Note 144 — Chapter III
Henry P. (Henry Pomeroy) Horton translation
The statistics cited show, then, that the cause named occupies a quite considerable place in the etiology of prostitution. This cause is entirely a consequence of the existing social conditions, which maintain the dependent position of woman, and of marriage, which brings it about that every woman living with a man as with a husband is despised, even when the union is due to inclination, and that life is made very hard for her, especially if a child is born of the union. However, it must be added, that this applies especially to the women of the middle classes, and that “free love” and the child that is the fruit of it, are not at all so despised among the proletariat, for, as we have seen above, the bases of the present legal monogamy have not so great an importance there.144