Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Гостеприимный гетеризм" in Russian language version.
'Guest prostitution' has nothing at all to do with prostitution as such. It is, as Kaj Birket-Smith declares in his History of Civilization, perhaps ' a survival of the ancient matriarchal cultures', but in any case it is based on ritual and religion.
In the early fifth century, Augustine’s City of God makes brief reference to the Phoenician custom of devoting their daughters to prostitution before the time of their marriage. Finally come reports from two Church historians, both near contemporaries of Augustine. The first of these, Socrates, cites again Heliopolis in Phoenicia as a site whose laws «ordered the women among them to be common, and therefore the children born there were of doubtful descent, so that there was no distinction of fathers and their offsping. Their virgins also were presented for prostitution to the strangers who resorted thither».
In the early fifth century, Augustine’s City of God makes brief reference to the Phoenician custom of devoting their daughters to prostitution before the time of their marriage. Finally come reports from two Church historians, both near contemporaries of Augustine. The first of these, Socrates, cites again Heliopolis in Phoenicia as a site whose laws «ordered the women among them to be common, and therefore the children born there were of doubtful descent, so that there was no distinction of fathers and their offsping. Their virgins also were presented for prostitution to the strangers who resorted thither».
Now, in many countries, strangers or foreigners were looked upon as ritually impure and as bearers of unknown power, for which reason they were duly 'respected' by keeping one’s distance.
Dangerous tasks such as certain affairs connected with harvest were not rarely assigned to them; that is why fertility and purificatory rites often require the lifting of certain taboos1 with regard to them. Instances showing that they were even killed as representatives of the 'corn-spirit' or were forced to be a substitute for a man who had to die are not rare.
As is well known, the ritual defloration, intended to remove the danger of initial intercourse as well as guarantee the efficiency of sex qualities is frequently performed by a priest or a foreigner, for they are regarded as the potent.
