The Expansion Of Prostitution In Europe

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Sexual commerce has existed for millennia and crosses all cultures. In the modern period, the Industrial Revolution enabled the spread of prostitution as no other period had. Historians debate as to whether prostitution increased to a significant degree during this period, their dispute being the unreliability of many statistical sources. However, regardless of the varying and unreliable data, historians do agree that two facts make the expansion of prostitution a likely possibility: industrialization and urbanization. These two major factors led to changes in society during the 18th and 19th centuries throughout Europe that caused additional problems which inevitably led to many women turning to prostitution.

Industrialization had many positive effects on society in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. The creation of new technology and factories provided several new job opportunities along with new machinery that increased production and gave people the capability to transport raw materials.

For women, the Industrial Revolution throughout Europe lead to many leaving their private sphere of society and joining others in the need to work in order to support their families. In a domestic view, Industrialization affected women most profoundly through the separation of work and home. It also clashed with their perceived roles as society dictates that men should be the one to collect the family income and are defined by the work they do whilst women should stay at home and carry out the work there. This gives us a clear idea of how women were bring defined by their familial status as single or married, daughter or mother and not by their job outside of home if they chose to have one.

For women in a less fortunate positio...

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...nd 1860, with its main factors being Industrialization and Urbanization. Yet these causes also brought about additional reasons as to why so many women turned to prostitution. With a huge increase in population, urban poverty, and desperation increased the demand for prostitutes and the amount of women willing to degrade themselves for money. The continuing problem was that prostitution was still legal throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth century and not suppressed but permitted as a tolerated profession due to a double standards in society. Also the on-going theme throughout is that women would turn to prostitution when in dire need of money. The economy throughout Europe was unstable at times and poverty among the lower classes was common. Extreme poverty generated survival crimes such as prostitution to enable women to earn money in order to keep them alive.

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