December 11, 2001

Bernard Shaw says somewhere that there is no harm in a Cleopatra using her physical charms to earn money. It is, however, quite another thing for a madame to get hold of a dozen Cleopatras and earn through them. He thus brings out the economic underpinning of the institution of prostitution, the element of exploitation in it, its class origin and class basis.

Dr Fouzia Saeed, in her research on prostitution, says incisively that marriage and prostitution are two sides of the same coin. They only separate the sex-in-itself from sex-for-procreation. But, in tracing the origin of prostitution, she confines herself to the dialectic of tradition and power. The latter is represented in her work by money and the agents of state, whom she regards either as constituting a class in themselves or as a sort of extraneous element inserted into the picture by the professional requirements of the politicians. She also holds the patriarchy responsible for the perpetuation, if not the invention, of prostitution.

Patriarchy replaced matriarchy as soon as agriculture became the main branch of production, followed by pastoralism in areas too arid for stable farming. This led to two major developments — the woman yielded place to man in the principal fields of productive labour and the agricultural surplus made the advent of property possible, triggering the decline of the primitive community and the first stirrings of class formation.

The monogamy, which Engels calls the “subjugation of one sex by the other” (Origin of the family, private property and state), was the immediate outcome of the appearance of property. The male wanted his property to pass to his offspring. He, therefore, entered into an agreement with the female, who had already withdrawn from productive labour, that he would feed and guard her and her children, if she conceived only from him. W. Reich believes that this coercive form of marriage cannot end while patriarchy exists. (As quoted by Reimut Reiche in Sexualite et Lutte de Class).

Thus the appearance of property in things led to property in women. However, polygamy was not possible at this early stage, because the low productivity of labour did not permit most males to support more than one wife, some not even one.

Just as the propertied class appropriated some women, preferably those connected with property, exclusively for procreation, so it designated some others for sex-in-itself. The latter were equally at the disposal of the propertied class but, this time, of the class as a whole, instead of being appropriated individually.

The prostitutes became a caste, the kanjar in our society, in the same manner as other castes. At a time, when the society did not produce enough surplus to be able to maintain and train the new entrants into a craft or a profession separately, these functions were performed by the castes. The experience of the profession, instead of being objectified in professional teachers, was carried by the elders of the family, who transmitted it over the years to its younger members. The families also reared and maintained the younger members during their unproductive periods. The latter, when grown up, in turn, maintained the elders, which was a kind of social security. In addition, the families within a caste had a mutual support system.

Some of Dr Saeed’s interlocutors complained that the traditional kothas and mujras, providing all-round entertainment and with emphasis on the refinement of manners, were losing out to kothi-khanas run by pimps. This is natural. Every ruling class re-organizes the society and re-shapes the institutions to suit its own class requirements. The transition from the kotha to the kothi khanas reflects the transition from the values of the landed class to those of bourgeoisie in our society. The result is that the “best customers have all been taken by those girls who moved into the Gulberg area”.

The traditional prostitute families of Shahi Mohalla have strong traditions: prostitutes are not expected to fall in love or actually marry, their “marriage” is a long-term arrangement with some client, they consider themselves superior to mirasis and think the “respectable” married women are slaves, while they are themselves free, with a kind of matriarchal society. There are also gradations among them, the lowest being the street-walker.

Dr Saeed also points out that a typical prostitute has neither been forced into the profession nor bought. She enters it by birth. That may be true. But, on the other side, the society bars the attempt of the prostitute to leave the caste, except those who make it as actresses. This is also a form of force. Furthermore, the kanjar caste may be matriarchal in the sense that the family is headed by the woman. But it is a part of the patriarchal society, which has assigned the profession to the caste. Matriarchy within the caste fulfils the objectives of the patriarchy in the society. This is reflected in the fact that the society castigates the prostitute but not the client.

Dr Saeed’s commitment to her research is awe-inspiring. She not only gained the confidence of the prostitutes, young and old, but also decided, at one point, to move into the Mohalla to study her subjects more closely. She was dissuaded only when her friends told her of the mortal danger she would be courting if she did so.

She has done a great job of study and description. However, she has not given the same importance to analysis as to description. For example, she wonders if there can be prostitutes without prostitution. A valid question, but one which cannot be answered by a class society.

In her last chapter, she and a cousin discuss her conclusions with a prostitute. It is interesting in spite of being sentimental at places. For example, she calls man’s ‘natural inclination to polygamy’ a myth and says about ‘honour’, “Men created this concept and housed it in women’s bodies. So I am the honour of my father and my brother and my husband.”

It is a serious book — the result of serious work, where the heart does not leave the field entirely to the intellect.

The foreword by I.A. Rehman is of a very high intellectual standard. He points out the bankruptcy of the policies of various governments on prostitution and concludes “the woman of Pakistan has to fight on many fronts. Shahi Mohalla is only one of them”.

Taboo: the hidden culture of a red light area
By Fouzia Saeed
Oxford University Press, 5 Bangalore Town, Sharae Faisal, Karachi-75350.
Tel: 021-4529025. 
Email: ouppak@theoffice.net
ISBN 0-19-579412-5
324pp. Rs595

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