ABSTRACT
Prostitution in the present-day legal sense of the term is a sore of civilisation. Strictly speaking, it has never existed among savage races in the sense that we know the professional prostitution of Leicester Square or the Montmartre or the Bowery. From this it is easy to make the facile assumption that savages are more chaste and more moral than civilised men and women. It is a contention that is often brought forward by writers on anthropology and ethnology. The lack of prostitution is looked upon as evidence of a lack of promiscuous intercourse, and as a proof of greater chastity among savages. Actually it presents no such evidence.
