cial organization having
disappeared, the "stranger" takes the place of the original functionary,
and the deity the place of the clan. This explanation has much in its
favor; but, as it is hardly possible to establish an historical
connection between the older and the later custom, it cannot be said to
be certain, and the origin of the "stranger-feature" remains obscure.

_Religious explanation._ Sacred prostitution is supposed by many writers
to have sprung from the cult of the goddess who represented the
productive power of the earth[1959] (Mother Earth, the Great Mother).
While such a figure is found in many of the lower tribes, it is only
among civilized peoples, and particularly in Western Asia, that the cult
acquired great importance. By the side of the female figure there
sometimes stands a male representative of fertility (Tammuz by the side
of Ishtar, Attis by the side of Kybele) who is regarded as the husband
or the lover of the goddess, but occupies a subordinate position. In
early times the goddess is represented as choosing her consorts at will,
but this is merely an attribution to her of a common custom of the
period. All deities, male and female, might be and were appealed to for
increase of crops and children, but a Mother goddess would naturally be
looked on as especially potent in this regard. Prayer would be
addressed to her, and that, with offerings, would be sufficient to
secure her aid; simply as patroness of fertility she would not demand
prostitution of her female worshipers--some special ground must be
assumed for this custom, and it is held that, as fertility was produced
by the union of the goddess with her consort or her lovers, this union
must be imitated by the women who sought a blessing from her.[1960] The
probability of such a ground for sacred prostitution is not obvious.
There are communities of temple-courtesans (in West Africa and India)
where such an idea does not exist. If the license was in imitation of
the goddess, this feature of her character requires explanation, and the
natural explanation is that such a figure is a product of a time of
license. In the ancient world it was only in Asia Minor and the adjacent
Semitic territory that religious orgies and debauchery existed--they
seem to have been an inheritance from a savage age. Or, if the
prostitution is explained as a magical means of obtaining
children,[1961] this also would go back to a religiously crude period.
Magical rit