DENMARK.

Prostitutes are very numerous in Copenhagen. This might be expected from the mixed character of the city, at once a capital, military station, and sea-port. It has been remarked by a traveler of great experience[267] that it is very rare to see a drunken man or a street-walker in Copenhagen; all seem to have a home or a place to go to, and the general character of the Danes is that of an orderly, educated, well-conducted people.

Some of the prostitutes of Copenhagen live in a kind of hotel, where they hold public entertainments; others live in brothels; and others still have private lodgings. There is nothing remarkable enough about them to call for any particular description. They are under police regulation to some extent, and receive a sort of half permission, which is not withdrawn during good conduct. A regulation is extant which professes to limit the number of children they are allowed to bear, without becoming amenable to the law as criminals. It requires that the mother of more than two illegitimate children be fined and imprisoned. As may be readily imagined, the law is very rarely enforced, its impolicy, if rigorously applied, being self-evident, since it would operate as a direct premium for abortion.

“Formal concessions are not granted either to public prostitutes or those with whom they lodge; neither are there in Denmark brothels, in the ordinary sense of the term, as they are found in other countries.”[268] So writes a Danish official. His distinction is too nice to be appreciated. The Copenhagen police know of the existence of such women, and put them under strict regulations, not altogether prohibitory. They control and interfere with prostitutes; they do not tolerate them—that is to say, they do not issue a regular license to them or to the brothel-keepers. Consequently, there are no recognized brothels. The house in which courtesans live is a private dwelling, so far as the police are concerned, and is only interfered with when it becomes disorderly, the keeper not being accountable for the women or their conduct.

Nevertheless, the police regulations prescribe the number of women recognized as prostitutes who may live in any house, and from their official reports, it seems that there were in Copenhagen in

In the latter year there were sixty-eight persons who were authorized to lodge from one to four women each, the total of the women permitted to live in these houses being 139, and the remaining 59 being allowed to reside in private apartments. “Care is taken that they are all treated in the general hospital, and that they shall not be treated elsewhere, unless they give a sufficient guarantee not to propagate disease, or their personal position requires certain consideration, a thing which can seldom apply to the generality of prostitutes.” The meaning of this regulation is not very clear, nor is “certain consideration” an intelligible phrase; it may imply pregnancy, or it may mean influential friends. The medical officer visits all cases which the police refer to him, and makes the necessary examinations, receiving his fees from the police.

The rules for detection and suppression of syphilis in Copenhagen are very stringent. All persons under arrest are required to declare if they are then, or have been lately diseased, and are liable to punishment if they conceal or misstate the facts. A visit of inspection is made when a ship is about to go to sea. All non-commissioned officers, musicians, and soldiers are examined on entering and leaving the service, and also regularly every month during their stay in it.

To check the propagation of venereal disease, every soldier who is attacked is obliged to state the source of his infection, whereupon information of the individual is given to the police. Those who do not give early intimation of their disease are liable to bread and water diet for a certain time after their cure. In 1797, all the inhabitants of several districts were obliged to submit to an examination, ordered by the chancellor, on account of the frequency of syphilitic cases therein.

The following table, taken from Berhand’s minute on Copenhagen, shows the working of the system there for seven years. The most remarkable feature is the large number who married or went to service, which would seem to indicate a more charitable feeling on the part of the Danes than is usually evinced toward these unfortunates:

By a code of 1734, promises of marriage might be either verbal in the presence of witnesses, or written and certified by two witnesses. Widows acting against the consent of their guardians, and women of bad repute, were excluded from the benefit of this code. A servant pregnant by her master, her master’s son, or any one domiciled in her master’s house, could not plead a promise of marriage. Corroborative testimony was sometimes required in affiliation cases, where the putative father denied his liability on oath.

Divorce was allowed on simple abandonment for seven years; desertion for three years; in case of sentence of perpetual imprisonment; of ante-nuptial impotence; of ante-nuptial venereal disease; of insanity; and of adultery. Divorce by mutual consent might also take place, but three years’ separation from bed and board was requisite as a preliminary. The king had a prerogative of divorce, without cause shown.

Illegitimate children were to be supported by their father until two years old, according to his rank in life. They could not inherit the paternal property, but might take the mother’s. They could be legitimatized by subsequent marriage or adoption.Infanticide was punished by beheading, and exhibiting the head of the criminal on a spike.

Adultery is punished by law in both husband and wife. Practically it is seldom noticed.

In 1834 a new ordinance was proclaimed fixing all the minutiÆ of marriage contracts, parental obligations, and the general laws of sexual intercourse. A man is a minor until eighteen, and under some degree of parental authority to twenty-five, at which age he becomes a citizen. The woman is under tutelage all her life. Guardians are assigned to widows, who control their legal powers, but a widow may choose her own guardian. The laws of divorce are similar to those of France. The practice of formal betrothal is as common in Denmark as in Northern Germany, and implies a real and binding engagement, not to be broken without cause shown, or without discredit to one or both parties. Whether this custom favors illegitimacy is still a disputed point in Denmark.