Note 178 — Chapter III
Henry P. (Henry Pomeroy) Horton translation
It may be objected that prostitution has presented itself under other economic systems. I am not ignorant of this, but I know also that 3 × 4 = 12, and 2 × 6 = 12 also; that is to say that two different causes may produce the same result. The prostitution of our day may be the consequence of capitalism while that of earlier periods may have been the consequence of the mode of production of those times. Further, an examination of the epochs in which prostitution was a general phenomenon (it never reached proportions as great as under capitalism)178 shows us that they did not differ much from our own in those matters which concern the question in hand, namely, the inferior position of woman, and the strong contrasts in fortunes.