The concept of shame came to humanity through the development of civilization and morality. In pre-Christian times, people were not limited by the burden of sinfulness, so they could be free to embody any desires, including sexual ones …
It is known that ancient and primitive peoples did not associate desire with duty and indulged in pleasures right and left. There was no monogamous marriage in our usual sense, children were born from the most diligent and strong, and women took care of them together. It is not surprising that the first rituals were associated with various kinds of sexual acts.
Sometimes prostitution is called the oldest profession, and in part it is, but it is unlikely that the participation of women in casual and chaotic relationships with unfamiliar men was then exclusively material in nature.
The most ancient prostitutes were more likely priestesses in the modern sense, since they were given not for money, but following a certain tradition or rite. This happened until monogamous marriage came into its own, pushing polygamy into the background.
Religious prostitution is a kind of mixing of the physical and spiritual needs of a person, in this case a woman is given to a man not for material gain, but in the name of faith in one or more gods. There is a lot of historical evidence that religious prostitution existed for many millennia, both among primitive tribes and among highly developed historical peoples.
Ritual prostitution as a phenomenon originated in the East and from there it was brought to Greece and Rome. Initially, such cults were performed in the temples of the goddesses of fertility - Inanna, or Ishtar, in Mesopotamia, Melitta in Babylon, Astarte in Phenicia, Anais in Armenia, Isis in Egypt.
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Babylon
Herodotus wrote about the religious tradition of the ancient Babylonians: every woman was obliged once in her life to appear in the temple of the goddess of fertility Melitta and surrender to the very first stranger who chooses her, throwing a handful of coins into her hem.
This applied to Babylonian women of all classes - from slaves to queens. The beauties did not spend even several days in the church; they were chosen immediately and let go home. Ugly women sometimes had to live at the temple for years, waiting for their fate. Having failed to fulfill her duty, the woman had no right to go home.
The money earned in this way was considered sacred, and the woman, after completing the ritual, was under the patronage of the goddess all her life. Noble ladies came to the temple on richly decorated carts, poor townspeople walked to the temple and sat there with ribbons around their heads.
But the same fate awaited both those and others - to go with the very first stranger who would throw a coin into the hem and say: "I appeal to the goddess Melitta." The woman had no right to refuse and had to agree to any amount, even the most insignificant one.
From the point of view of genetics, this ritual performed a certain function: it allowed to dilute a close circle of townspeople, because women often gave birth to children from strangers, to whom the Babylonians attributed magical powers.
Edwin Long, Babylonian Bride Auction (1875).
Phoenicia
In Phenicia, similar temples of the goddess of fertility Astarte also existed, under which harlots constantly lived, serving the priests and foreigners.
Once a year, on the feast of Astarte, the number of sacred harlots increased several times. Phoenician women sat down along the roads right on the ground, wearing reed wreaths on their heads. They could be chosen by any passers-by and agreed to fulfill their duty in the name of the goddess, so that later they could return home without a wreath.
The Phoenicians also had a peculiar cult of strangers, and the fathers had to give them their young unmarried daughters for corruption. In addition, many unmarried girls were engaged in prostitution in Phenicia in order to save up for a dowry and successfully marry.
At the entrance to the commercial city of Carthage, the girls set up tent cities to receive merchants from different countries. Having accumulated enough money, they often donated large sums to the construction of temples and monuments, as evidenced by the graffiti on the walls.
Apparently, courtesans often donated larger sums than wealthy artisans and merchants, as if thanks to the gods and goddesses for the opportunity to successfully marry with the help of their craft.
Egypt
In Egypt, the sun god Osiris was worshiped as a masculine principle and the goddess of the earth and fertility, Isis, as a woman. During religious holidays, priestesses and priests performed acts resembling sexual intercourse with winnowers, symbols of the earth, and magic keys to all doors, tau, in the form of a male genital organ.
The priestesses who participated in the processions wore golden urns with phalluses on their chests, which were sacred images of the supreme deity and, in combination, instruments of pleasure. In the name of Isis, men and women floated on boats along the Nile, playing musical instruments and singing songs, after which women lifted their dresses and bare their breasts, inviting men to copulate.
In the temples of Isis, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims gathered at the same time, who indulged in the most gross debauchery there.
Both during the holidays and at ordinary times, harlots lived at the temples of Isis, who satisfied the priests and strangers. All the money earned by the prostitutes living at the temples went into the hands of the priests, who disposed of them at their own discretion.
The Egyptians had a ritual of deprivation of virginity. Fathers brought their young daughters
to sacrifice them to Osiris.
Ritual prostitution flourished especially during initiation rites, which were preceded by prolonged abstinence. Herodotus and Epiphanes write that these rituals, which took place in the dungeons, carried away those who participated in them during the unstoppable orgies of deep antiquity, with all the attendant gross perversions and mixing of sexes.
The Egyptians had a ritual ritual deprivation of virginity. Fathers brought their young daughters to sacrifice them to Osiris. The function of the god was performed by the priests, his direct intermediaries. Interestingly, only beautiful girls could be sacrificed. After completing the ceremony, they happily married.
There is a hypothesis that such rituals, which were often massive (according to some sources, about 700 thousand pilgrims gathered for the holidays of Isis), greatly corrupted the customs of the Egyptians. Combined with hot oriental blood, such liberation brought its heart. This, in particular, led to the flourishing of secular prostitution and extreme freedom of morals.
It is known, for example, that Cheops himself, having gone bankrupt on the construction of the pyramids, forced his own daughter into prostitution. Devoted to her father, she asked every man who came to her, in addition to money, to give her a stone for her father's tomb. According to legend, one of the four pyramids was built from these stones.
Israel
Among the ancient Jews, holy harlots lived in temples specially built for this purpose. Later, chaste Christians explained the function of the massive structures of several floors around the temples as "premises for the storage of sacred vessels."
Israeli youths fell into these buildings to devote themselves to religious prostitution. They did it deliberately, of their own free will, and not because of poverty or vice. Very often, the girls living at the temples were from very noble families. They came to the temple because they felt unable to serve one man, so they doomed themselves to a marriage with a whole nation.
One of the prophets conceived children with the temple harlot, taking as witnesses two priests of the temple. Interestingly, intercourse with harlots was ritually arranged, sanctified by two priests (just like modern marriages are performed in the presence of two witnesses), and therefore it was not considered a vice, it did not desecrate either the harlot or the one who came to her, no matter how dirty a modern marriage may be.
As can be seen from this brief ritual with priests, the ancient Jews did not see anything wrong with such things, but on the contrary, understood it as a short-term marriage, a wedding of a couple for one night. However, strangers, merchants and soldiers entered the chambers of the temple harlots solely to relieve sexual tension, which did not affect the reputation of the temple harlots. They were treated with honor, perceived their natural fervor as a destiny and honorably called "the spouses of Israel."
However, before the final publication of the Tables of Laws in Israel, there were less humane traditions regarding prostitution, for example, the right of a father to sell his daughter as a concubine for any length of time, taking all the proceeds for himself. The girl herself did not receive anything and was in fact a slave to her father or master. Only Moses put an end to this: “Do not sell your daughters, so that the earth will not be covered with stain and evil spirits” (Book of Leviticus XIX).
Thus, the struggle of legislators and religious preachers against licentiousness could be both negative and positive, with the same success breaking and saving the lives of women who fell into this craft from compulsion or of their own free will.
Armenia
In Armenia, there was a cult of the goddess of fertility Anais. Temples were built for her, similar to those of Melitta in Babylon. Women who decided to give their lives to the goddess lived around the temple in houses surrounded by high walls. The entrance to these walls was allowed only to foreigners who could choose any woman and, having paid her, use her services.
However, not all women could be among the priestesses of the goddess Anais. A careful selection was made by the priests; only beauties from noble and aristocratic families were worthy to serve the goddess.
The duration of the service at the temple was determined by the relatives of the future harlots. When the women left the temple, they had to leave all the savings they received in favor of the temple. After that, they successfully married, and those who had the most clients were considered the most enviable brides. The grooms inquired from the priests about the behavior of their future wives, the success of the bride was considered the key to a happy married life.
Ancient Greece
In Greece, as you know, there was a cult of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and fertility. Aphrodite was one of the faces of the goddess, common to all peoples, whose traces stretch from ancient times.
From the cult of Aphrodite, the cult of love was born, and from it, in turn, ritual prostitution was born. In Athens, brothels flourished - dicteriads, their founders rapidly grew rich and, as a token of gratitude to the goddess, built temples in her honor with the money received.
On the fourth day of every month, during the feast of Aphrodite, at the foot of the temples and at the statues of the goddess, numerous getters gathered and worked, giving all the money received from men in favor of the temples. This was possible in broad daylight, because the temples of Aphrodite were surrounded by deep thickets, planted specifically so that a shadow would fall on the hetaira and their clients and hide their caresses from prying eyes.
At each temple in Athens, Thebes, Arcadia and other Greek cities, there were many hetaira, according to Strabo's recollections, about a thousand of them lived at the temple of Aphrodite in Corinth.
Before the Olympic Games, the participants in the competition solemnly vowed, in the event of a victory, to dedicate 50 or 100 young girls to Aphrodite so that they could live at temples and serve foreigners.
Surrounded by a sinful garden and carved from marble, Aphrodite gathered around her a society of perverted and idle men and women. Because of the dense thickets surrounding her temples, she bore the name Milanis or Scotia, that is, the goddess of black love night and darkness. She had many other interesting names, endowed with ambiguous metaphors: Porne (sensual getter), Mucheia (goddess of secret places), Castnia (goddess of shameless copulation), Kallypigos (goddess with beautiful buttocks).
There were even wooden sculptures of Aphrodite with marble arms and legs, which were moved by mechanical springs, and the goddess made ambiguous movements. Because of these statues, she was given the name Mechanitis, or mechanical goddess.
The ancient Greeks also did not do without sacrifices to the goddess. Young girls were dedicated to her before important events in order to appease her and hope for a good outcome of the case. Before the Olympic Games, the participants in the competition solemnly vowed, in the event of a victory, to dedicate 50 or 100 young girls to Aphrodite so that they could live at temples and serve foreigners. The lines of an ode to Xenophon's victory in the Olympic Games are known. They belong to the poet Pindor:
“You, who give shelter and hospitality to all foreigners, you, priestesses of the goddess Pito in rich Corinth, kindle fragrances in front of the image of Aphrodite and, calling on the mother of love, beg her not to deny us her heavenly mercy and to give us the bliss that we enjoy plucking the delicate color of your beauty."
Ancient Rome
In Rome, exactly the same function was performed by the temples of Venus. Courtesans gathered around them every evening to attract men. They devoted part of the proceeds to the patron goddess. Courtesans took part in all religious festivals.
It is interesting that in Rome venerable married ladies also participated in festive orgies. They differed from prostitutes only in that they covered their heads with a mantle. Orgies with the participation of heterosexuals took place at the foot of the statues, which were decorated with golden wreaths not only on the heads, but also on the genitals.
Floralia. Prosper Piatti (c. 1842-1902) and workshop, 1899.
In ancient Rome, there was a god Mutunus, who was portrayed, unlike other gods, such as Priapus, sitting on a throne. Before getting married, the girl had to sit on her knees at the stone statue of Mutunus, metaphorically sacrificing her virginity to him.
However, in some cases, the statue of the god was depicted with an erect penis, and the girls, sitting on his knees, performed sexual intercourse with him, losing their virginity for real. Married women resorted to the same action so that Mutunus helped them get pregnant.
Shame and the expectation of reckoning for sins flooded the ancient world, free from prejudice. Together with civilization, religion and culture came another, different from the primitive awareness of human desires. However, the desires themselves have not disappeared anywhere, so prostitution exists to this day, taking on a completely different guise.
From this profession, the element of holiness disappeared, which was undoubtedly present in the hearts of the ancient harlots, who gave their body and soul in the name of the gods and goddesses, in whom they fervently believed and expected from them salvation and reward for their holy and sweet labors.