r
responsibility for such control can no longer be shifted on to the
shoulders of the other sex, women will also indirectly affect the sexual
lives of men, much as men already affect the sexual lives of women. In
what ways that influence will in the main be exerted it is still premature
to say. According to some, just as formerly men bought their wives and
demanded prenuptial virginity in the article thus purchased, so nowadays,
among the better classes, women are able to buy their husbands, and in
their turn are disposed to demand continence.[305] That, however, is too
simple-minded a way of viewing the question. It is enough to refer to the
fact that women are not attracted to virginal innocence in men and that
they frequently have good ground for viewing such innocence with
suspicion.[306] Yet it may well be believed that women will more and more
prefer to exert a certain discrimination in the approval of their
husbands' past lives. However instinctively a woman may desire that her
husband shall be initiated in the art of making love to her, she may often
well doubt whether the finest initiation is to be secured from the average
prostitute. Prostitution, as we have seen, is ultimately as incompatible
with complete sexual responsibility as is the patriarchal marriage system
with which it has been so closely associated. It is an arrangement mainly
determined by the demands of men, to whatever extent it may have
incidentally subserved various needs of women. Men arranged that one group
of women should be set apart to minister exclusively to their sexual
necessities, while another group should be brought up in asceticism as
candidates for the privilege of ministering to their household and family
necessities. That this has been in many respects a most excellent
arrangement is sufficiently proved by the fact that it has nourished for
so long a period, notwithstanding the influences that are antagonistic to
it. But it is obviously only possible during a certain stage of
civilization and in association with a certain social organization. It is
not completely congruous with a democratic stage of civilization involving
the economic independence and the sexual responsibility of both sexes
alike in all social classes. It is possible that women may begin to
realize this fact earlier than men.

It is also believed by many that women will realize that a high degree of
moral responsibility is not easily compatible with the practice