6 - Prostitution

Summary

As Already Seen, The Treatment of soldiers’ wives by the army and the government was highly regulated, even if actual practices could vary widely; the regimen for prostitutes whose clients were soldiers was even more circumscribed, and this was the case in both the British Isles and in India where the British had first developed many of their treatment regimes for venereal diseases. Prostitutes in both locales, for the most part, were not the stereotypes of middle- class imagination: hapless, helpless victims defined by their overwhelming depravity, and spiralling ever downward toward certain death. While economic desperation forced many women to take up prostitution, and their options were often severely constrained, they still attempted to make choices, to resist and manipulate the regulatory practices of the government, the police, and the army, and to shape their lives. Prostitution was a site where general societal beliefs about the supposed failings and limitations of women, and in India those concerning race, fused with the army's prioritising of the well-being, and consequent effectiveness, of its soldiers. Indeed, the welfare of women connected to soldiers in any capacity was an afterthought subordinate to this priority, and any provisions the army made for them were expected to promote the primary goal; the army tolerated all women on sufferance. In subjugating the concerns of women generally to those ensuring the well-being of soldiers, moreover, authorities sometimes blurred the boundaries between women in the sex trade, who were seen as being irredeemably tarnished morally, and respectable labouring-class women, including soldiers’ wives, in ways which were distressing to the latter and, if married, to their husbands. This chapter will explore the treatment and experiences of prostitutes with respect to regulatory regimes in the British Isles – a number of licensing acts which were passed throughout the period, and the Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866, and 1869 – and in India, the 1864 Cantonment Act and the Contagious Diseases Act of 1868. In both locales, government, police, and army regulatory demands and practices had ramifications affecting a broad range of women, because there was no single, clear definition of prostitution, or who should be considered a prostitute. Victorians often used the term ‘prostitute’ loosely, regularly applying it to any woman engaged in sexual activity outside of the confines of formal marriage – from long-standing common-law spouses to the merely promiscuous.