Note 154 — Chapter XLII · FREE LOVE—ADULTERY

Since the present chapter was in type, some fresh attempts have been made to explain this religious prostitution. Sir J. G. Frazer (Adonis Attis Osiris, p. 23 sq.) regards it as a rite intended to ensure the fruitfulness of the ground and the increase of man and beast on the principle of homœopathic magic. A very similar opinion has been expressed by Dr. Havelock Ellis (‘Ursprung und Entwicklung der Prostitution,’ in Mutterschutz, iii. fasc. 1 sq.). According to Mr. Hartland, again (‘Concerning the Rite at the Temple of Mylitta,’ in Anthropological Essays presented to E. B. Tylor, p. 189 sqq.), it was a puberty rite involving a sacrifice of virginity to which every woman was subjected. [My own theory has subsequently been accepted by van Gennep, Les rites de passage, p. 242 sq.]