Note 138 — Chapter II · THEORY OF THE HORDE AND MOTHER-RIGHT

"Thus Herodotus states, in Babylonia, every woman was obliged once in her life to give herself up, in the temple of Mylitta, to strangers, for the satisfaction of the goddess; and in some parts of Cyprus, he tells us, the same custom prevailed. In Armenia, according to Strabo, there was a very similar law. The daughters of good families were consecrated to Anaitis, a phallic divinity like Mylitta, giving themselves, as it appears, to the worship of the goddess indiscriminately."—Westermarck, Human Marriage, 72; Herodotus, I, c. 199; Strabo, XI, 532. As to Babylon Herodotus may have been mistaken; cf. chap. iv, below. See further illustrations in Bernhöft, op. cit., 169 ff.; Giraud-Teulon, op. cit., 7 ff.; Ploss, Das Weib, I, 383 ff.; Lippert, Geschichte der Familie, 171; Friedrichs, in ZVR., VIII, 373, who enumerates the peoples where the custom has existed; idem, ibid., X, 215, 216; Hellwald, Die mensch. Familie, 356 ff.; and Howard, Sex Worship, 103-16, 201, passim, who holds that sacred prostitution, and many of the other sexual practices usually assigned as survivals of promiscuity, are evidences of phallicism.