Analogous customs, extremely licentious in our eyes, but perfectly natural for primitive peoples, were in full force among all the indigenous races of America.
The Chinouk girls give or hire themselves out as they please. In the latter case the parents often take the payment.[1]
The Aymaras, who have no word for marriage, and who are such a simple folk that, in their opinion, any crime can be committed with impunity on Good Friday, since God is dead on that day, contract without scruple free unions merely for the duration of the evening of a feast. The contract is made in mimic language, and in settling it the man and woman exchange head-gear only.[2]
Similar manners prevail among the Esquimaux, the Kaffirs, and the Dyaks of Borneo. In Japan the parents willingly hire out their daughters, either to private individuals or to houses of prostitution, for a period of several years, and the girls are in no way dishonoured thereby. In Abyssinia, says Bruce, outside of the conjugal bond, which is easily tied or untied, the women dispose of their person as they please.
In primitive Rome, as with us, the young girl without dowry, the indotata, was held in moderate esteem; and therefore many young girls procured themselves a dowry by trafficking their persons. An old Latin proverb has handed down the souvenir of this ancient fashion of procuring a dowry: Tusco more, tute tibi dotem quæris corpore.[3]
Now, in all these customs, at once so simple and so gross, it is impossible to see the traces of an enforced hetaïrism, derived from an antique period of promiscuity, which was also equally obligatory. They are simply traits of animal laxity. Men were still almost devoid of moral training, and the care for decency and modesty was of the slightest.
If in a primitive country a certain amount of restraint is imposed on a woman who is married, or rather owned by a man, it is solely because she is considered as property, held by the same title as a field or a domestic animal. For her
