Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/60

44 of trade. It is at the same time a hereditary cor ruption which is transmitted from the mother to the children, and pursues entire classes from one generation to the other, inasmuch as the want of means for existence goes hand in hand with the want of means for education.

Out of regard for the weaker nerves of women (since women have weaker nerves than men), I shall refrain from picturing in detail the fate to which so many thousands, especially in great cities, among them a great part in the most tender age of virginity, are consigned. Whatever the imagination can conceive as low and disgusting, that is suffered, is cultivated by a great part of the feminine sex from necessity, and for money. Every hesitation which the feelings or the sensual impressions might oppose in a single case is overcome by necessity and by money; and we may not be far from the truth in imagining the most beautiful and lovable girl in the world transferred to the chambers of a brothel, where she tremblingly begins the practice of her profession in the arms of a decrepit old man, whose aspect causes all the five senses at once to revolt, but whom money enables to stimulate his deadened vitality by means of a youthful beauty for — a double premium.

But now, you women who shudder at the reading of such things, do you believe that prostitution is to be found only in those haunts where a