ome objects of condemnation
within the period of the history.

+596. Antagonism of abundance and excess.+ The Germans had a
Corn-mother, a goddess of agricultural growth and fertility. The
Mexicans also had a mother-of-the-gods, Teteoinnan. The former became a
harlot. The latter, by her sex activity, brought about growth and
abundant reproduction, and became a goddess of lewdness.[1925] Thus
wherever the agricultural interest controls this set of ideas we see
the struggle between the idea that unrestrained sex indulgence produces
abundance and the idea that it produces excess, lewdness, and harm. We
can still trace to the metaphorical use of "mother," "father," and
"son," and also to the use of the same words to express the possession
of a quality in a high degree, or a tie of destiny, some of the most
important concepts of our own religion.

+597. Survivals of sacral harlotry. Analogous customs in Hindostan.+ The
early Portuguese travelers to the East found sacral harlotry in Cochin
China. All virgins of noble birth were bound by vows from infancy.
Otherwise no honorable man would marry them.[1926] Modern Egyptian
dancing girls, Ghowazy or Barmeky, had a tradition that they belonged to
a race by themselves. They kept up isolation and peculiar customs. Each
was compelled to surrender to a stranger and then to marry a man of her
own group.[1927] "Probably Heaven and Earth are the most ancient of all
Vedic gods, and from their fancied union, as husband and wife, the other
deities and the whole universe were at first supposed to spring." "The
whole world is embodied in the woman.... Women are gods. Women are
vitality," say the Vedic Scriptures. In Manu[1928] "the self-existent
god is described as dividing his own substance and becoming half male
and half female."[1929] A competent author, who wrote at the beginning
of the nineteenth century, says that the women attached to the temples
in Hindostan sang and danced twice a day, the songs being about
mythological subjects and indecent according to the current mores of
everyday life. Vows play a very important part in the Hindoo system of
sacral harlotry. A woman, with the consent of her husband, vowed her
unborn child, if a girl, to the temple, in order to get an easy
confinement. It was no disgrace to a family to have a daughter living
this life. Barren women visited remote temples, under a vow of
self-devotion, in order to bear children. They were victimized by the
priest