Prostitution In The 19th Century

Economics is a very important to society, even today. Society needs money and an economic turnover in order to function. Partaking in the economics, women in the 19th century took up various jobs in order to help support their families, a well talked about job that will be focused on in this essay is prostitution. Henry Mayhew, echoing the understanding of the time, stated “Literally every woman who yields to her passions and loses her virtue is a prostitute, but many draw a distinction between those who live by promiscuous intercourse, and those who confine themselves to one man.”(Mayhew, 34). Women’s sexuality and economics went hand in hand when they made a living as prostitutes. When women’s sexuality and economy started intermingling
In coastal English towns women would turn to prostitution when the ships came to port, and would spin or do other more traditional jobs the rest of the year. In these more traditional jobs women would make much less than a man’s “family wage”. Women’s jobs would often help supplement the family, without this income families could go hungry- even if it was perceived that this income was only for frivolous things. With this seasonal change many women would move into prostitution because it was much more profitable than the jobs that they would be otherwise doing. All women would partake in this, even married women and mothers, prostitution was seen as a thing that women had to do in order to provide for their families. This inherently made prostitution seem normal. We are aware of this because of men's accounts of
All accounts, and even laws about prostitution were all from a man's perspective. There were two contradicting accounts that were read and discussed in class. The first was more of an editorialized account by Henry Mayhew. He was a reporter and he decided to interview, and categorize women. He categorized prostitutes into three main categories “those women who are kept by men of independant means; secondly those who live in apartments, and maintain themselves by the produce by their vagrant amours; and thirdly those who dwell in brothels.” (32) Even with these distinctions all the women seem to enjoy prostitution, and benefit monetarily from this job. A big contrast to this depiction is from My Secret Life, Sarah the main prostitute from this narrative states that she finds men disgusting. When speaking to Walter, her client, she states “I hate it- hate you men, - you’re all beasts,- you’re never satisfied unless you are pulling a woman about in all manner of ways.” (117). This stark comparison leaves us with a question of how women’s lives really were. Mayhew’s article made it seem like women enjoyed what they were doing- and his article was printed for the masses to see while My Secret Life was printed only of the elite of the elite. If articles similar to My Secret Life, where women were shown as