Prostitution in Victorian England

Judith Walkowitz’s book Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State, deals with the social and economic impact that prostitution had on English society in the mid to late 19th century. Throughout her piece Walkowitz illustrates the plight of women who are in the prostitution field and that are working the streets throughout England. She starts with the background of most of the prostitutes in Victorian England then talks about the Contagious Disease Act in 1864 that attempted to curb the venereal diseases being spread by prostitutes. Walkowitz also discusses two specific cities in England that prostitution was a �social evil’, Southampton and Plymouth, where the repeal campaigns were successful.

Most of the women who turned to prostitution in England in the mid to late 19th century did so for economic reasons. Women, mostly single women, were excluded from many industrial jobs in factories because these jobs were typically given only to men. Frustrated with women mostly as domestic services for low pay, women became prostitutes to supplement their income and to make ends meet for them. The average age of women entering into prostitution was sixteen because by this time they were out of their parent’s house and were forced to fend for themselves. They were also mostly working class women, not of the middle-class, and worked mostly in working class towns, commercial ports, or in leisure towns.

In response to the growing problem of prostitution the government passed the Contagious Diseases Acts in 1864. This Act, referred to Walkowitz as the C.D., was passed by the Parliament to attempt to curb the transmission of venereal diseases to soldiers and sailors in the English armed forces. Many enlisted men would frequent the prostitutes and would catch a venereal disease, mostly syphilis or gonorrhea which could have drastic effects on their military careers. The act allowed police to place women suspected of prostitution under arrest. These women were then inspected for any venereal diseases and if they had any were placed in a government-run hospital for three months to up to a year.

The problem with the enforcement of the act was that police could arrest and inspect any woman that they suspected of prostitution, whether they were a prostitute or not. Ordinary women were sometimes suspected to degrading inspects by authorities and were humiliated and falsely held. The act were protested by various women’s groups that claimed that the act was attempting to control women’s bodies and that the government should go after the prostitute’s clientele rather than the prostitute. Prostitution was viewed by many of England’s religious and moral as an evil in society. “By 1850 prostitution had become �the Great Social Evil,’ not simply an affront to morality, but a vital aspect of the social economy as well.”

They believed that prostitution was affecting every aspect of society and they urged for the acts to be passed as an attempt to curb the spread of prostitution. Those who wanted the act repealed believed that they infringed on women’s basic human rights and that they were an attack by the upper class on working class women. Liberal organizations like the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, which was led by the prominent feminist Josephine Butler, openly opposed the actions of the English government by protesting and refusing to cooperate with other activist groups. Supporters of the act believed that women who were spreading disease to the future husbands of England should be stopped so as to keep the sanctity of marriage. This social purity that was attempting to be created was an endeavor by the religious and moral leaders of England to return to a pre-Victorian society in which sexual pleasure was not a social evil as it was in the 19th century with the rise of industrialization.

The act was later repealed in 1886 but not before it had a significant impact on the lives of everyone in England. Prostitution was a major social and economic factor in English society and it needed to be addressed. While some of the actions taken by the government and police against the prostitutes were sometimes unfair and harsh, the intent of the act itself was to prevent the spread of harmful venereal diseases to the male population by infected prostitutes. While the government may have the correct idea in mind to try to curb the spread of venereal diseases they