Victorian marriage norms structurally created a male demand prostitution filled

Evidence

Prostitution, whatever the bishop thought, thrived because it had customers. It filled what many men saw as a real need. The need was most obvious in western towns with few women, in lumber camps, towns near army bases, and the like. But more generally, in an age of Victorian morals, nice girls were supposed to stay pure until marriage, and nice men did not get married until they could support a wife. Nature abhors a sexual vacuum. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3329

Categorization

• CANDY: ‘Nature abhors a sexual vacuum’ with the bishop’s claim that New York had as many prostitutes as Methodists — a vivid, tweetable line about Victorian hypocrisy.
• XREF: connects to: The institutionalization of monogamous bourgeois marriage created the demand for prostitution — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 214

Broader Connections

• The institutionalization of monogamous bourgeois marriage created the demand for prostitution #corroborates (0.95) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 214