avoid prostitution or other evils; who is content to live in humble
quarters with his wife, each doing their own work, will have great
difficulty in finding a well-nurtured girl to consent to such an
arrangement. Everything has to be regulated according to the fashion,
customs and prejudices of the class in which he lives, and this
usually renders marriage impossible, as long as he has not what is
called a position. But no one will blame the same student for living
in concubinage with a grisette. Why cannot the same means of existence
which allow concubinage suffice for marriage? With this question I
only touch on a problem to which we shall return, at the same time
pointing out the canker which corrupts our modern sexual life.

By marriage for money we understand marriage which is based on
interest and not on love. It is not always a question of money; for
position, name, titles and convenience often complicate the question.
Sometimes a ruined aristocrat marries a rich tradesman's daughter, in
order to repair his fortune, while the vanity of his _fiancee_ makes a
title a desirable acquisition. Sometimes a coquette, by clever
flirtation, will simulate a love which she does not feel, to catch a
rich man in her net. But more commonly there is calculation on both
sides and both are duped.

Marriage for money is not confined to the rich but also occurs among
peasants and working people. Everywhere it constitutes one of the
principal corrupting elements of sexual intercourse and procreation.
Hard-working servants who have succeeded in saving a few hundred
dollars are often married for the sake of this small sum, and then
abandoned as soon as the husband has squandered it. I do not pretend
that a marriage for money can never be happy; it may happen that the
contract is an honest one and that love follows it more or less
haltingly, especially when the calculators have taken into account
character and health, etc., as well as money.

There is no need for me to continue this theme any further, and I
shall conclude by stating that this system opens the door to
hypocrisy, deceit and abuse of all kinds. It is not without reason
that marriage for money has been branded with the name of _fashionable
prostitution_.

PROSTITUTION AND PROXENETISM

Prostitution is a very ancient institution and a sign of degeneration
which is found more or less among all nations. When woman is an
article for sale it is not surprising that those w