ut were unable to prevent the sexual passions
pursuing their course in one way or another.

Certain abuses or exceptions had, therefore, to be tolerated, or
certain complementary institutions had to be organized. However, these
laws generally branded all forms of sexual intercourse apart from
marriage, with the stigma of inferiority, or contempt, if not of
crime. The woman, being the weaker, was naturally the one to suffer
most from this stigma and its consequences.

The great diversity in the customs of different human tribes, makes it
necessary, in order to avoid errors, to guard against generalizing
without strong reasons. We cannot, however, here enter into details
which would lead us too far. We can, however, affirm that among the
lower or primitive races brute force played the principal role and was
the fundamental support of marriage, while in higher civilizations
legal regulation took the upper hand, however absurd or even immoral
it might be.

Illegal or extra-conjugal forms of sexual intercourse have always
formed two principal groups: _prostitution_ and _concubinage_. No
doubt, these two varieties are insensibly connected by numerous shades
of transition, but as their development depends on different
principles we must distinguish these two forms.

Prostitution is a trade in which a human being sells her body for
money, while concubinage consists in more or less free sexual
intercourse apart from marriage, the motive of which is simply the
sexual appetite, convenience or love, although sometimes violence
plays a part in it. We therefore find in extra-marital sexual
intercourse the same motives as in legal unions; legal or religious
sanction only is wanting.

It is needless to say that the motives which lead to concubinage may
be more or less tainted by interested calculation. In all
civilizations concubinage and prostitution constitute the complement
of legal marriage. Their regulation has ever produced the singular
results of surrounding them with a moral nimbus.

In Babylon, every woman once in her life, had to prostitute herself
for money to any stranger at the temple of Venus. Solon founded houses
of prostitution for the people and furnished them with slaves, "in
order to protect the sanctity of marriage against the passions of
youth."

The Romans had also their houses of prostitution or lupanari, public
or private, as well as free prostitutes. In the Middle Ages,
prostitution developed especial