East and West, women show the same unrelenting attitude of sternness towards the prostitute; and one reason is that in all countries women are the main upholders of religion, and no great religion has ever permitted prostitution. But the chief reason for this sternness is undoubtedly the truth, unconsciously known to everyone, that although the human being who has never had an ideal is to be pitied, the woman who has had an ideal and has allowed the circumstances of life to break it, has herself thrown away her soul. And it is hard for any woman to tolerate the thought that another woman should be born without an ideal of womanhood.

"The prostitute, grown old, makes a business of her calling, and the girls she has are her slaves", says Sa'di.

Where slavery was banished in its outward appearance in society, prostitution, which is really a slave business, simply changed hands. The expert prostitute is the center of this traffic; she not only brings up young girls to it, taking her share of the profits, but to her gravitate the ruined or deserted women, who are too ashamed to go home or who perhaps have none to go to. Before her they feel no shame; and with her welcome, unspoiled by the cold reproaches of hard speech that the virtuous too often proffer with their assistance, she gives kindness and sympathy and also practical help and a means of subsistence.

Only in her spring-like youth does the prostitute find anyone to care for her; after that time is passed she often begins to live on the earnings of other women. Sometimes she herself is in the hands of a man who is the real slave-owner of the business; and at other times she has her men agents who help her to spread her trade for their own profit.

The customs of this trade, which is learned and taught like any other, seem to vary little from country to country; although here and there one finds definite reasons why it should flourish a little more or a little less. When one part of a community is considered entirely subject to another part, or where one race is subject to another in the same country, this business seems to increase. Also military camps have always promoted it; the very conditions of camp life must give scope to it.

Sometimes the human being finds himself in an occupation which works against his conscience; he follows it for the sake of his livelihood only. It satisfies him for a time because it satisfies his material needs, but there comes a moment in his development when he can bear his yoke no longer. And many times, even in the lives of the most degraded, comes this moment when they feel that they must grow out of their surroundings, or break away at all costs.

There was once an Indian woman, a singer, who led this degraded life of the prostitute, but she had one quality: when others sang only to please the rich, she would also sing to those who could not pay her. And this generosity in her was the means of leading her to meet and see such souls as she would hardly otherwise have seen in that profession. At last the qualities of kindness and charity of heart so developed in her that her voice became an inspiration and a source of uplift to many devotional souls. And thus she grew away from her profession and in the end became renowned for her piety throughout India.