nie BuUough document the ubiquitynand diversity of prostitution, tracing thenpractice from ancient Mesopotamia toncontemporary America. In some ancientncultures — in both Greece andnBabylon, for instance — certain types ofnprostitution were not only accepted, butnwere practiced within temple walls. Yetnmost recorded societies, including thenEgyptian,’Roman, Hebrew, and Oriental,ndistrusted the secular prostitute andntreated her as an outcast, a womann”lower than the slave.” In most tribalnsocieties a woman who prostituted herselfndeeply offended male relatives, whoncould punish her however they saw fit.nEven in Islam, an exceptionally permissivenreligion on sexual matters, thenprostitute is judged “a disgrace to hernfamily.”nIn preindustrial societies, prostitutionnprevailed primarily in the cities, showingnup far less frequently in mral areas.nEconomic forces partly account for thisnpattem. While the spinster aunt of anvillage family could often earn her keepnby helping with the cooking, child care,nand farm chores, an unmarried womannusually faced bleak prospects in thenmoney economy of the city. It is nonaccident that meretrix, the Latin termnfor a prostitute, means “she whonearns.”nPecuniary pressures pushing womenntoward prostitution grew even strongernafter the Industrial Revolution. On thenother hand, moral sanctions againstnprostitution could not survive morenthan a generation after religious faithnfaded among the West’s cultural elite.nIn a global summary, the Bulloughsnconclude: “the key factor in the past inndeciding the role that the prostitutesnand prostitution would play in societynwas religious teaching.” While the eminentnVictorians debated the availablencultural substitutes for religion, prostitution—nincluding a shocking incidencenof child prostitution — flourished.nIt is characteristic of their feministnbias that the Bulloughs lament thenemergence of “a double standard” ofnsexual conduct in every major culture,nattributing this sex-biased norm to socialnfailures, not to human nature. Innthe sexual utopia of their fantasy, thendouble standard will completely disappear,nallowing “the decriminalizationnof sexual activity between consentingnadults whether or not money changesnhands.” Contemporary America hasnnot reached that Edenic state just yet,nbut the Bulloughs rejoice that since thensexual revolution, prostitution has declinednin the United States. Becausenmen no longer must pay for casual sex,ndemand for prostitutes has slackened.nCredit for this remarkable developmentngoes to the feminists who “createdna climate of openness about femalensexuality.”nFeminists likewise receive plaudits innthese pages for helping the employednmother manage childbearing and childncare so as to “offer the least interferencento her career.” In the crazy worldnof post-feminism, extramarital sex maynbe had for the asking, while femalencare for children must be paid for. Yetnnothing can dim the authors’ enthusiasmnfor the feminist revolution, notneven research showing that “the primarynpredisposing factor to prostitutionn[is] a history of severe maternal deprivation.”nI do not think it is too much tonsay that while modern mothers pursuentheir glamorous careers, they put theirndaughters at risk.nBryce Christensen is editor of ThenFamily in America.nThe Structure ofnMeaningnby William MillsnPolitical Order: PhilosophicalnAnthropology, Modernity, and thenChallenge of Ideologynby David J. LevynLouisiana State University Press:nBaton Rouge; $22.50nLevy’s latest and very ambitious newnbook is an inquiry into the fundamentalncharacteristics of political ordernfrom two perspectives: philosophical anthropologynand the political philosophynof Eric Voegelin. The outcome is anvigorous defense of our institutions andntraditions. The anthropological perspectivenhas its roots in Max Scheler’snwork in the 1920’s and 1930’s. InnMan’s Place in Nature, which camenout the year of his death, 1928, Schelerndescribes a topology of living forms,nascending in complexity, that oftennseems to echo Aristotle. He asserts thatnnnthe “limits of psychic life coincide withnthe boundaries of organic life itself”nAnimal life is more differentiated thannplant life, and human life is the mostndifferentiated of all. Whereas animalnintelligence is exclusively practical, respondingnin a stable way to his environment,nman’s is such that it opens upnthe world. Scheler attributes this tonman being a spiritual being, meaningnone who is able to say no to hisnimmediate environment. This accountsnfor our sometime asceticismnand for our capacity for altering thenimmediate environment.nObviously such a description ofn”human nature” would be hotly debated,nand even Scheler’s admirers notenan unreconciled conflict between ankind of “naturalism” and a kind ofnidealism. In Levy’s view, it was NicolainHartmann who, following Scheler’snlead, put his ontology on a firmer,nmore systematic footing, which Hartmannnwould call a “limited ontology,”nwith no metaphysical speculation onnquestions of ultimate origins. Startingnwith Hartmann, Levy asks what is thenstructure of reality that delimits thenspace of politics, that space allowingnwhat we may do and what we must do?nHe cites Hartmann’s objection thatn”the activity of man, spiritual life andnhistorical actuality, can by no means benadequately grasped by an understandingnof meaning. With this concept wenare still in the air, with no firm groundnunder our feet.” The firm ground thatnHartmann means is the four strata ofnreal being, beginning with the inorganic.nThe claim Hartmann makes, andnLevy follows him in, is an intriguingnone, that the organic rests or dependsnupon the inorganic; the conscious andnspiritual rest, on the organic, which restsnon the inorganic. The upper strata restnon, but are not determined by them.nThere is a difference in saying thatncertain conditions are necessary for thenforms of cultural life and political ordernand saying they cause the forms. Levynremarks that “Physical or biologicalndeterminism explains, in fact, hardlynanything of the known variety of humannachievement and nothing of thennature of psychic and cultural experi-.nence.”nOne of the consequences is a repudiationnof the dream of absolute autonomynas the only freedom, relative to itsnown stratum of being. The world of an(nAUGUST 1989/37n