MIA > Archive > Tim Hector
Fan the Flame, Outlet, 7 March 1997.
Online here https://web.archive.org/web/20120416011318/http://www.candw.ag/~jardinea/fanflame.htm.
Transcribed by Christian Høgsbjerg.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Years ago, sometime about 1983, I had promised Arah I would write an article about prostitutes in history. I have to give the context. But I do so now for 1997 International Women’s Day.
Arah and I were in the habit of having these conversations about 2:00 a.m. in the morning after she had slept. Sometimes they would go on till “first light” as we used to call the dawn. But not beyond first light. After all I needed to sleep too!
Arah had puzzled over a commonplace remark, “that prostitution devalued the status of the woman.” She asked me what I thought and I had fobbed her off, saying, “Well, that is the standard, genteel view.” I hesitated to say “bourgeois” view, because the word “bourgeois” and “counter”, as in counter-revolutionary, had become so abused, even meaningless in Maurice Bishop’s Grenada Revolution at the time, that I no longer countenanced those words. Those words were either too big or entirely mis-applied to the reality they sought to describe in Grenada. But that is quite another story.
Arah said that while in Grenada she had heard Jackie Croft say how she had heard me informally speak of how the degraded status of the term wife, and the actuality of being a “Roman wife” led to the break up of, or as Gibbon would portentously write, the decline and fall of Rome. I would not say anything of the sort. What I would say is that the status of wife in Rome, thoroughly reflected the social, economic and political crisis in which Rome and its empire had fallen, a crisis so thorough-going it could not extricate itself. I am being very careful here, because I do not wish to say that women brought about the fall of the Roman Empire. That would mis-represent history entirely.
There was one unusual outcome to our conversation, so much so that even today I am amused. Arah, I think, since meeting C.L.R. James’ divorced wife, Selma, had developed the idea – which to be honest I did not like, but did not discourage her – that one had to get to understand or to know the condition of the prostitute, if one wished fully to participate in the liberation of women.
Arah did not say so, but I knew that it was not at the back of her mind, but foremost, that she would like to befriend a prostitute. In the true meaning of the word friend. She knew too that this was a very small place, and that Twisty and Twirly, would twist the truth of her effort to make another reactionary trap for fools. She knew one thing though, that she would have my absolute support. She took to going to “Skell’s” to buy chicken at any hour of afternoon or dead of night. She did not say, but I knew, she was hoping to get to know even one, probably two or three of the women there.
Then one day, “Skell”, the proprietor, always a good friend of mine, said to me he did not like the idea of Arah coming into his place buying chicken. “It did not look good” insisted Skell, the proprietor of the bordello. He was quite upset. I had no alternative but to tell Arah that Skell did not like the idea of her going there to buy chicken. The oddity was that Arah understood Skell perfectly. Arah said that from what she observed Skell disliked prostitution intensely, and hated having it as a part of his business. Later, after close examination over years, I concurred with Arah’s judgement on Skell.
Now another story before we get down to the historical review. Arah was somewhere, Kenya I believe, when somebody told her that C.L.R. James was thoroughly opposed to his ex-wife Selma, going up and down organising prostitutes, and treating them as though they were the new revolutionary vanguard. Arah had as deep a respect and regard for C.L.R. as anybody, anywhere. They had met here and had hit it off. They were to die within days of each other, one young, by un-natural means, the other old, by natural means. But James or no James, however deep the respect, the regard, the affection and love, not even James could put down his ex-wife and Arah not rush to her defence, in the woman to woman sympatic.
Arah proceeded to treat me as though I were C.L.R James, the enemy, and therefore the butt of her assault.
“You all seem to forget that practically every woman has it in her head, crossing all cultures it seems, that she would like to marry a rich man, and never have to work again in life, and have all the goodies of the earth at her beck and call, if not at her finger-tips. What is this other than prostitution in the grand style! And where did women get this notion from?”
Arah asked rhetorically.
“From men. Men created this notion of the kept-woman, all dolled up, wanting nothing, empty-headed but pretty, having all her needs met by a single rich man, and she in turn prettying up herself for him, day and night, better yet at night, while having not a single worthwhile idea in her head, but capable of polite conversation especially on matters of trivia. That’s what all of you ...”
I did not allow her to finish “Stop you damn ...” I stopped myself. And both of us cracked up with laughter. You know I didn’t mean that, she said, poking me in the ribs. And I said something to the effect that James could and has given excellent talks on Greek and Roman civilisation, and could tell you all about prostitution and its relation to the social and economic movement of society, but he like me, does not like to see his wife Selma, surrounded by a string band of prostitutes, dressed as if ready for business, up and down the city”.
To my surprise, Arah shot back “Why not? Are they not people? Part of the meanest mariners and castaways to whom we have committed our lives?”
I say now, as I said then, I have no answer to Arah’s question. Except that I said that the puritan ethic which produced James produced me too, and I have a certain horror of running around with prostitutes and drug pushers I would think that I was one step away from the descent into the lowest circle of hell.
I was not satisfied with my own answer. And since Arah’s death I have made a personal effort to treat prostitutes, not as things, but as what they are – people.
Now I have had the privilege to be taught here about ancient Greece and Rome, by one of the best – Dr. Alfred Blackett. Dr. Blackett I am sure never ever visited Athens or Rome, and read very few of the authorities on the subject writing in English.
However, Dr. Blackett immersed himself in the Latin texts, the originals, and knew Rome, ancient Rome inside out. Sometimes I think he had an idealised version of these societies, and never really grasped their “everydayness”. I never discussed prostitution in ancient Rome or Greece with Dr. Blackett. I would not have dared then, even when we were fellow staff members on the AGS staff and he and I had become friends. (When I was a student there were some notable tiffs. Time healed the wounds.) But thanks to Dr. Blackett I have read practically every book I have come across on Ancient Greece or Rome, and still do, duty and time permitting. I owe Dr. Blackett an enormous debt of gratitude.
But let us begin with ancient Greece. A famous Greek Demonsthenes wrote “We have hetairai for our pleasure, concubines for our daily needs, and wives to give us legitimate children and look after the housekeeping.”
There you have precisely stated the social roles of women. Wives were there to give the Greeks legitimate children and look after the housekeeping. She was the best Ancient Greek wife who was neither seen nor heard, but managed the household and all its expenditures with exceptional skill. A Greek husband at the height of Greek civilisation was a man of leisure. He did no work. Slaves did. He dressed in the morning went to the baths – a very prolonged procedure – saw to his military training if he was still of arms bearing age, and then returned home. At best, with his wife, there was slam-bam-thank-you-maam, on his return. And off he would go again in the morning. Wives be it noted were chosen at an early age as early as 13, usually 16. From then until death she looked after children, hearth and household – Kinder, Küche und Kirche.
Socrates regarded as a man of truth exceptional, even at the expense of his life, once said that Greek “Women are by no means inferior to men”. If he had left the remark there, history would have deemed him a notorious liar. Socrates quickly added “All women need is a little more physical strength and energy of mind” (Source Xenophon’s Symposium 2). Perhaps, there is the root of all the prejudice against women. For Socrates failed to note that it was women who were responsible in Greece, as in Africa, as in Asia, for agriculture. And therefore, civilisation. Though I digress a bit it is worthy of note that plantation agriculture in the Caribbean depended more on women than on men, as did the upkeep of the plantation houses. But that is another story. As a fine Antiguan poet Tamo Zakela said, “There are too many stories to tell.”
But the truth of the matter is, in ancient Greece, women had no more political or legal rights than the slaves. They were subject always to the male next-of-kin. Education was not for them. They spent all of their waking hours in the women’s quarters of their household. They hardly ever dined with their husbands and never at all if he had guests. She, a wife, could not go out of doors alone. And if she journeyed by night she had to do so in a carriage with a lighted lantern carried by one of her retinue.
An ancient Greek woman was only expected to know one man – her husband. By “know” I do not mean in the biblical sense. I mean acquaintance. Plutarch in the Life of Solon tells a wonderful story about the ruler of Hiero which illustrates the point. The ruler of Hiero was taunted by an opponent as having foul breath. Mortified, he went home to his wife, and in a flaming temper, almost life-threatening, demanded of his wife why she had not told him his breath was bad. His wife replied thus: “I thought all men smelled like that.” There endeth the lesson.
Hesiod, the great Greek poet who lived in 8th century, B.C., and who only Homer exceeded in regard, had this to say about marriage.
“He who evades, by refusing marriage, the miseries that women bring upon us will have no support [children] in the wretchedness of his old age ... On the other hand, he whose fate it is to marry may perhaps find a good and sensible wife. But even then he will see evil outweigh good all his life.”
It is a dim view of marriage and of women. I have heard it increasingly here.
Most ancient Greeks knew Hesiod by heart. It was a view of women as rancid as you will find. But across the known world in Babylon or among the Hebrews, that view was universal. Africans excepted. But that too is too large a thesis even to summarise here. The Hebrew view of women provides the best summary in the 1st millennium of recorded history.
She was to be chaste, competent at spinning, weaving and clothes-making, able to allocate suitable tasks to the servants, to be economical with her husband’s money and to govern the household wisely and virtuously.
Above all if it was necessary to produce an heir, and that in a hurry, she was expected to have intercourse with her husband “at least three times a month until the matter was put right” and this we have from Plutarch in his Erotikas.
What I have written applies in the main to Athens. In Sparta, things were far worse. Men did not live with Spartan wives. They stole away from the army barracks, sneaked a piece, and scurried back to the all male camp. That was the essence of the relation. Sparta was about war, and little else. Women were seen only as reproducer of the army of men.
The end result is predictable to you readers of this now. In ancient Greece there was a surplus of unmarried women. It had a devastating effect.
Now to the prostitutes. The top level courtesans or prostitutes if you prefer, were the hetairai. Invariably beautiful, often talented, renowned for their wit, knowledgeable in classical literature, and even by today’s standards vastly knowledgeable in politics. Athenian men wined and dined with them and had the time of their lives. They were not whores by economic circumstances, please note, they were so often by choice.
Space allows mention only of a few. Thaïs of Athens, was Alexander the Great’s mistress so-called. So-called because she saw her other clients in the morning, while the afternoons and evenings were devoted only to the Great Alexander. She was so influential on Alexander that she was undoubtedly responsible for the burning and sacking of Persepolis. Some say, that it was she who was responsible for the burning of the greatest library on earth, the library assembled by Africans at Alexandria, in Egypt, and that of the great African University of Timbuktu. Others say, (and I am inclined to agree) that she was not responsible at all, for any of these acts, but it was commonplace to blame all male crimes, particular the more atrocious, on the historical scapegoat – Eve, that is women. At any rate, Aristotle, Alexander the Great’s teacher, got numerous volumes from the sacked African libraries from the conquering Alexander. It is said that Aristotle authored so many books, more than it would take 4 lifetimes to write.
Thaïs, Alexander the Great’s mistress, or whore, went on to marry Ptolemy I, and herself became Queen of Egypt. Another Greek Courtesan, Rhodopis is said to have constructed a whole Pyramid in Egypt at her expense.
Then there was Aspasia, one of the greatest of the hetairai, or ancient Greek prostitutes, or courtesans, or whatever name you prefer. She kept a salon which attracted the brightest and the best. Pericles, perhaps the greatest of all the great ancient Greeks, left his wife and children, to live with Aspasia at the height of his fame. When he gave his famous oration on Greek Democracy Aspasia was at his side, and was said to have scrutinised the text before delivery. While Pericles led Greece, his detractors attacked Aspasia, but the more they attacked, the more Pericles clung to her. Rather Aspasia he said than all of your “domestic and bed servants.”
It is immediately obvious that wives had a miserable time in ancient Greece, kept ignorant and over-burdened with drudgery, they became mindless. It is the prostitutes who prevented the devaluation of women and asserted the human value and worth of women. That they sold not themselves, but sex, is true. But they used the proceeds to lift themselves to a height of intellectual and social being that few men of any cultivation could avoid. The prostitutes elevated the status of women, freeing themselves from the narrow confines of hearth and household to which they had been legally restricted. They did so by those means necessary. Jennifer now cheers with the same gusto as Arah did 13 years ago. In ancient Rome the struggle of women was even more impressive. More on that anon. But, in the struggle for human freedom, all of us are on the front lines. And prostitutes have already claimed a foremost place, they will do so again, in our time.
Last updated on 14 February 2022