CHAPTER VI

THE MORAL ASPECT OF REGULATION

THE prominence given in recent discussion to the sanitary evils that result from unchecked and unregulated prostitution has obscured, to a certain extent, the fact that there are greater evils than physical disease connected with vice. One who subscribes to the dictum, "Disease is a great evil, but vice is a greater," is almost certain to be subjected to the scorn of many practical

Yet, when the controversial spirit subsides, all rational men will admit the gravity of vice, quite apart from its hygienic consequences. The history of decadent Greece and Rome will show to what depths of imbecility and shame it may cause a nation to fall. There can be no greater mistake than to believe that the impulses that lead to vice are constant and invariable, capable of complete satiation. They grow with feeding; if they are wearied with one kind of satisfaction, they seek not rest, but variety. This fact, rather than any other, will account for the hideous forms of vice that disfigured ancient society. One does not

need a revealed religion or a subtle moral philosophy to teach him that unrestrained vice results in mental and moral disease and degeneracy far more hideous and far more dangerous to society than any form of physical disease.

Accordingly, if it is a dangerous policy for government to ignore the existence of venereal diseases and to neglect any possible means for preventing them, it is a still more dangerous policy to ignore vice and to permit it to grow unchecked. To limit the number of those who seek vicious pleasures, and to prevent the furnishing of such pleasures to those who are inclined to seek them, is one of the first duties of good government.

There is a widely-prevalent opinion that the moral task is too great for government to undertake, while sanitary improvements may be easily brought about; accordingly, it is expedient to limit governmental activity to the comparatively narrow field of sanitary regulation. Those who hold this view lose sight of the fact that humanity is not divided into two classes, the virtuous and the vicious, but that in it is represented every degree of virtue and vice, from the purest to the most utterly depraved. There will probably always be men who are swayed solely by animal passions, and it would be vain to hope to make them virtuous by legislative enactment. There will always be women who fall willing victims to

vice, whom no governmental vigilance could save. A great part of vice withdraws itself as completely from social control as do a man's secret thoughts. The fact remains that the greater part of humanity stands midway between the two extremes and may be improved or degraded in morals by circumstances which lie within the control of society.

Indeed, it is almost inexplicable that any one should doubt that a more rational system of education, better housing conditions, the suppression of flagrant incitement to vice, and the dissociating of vice from legitimate amusement would diminish the number of patrons of prostitution, and would limit the extent to which the remainder indulge in illicit pleasures. The improvement in morals could not, of course, be very pronounced in its effects. A large part of the gain could appear only in a succeeding generation. It would certainly be worth none the less for that. It may be remarked that there is hardly a reputable defender of sanitary regulation who does not at the same time advocate measures of moral reform. The influence of pernicious surroundings in promoting immorality is everywhere recognised. Some writers expect much good from measures that tend to promote morality among men, but believe that nothing can be done to diminish the number of women who lead immoral lives. This is the view of Tarnowsky. It rests upon the theory of the innate perversity of all

prostitutes, a theory which is not borne out by the facts. Without doubt, congenital perverts do exist among women. But there is no reason for believing that they form more than a negligible fraction of the entire number of prostitutes.

A very large number of prostitutes begin their career of shame when mere children. They may be the victims of procurers, or they may drift into Ivice without the deliberate incitement of any person who expects to profit from their shame. In any case, they can hardly be held responsible for their vicious conduct.

It is a disgrace to civilisation that panders are still permitted to betray neglected children and to take part of their earnings. In every large city those who have been attracted into prostitution before they were old enough to be responsible for their acts make up a very large proportion of the total number of vicious women.

It is undoubtedly true that a chronic state of poverty has a powerful influence in impelling women to accept a vicious life. Society has up to the present time proven unable to solve the problem of poverty; and until that problem is solved, there is little reason to believe that there will cease to be a class of women, not necessarily congenitally defective, who will choose a life of vice. But there are in every large city classes of working women whose normal income is sufficient to permit them to live honourable lives, but who are left at times

of temporary depression with no means of escaping from starvation except prostitution.'

It is easily conceivable that society could furnish temporary relief to such unfortunates and thus diminish, to an appreciable extent, the volume of feminine vice.

Again, there still remains a class of women who are abducted and forced into prostitution by physical violence. The fact that they sooner or later accept their fate is the only thing that can account for the indifference of society toward such a shameful condition. This is certainly a factor within the control of government.

The possibilities of moral regulation are by no means exhausted when society has done all in its power to prevent women from entering upon a life of shame. It is a long-exploded fallacy that a woman who has once fallen must always remain in the lowest degradation of vice. Of the great numbers who have fallen through need or thoughtlessness, probably the majority are striving to rise out of the mire. It is a commonplace that modern prostitution, viewed as a whole, is a temporary, not a permanent state. After a few years of shame

'According to Blaschko, Conférence Internationale, Brussels, 1899; Enquêtes, i., 676, occasional prostitution far surpasses in extent professional prostitution in the great industrial centres of Germany. In such cities prostitution increases or diminishes inversely as employment in industry. In St. Petersburg it is common for domestics to practise prostitution when out of employment and to cease from it when work is offered.-Stürmer, Die Prostitution in Russland, 76.