Relativity of morality

"Everywhere in all countries, and among all races prostitution has been, or continues to be, tolerated, and, sometimes even honoured. It existed in the great states of Central America, in ancient Peru, in ancient Mexico, and in Nicaragua, where there were already prostitutes and brothels. In this last country the morals were still so impure, and continence, although very relative, so difficult to bear, that at a certain annual festival the women of all classes were authorized to abandon themselves to whomsoever they pleased.

In the great societies founded by the Mongoloid races, or the Mongols of Asia, prostitution displays itself in the open day. In China, tea-houses abound, although the ancient morality of the Celestial Empire makes chastity a moral duty for unmarried girls and women. In Cochin-China and Japan, on the contrary, practice and theory are in accord. No moral brand of shame attaches to the prostitute. In Cochin-China, says Finlayson, a father has the right to give his daughter, for a small sum of money, to a visitor or even a stranger, without the reputation of the young girl suffering any harm, and without any hindrance to her finding a suitable husband afterwards (...) and this alone suffices to show the relativity of morality..."

Ch. Letourneur, 1891