Kapronczay Károly szerk.: Orvostörténeti Közlemények 202-205. (Budapest, 2008)
TANULMÁNYOK — ARTICLES - FORRAI, Judit: History of the politics of prostitution in Hungary (19-20th c.). - A 19-20. századi magyar prostitúciópolitika története
Exchange of goods had a different meaning in the precapital government and another meaning in the earlier system. However, more or less similar material elements are present in each case 1 . Social history defines the "marriage-market" as the commensurability of goods, that means, both womanly beauty and youth, and financial advantages are convertible values. Prostitution is a phenomenon of society, as old as marriage, and that serves an organic and additional part of the marriage. Prostitution fulfills a certain family-protecting function and is controllable by the society. Human sexuality is fundamentally promiscuous and this feature in society will always be regulated according to exisiting political and economical interests. However,women were expected to be monogamous in the interest of the family (i.e. to give birth to blood-related descendants). Prostitution was created for men aiming to satisfy necessary sexual instincts, without the consequence of obligations. The status of prostitution can be seen to be continually changing: it was prohibited, regulated, authorized, or abolished according to the changing moral and ethical values of society in the given age. Picasso: Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907 From the beginning of the 15th century prostitution and venereal disease (V.D.) show a close correlation 2 . From the perspective of medical/social history, the tracing of syphilis is very important because prostitutes were the only group charged with spreading the infection. It is possible to investigate the history of medical treatment for contact-infected per1 Westermarck, E.: The history of human marriage. London, Macmillan, London. 1891. 2 Bullough, Vern L.: Prostitution in the Later Middle Ages. Sexual Practices and the Medieval Church. Ed. Vern L. Bullough and James Brundage. Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1982.
