43. The Lady of Joy
Even prostitution, in the long run, may become a more or less
respectable profession, as it was in the great days of the Greeks.
That quality will surely attach to it if ever it grows quite
unnecessary; whatever is unnecessary is always respectable, for
example, religion, fashionable clothing, and a knowledge of Latin
grammar. The prostitute is disesteemed today, not because her
trade involves anything intrinsically degrading or even disagreeable,
but because she is currently assumed to have been driven into it by
dire necessity, against her dignity and inclination. That this
assumption is usually unsound is no objection to it; nearly all the
thinking of the world, particularly in the field of morals, is based
upon unsound assumption, e.g., that God observes the fall of a
sparrow and is shocked by the fall of a Sunday-school
superintendent. The truth is that prostitution is one of the most
attractive of the occupations practically open to the sort of women
who engage in it, and that the prostitute commonly likes her work,
and would not exchange places with a shop-girl or a waitress
for
anything in the world. The notion to the contrary is
propagated by unsuccessful prostitutes who fall into the hands of
professional reformers, and who assent to the imbecile theories of
the latter in order to cultivate their good will, just as convicts in
prison, questioned by tee-totalers, always ascribe their rascality to
alcohol. No prostitute of anything resembling normal intelligence is
under the slightest duress; she is perfectly free to abandon her trade
and go into a shop or factory or into domestic service whenever the
impulse strikes her; all the prevailing gabble about white slave jails
and kidnappers comes from pious rogues who make a living by
feeding such nonsense to the credulous. So long as the average
prostitute is able to make a good living, she is quite content with her
lot, and disposed to contrast it egotistically with the slavery of her
virtuous sisters. If she complains of it, then you may be sure that
her success is below her expectations. A starving lawyer always
sees injustice, in the courts. A bad physician is a bitter critic of
Ehrlich and Pasteur. And when a suburban clergyman is forced out
of his cure by a vestry-room revolution be almost invariably
concludes that the sinfulness of man is
incurable, and
sometimes he even begins to doubt some of the typographical errors
in Holy Writ.
The high value set upon virginity by men, whose esteem of it is
based upon a mixture of vanity and voluptuousness, causes many
women to guard it in their own persons with a jealousy far beyond
their private inclinations and interests. It is their theory that the loss
of it would materially impair their chances of marriage. This theory
is not supported by the facts. The truth is that the woman who
sacrifices her chastity, everything else being equal, stands a much
better chance of making a creditable marriage than the woman who
remains chaste. This is especially true of women of the lower
economic classes. At once they come into contact, hitherto socially
difficult and sometimes almost impossible, with men of higher
classes, and begin to take on, with the curious facility of their sex,
the refinements and tastes and points of view of those classes. The
mistress thus gathers charm, and what has begun as a sordid sale of
amiability not uncommonly ends with formal marriage. The
number of such marriages is enormously greater than appears
superficially, for both parties obviously make every effort to
conceal the facts. Within the circle of my necessarily limited
personal acquaintance I know of scores of men, some of them of
wealth and position, who have made such marriages, and who do
not seem to regret it. It is an old observation, indeed, that a woman
who has previously dispose of her virtue makes a good wife. The
common theory is that this is because she is grateful to her husband
for rescuing her from social outlawry; the truth is that she makes a
good wife because she is a shrewd woman, and has specialized
professionally in masculine weakness, and is thus extra-competent at
the traditional business of her sex. Such a woman often shows a
truly magnificent sagacity. It is very difficult to deceive her
logically, and it is impossible to disarm her emotionally. Her revolt
against the pruderies and sentimentalities of the world was evidence,
to begin with, of her intellectual enterprise and courage, and her
success as a rebel is proof of her extraordinary pertinacity,
resourcefulness and acumen.
Even the most lowly prostitute is better off, in all worldly ways, than
the virtuous woman of
her own station in life. She has less
work to do, it is less monotonous and dispiriting, she meets a far
greater variety of men, and they are of classes distinctly beyond her
own. Nor is her occupation hazardous and her ultimate fate tragic.
A dozen or more years ago I observed a some what amusing proof
of this last. At that time certain sentimental busybodies of the
American city in which I lived undertook an elaborate inquiry into
prostitution therein, and some of them came to me in advance, as a
practical journalist, for advice as to how to proceed. I found that all
of them shared the common superstition that the professional life of
the average prostitute is only five years long, and that she invariably
ends in the gutter. They were enormously amazed When they
unearthed the truth. This truth was to the effect that the average
prostitute of that town ended her career, not in the morgue but at
the altar of God, and that those who remained unmarried often
continued in practice for ten, fifteen and even twenty years, and
then retired on competences. It was established, indeed, that fully
eighty per cent married, and that they almost always got husbands
who would have been far beyond their reach
had they
remained virtuous. For one who married a cabman or petty pugilist
there were a dozen who married respectable mechanics, policemen,
small shopkeepers and minor officials, and at least two or three who
married well-to-do tradesmen and professional men. Among the
thousands whose careers were studied there was actually one who
ended as the wife of the town's richest banker--that is, one who
bagged the best catch in the whole community. This woman had
begun as a domestic servant, and abandoned that harsh and dreary
life to enter a brothel. Her experiences there polished and civilized
her, and in her old age she was a
grande dame of great dignity.
Much of the sympathy wasted upon women of the ancient
profession is grounded upon an error as to their own attitude toward
it. An educated woman, hearing that a frail sister in a public stew is
expected to be amiable to all sorts of bounders, thinks of how she
would shrink from such contacts, and so concludes that the actual
prostitute suffers acutely. What she overlooks is that these men,
however gross and repulsive they may appear to her, are measurably
superior to men of the prostitute's own class--say her
father
and brothers--and that communion with them, far from being
disgusting, is often rather romantic. I well remember observing,
during my collaboration with the vice-crusaders aforesaid, the
delight of a lady of joy who had attracted the notice of a police
lieutenant; she was intensely pleased by the idea of having a client of
such haughty manners, such brilliant dress, and what seemed to her
to be so dignified a profession. It is always forgotten that this
weakness is not confined to prostitutes, but run through the whole
female sex. The woman who could not imagine an illicit affair with
a wealthy soap manufacturer or even with a lawyer finds it quite
easy to imagine herself succumbing to an ambassador or a duke.
There are very few exceptions to this rule. In the most reserved of
modern societies the women who represent their highest flower are
notoriously complaisant to royalty. And royal women, to complete
the circuit, not infrequently yield to actors and musicians, i.e., to
men radiating a glamour not encountered even in princes.
