Part 17 (2/2)
The Remedy.--Whether this gigantic evil can ever be eradicated, is exceedingly doubtful. To effect its cure would be to make refined Christians out of brutal sensualists; to emanc.i.p.ate woman from the enticing, alluring slavery of fas.h.i.+on; to uproot false ideas of life and its duties,--in short, to revolutionize society. The crime is perpetrated in secret. Many times no one but the criminal herself is cognizant of the evil deed. Only occasionally do cases come near enough to the surface to be dimly discernible; hence the evident inefficiency of any civil legislation. But the evil is a desperate one, and is increasing; shall no attempt be made to check the tide of crime and save the sufferers from both physical and spiritual perdition? An effort should be made, at least. Let every Christian raise the note of warning. From every Christian pulpit let the truth be spoken in terms too plain for misapprehension. Let those who are known to be guilty of this most revolting crime be looked upon as murderers, as they are; and let their real moral status be distinctly shown.
All of these means will do something to effect a reform; but the radical cure of the evil will only be found in the principles suggested in the section devoted to the consideration of ”Marital Excesses.” The adoption of those principles and strict adherence to them would effectually prevent the occurrence of circ.u.mstances which are the occasion of abortions and infanticides.
Murder by Proxy.--”There is, at the present time, a kind of infanticide, which, although it is not so well known, is even more dangerous, because done with impunity. There are parents who recoil with horror at the idea of destroying their offspring, although they would greatly desire to be disembarra.s.sed of them, who yet place them without remorse with nurses who enjoy the sinister reputation of never returning the children to those who have intrusted them to their care. These unfortunate little beings are condemned to perish from inanition and bad treatment.
”The number of these innocent victims is greater than would be imagined, and very certainly exceeds that of the marked infanticides sent by the public prosecutor to the Court of the a.s.sizes.”
THE SOCIAL EVIL.
Illicit intercourse has been a foul blot upon humanity from the earliest periods of history. At the present moment, it is a loathsome ulcer eating at the heart of civilization, a malignant leprosy which shows its hideous deformities among the fairest results of modern culture.
Our large cities abound with dens of vice whose _habitues_ shamelessly promenade the most public streets and flaunt their infamy in the face of every pa.s.ser-by. In many large cities, especially in those of Continental Europe, these holds of vice are placed under the supervision of the law by the requirement that every keeper of a house of prost.i.tution must pay for a license; in other words, must buy the right to lead his fellow-men ”down to the depths of h.e.l.l.”
In smaller cities, as well as in large ones, in fact, from the great metropolis down to the country village, the haunts of vice are found.
Every army is flanked by bands of courtesans. Wherever men go, loose women follow, penetrating even to the wildness of the miner's camp, far beyond the verge of civilization.
But brothels and traveling strumpets do not fully represent the vast extent of this monster evil. There is a cla.s.s of immoral women--probably exceeding in numbers the grosser cla.s.s just referred to--who consider themselves respectable; indeed, who are considered very respectable.
Few are acquainted with their character. They live in elegant style and mingle in genteel society. Privately, they prosecute the most unbounded licentiousness, for the purpose of gain, or merely to gratify their lewdness. ”Kept mistresses” are much more numerous than common prost.i.tutes.
The numerous scandal and divorce suits which expose the infidelity of husbands and wives, are sufficient evidence that illicit commerce is not confined to the unmarried; but so many are the facilities for covering and preventing the results of sins of this description it is impossible to form any just estimate of their frequency. The incontinence of husbands and the unchast.i.ty of wives will only appear in their enormity at that awful day when every one shall ”stand before the judgment-seat” and hear the penalty of his guilty deeds.
Unchast.i.ty of the Ancients.--We are p.r.o.ne to believe that the present is the most licentious age the world has ever known; that in the nineteenth century the climax of evil has been reached; that the libidinous blood of all the ages has culminated to produce a race of men more carnal than all predecessors. It is a sickening thought that any previous epoch could have been more vile than this; but history presents facts which disclose in ancient times periods when l.u.s.t was even more uncontrolled than now; when vice was universal; and when virtue was a thing unknown. A few references to historical facts will establish this point. We do not make these allusions in any way to justify the present immorality, but to show the part which vice has acted in the overthrow of nations.
From the sacred record we may judge that before the flood a state of corruption prevailed which was even greater and more general than any that has ever since been reached; only eight persons were fit to survive the calamity which swept into eternity that l.u.s.tful generation with their filthy deeds.
But men soon fell into vice again, for we find among the early a.s.syrians a total disregard of chast.i.ty. Her kings reveled in the grossest sensuality.
No excess of vice could surpa.s.s the licentiousness of the Ptolemies, who made of Alexandria a bagnio, and all Egypt a hot-bed of vice.
Herodotus relates that ”the pyramid of Cheops was built by the lovers of the daughter of this king; and that she never would have raised this monument to such a height except by multiplying her prost.i.tutions.”
History also relates the adventures of that queenly courtesan, Cleopatra, who captivated and seduced by her charms two masters of the world, and whose lewdness surpa.s.sed even her beauty.
Tyre and Sidon, Media, Phoenicia, Syria, and all the Orient, were sunk in sensuality. Fornication was made a part of their wors.h.i.+p. Women carried through the streets of the cities the most obscene and revolting representations. Among all these nations a virtuous woman was not to be found; for, according to Herodotus, the young women were by the laws of the land ”obliged, once in their lives, to give themselves up to the desires of strangers in the temple of Venus, and were not permitted to refuse anyone.”[41]
[Footnote 41: Bourgeois.]
St. Augustine speaks of these religious debaucheries as still practiced in his day in Phoenicia. They were even continued until Constantine destroyed the temples in which they were prosecuted, in the fourth century.
Among the Greeks the same corruptions prevailed in the wors.h.i.+p of Bacchus and Phallus, which was celebrated by processions of half-nude girls ”performing lascivious dances with men disguised as satyrs.” In fact, as X. Bourgeois says, ”Prost.i.tution was in repute in Greece.”
The most distinguished women were courtesans, and the wise Socrates would be justly called, in modern times, a libertine.
The abandonment to l.u.s.t was, if possible, still more complete in the times of the Roman emperors. Rome astonished the universe ”by the boldness of its turpitudes, after having astonished it by the splendor of its triumphs.”
The great Caesar was such a rake that he has been said to have ”merited to be surnamed every woman's husband.” Antony and Augustus were equally notorious. The same sensuality pervaded the ma.s.ses as reigned in the courts, and was stimulated by the erotic poems of Ovid, Catullus, and other poets of the time.
Tiberius displayed such ingenuity in inventing refinements in impudicity that it was necessary to coin new words to designate them.
Caligula committed the horrid crime of incest with all his sisters, even in public. His palace was a brothel. The Roman empress, Messalina, disguised herself as a prost.i.tute and excelled the most degraded courtesans in her monstrous debaucheries. The Roman emperor Vitellius was accustomed to take an emetic after having eaten to repletion, to enable him to renew his gluttony. With still grosser sensuality he stimulated his satiated pa.s.sions with philters and various aphrodisiac mixtures.
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