed by lust, and according to the legend recorded by Ovid—­a legend which seems to point to a certain antagonism between sacred and secular prostitution—­this was the case with the women who first became public prostitutes.  The decay of religious prostitution, doubtless combined with the cravings always born of the growth of civilization, led up to the first establishment, attributed by legend to Solon, of a public brothel, a purely secular establishment for a purely secular end:  the safeguarding of the virtue of the general population and the increase of the public revenue.  With that institution the evolution of prostitution, and of the modern marriage system of which it forms part, was completed.  The Athenian dikterion is the modern brothel; the dikteriade is the modern state-regulated prostitute.  The free hetairae, indeed, subsequently arose, educated women having no taint of the dikterion, but they likewise had no official part in public worship.[141] The primitive conception of the sanctity of sexual intercourse in the divine service had been utterly lost.

A fairly typical example of the conditions existing among savages is to be found in the South Sea Island of Rotuma, where “prostitution for money or gifts was quite unknown.”  Adultery after marriage was also unknown.  But there was great freedom in the formation of sexual relationships before marriage (J.  Stanley Gardiner, Journal Anthropological Institute, February, 1898, p. 409).  Much the same is said of the Bantu Ba mbola of Africa (op. cit., July-December, 1905, p. 410).

Among the early Cymri of Wales, representing a more advanced social stage, prostitution appears to have been not absolutely unknown, but public prostitution was punished by loss of valuable privileges (R.B.  Holt, “Marriage Laws and Customs of the Cymri,” Journal Anthropological Institute, August-November, 1898, pp. 161-163).

Prostitution was practically unknown in Burmah, and regarded as shameful before the coming of the English and the example of the modern Hindus.  The missionaries have unintentionally, but inevitably, favored the growth of prostitution by condemning free unions (Archives d’Anthropologie Criminelle, November, 1903, p. 720).  The English brought prostitution to India.  “That was not specially the fault of the English,” said a Brahmin to Jules Bois, “it is the