The Ethics of Pimping, or Mrs. Warren’s Profession
Act III, of the play by George Bernard Shaw, banned by the British censor in 1893
Vivie has come to terms with her mother’s work as a prostitute but she has no sympathy at all for those who make such work options available. Here is arguing with Crofts, her suitor and mother’s business partner, who is defending his choice of investing in Mrs Warren’s business venture:
"VIVIE. My mother was a very poor woman who had no reasonable choice but to do as she did. You were a rich gentleman; and you did the same for the sake of 35 per cent. You are a pretty common sort of scoundrel, I think. That is my optinion of you."
CROFTS [after a stare: not at all displeased, and much more at his ease on these frank terms than on their former ceremonious ones] Ha! ha! ha! ha! Go it, little missie, go it: it doesnt hurt me and it amuses you. Why the devil shouldnt I invest my money that way? I take the interest on my capital like other people: I hope you don’t think I dirty my own hands with the work. Come! you wouldnt refuse the acquaintance of my mother’s cousin the Duke of Belgravia because some of the rents he gets are earned in queer ways. You wouldnt cut the Archbishop of Canterbury, I suppose, because the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have a few publicans and sinners among their tenants. Do you remember your Crofts scholarship at Newnham? Well, that was founded by my brother the M.P. He gets his 22 per cent out of a factory with 600 girls in it, and not one of them getting wages enough to live on. How d’ye suppose they manage when they have no family to fall back on? Ask your mother. And do you expect me to turn my back on 35 per cent when all the rest are pocketing what they can, like sensible men? No such fool! If youre going to pick and choose your acquaintances on moral principles, youd better clear out of this country, unless you want to cut yourself out of all decent society."
Mrs. Warren’s Profession was put on by the English Department of my university this past weekend and it got me thinking again about the ethics of sex work. I like it that Shaw’s harshest words are for the hypocrisy of middle and upper class society, in which, paraphrasing Shaw, the best kept secrets are the ones everyone knows. I can also see why it was banned given its harsh criticism of factory work, women’s choices, the condition of working women’s lives. What’s interesting though is that Viv (the young independent woman whose education was financed, unbeknownst to her, by her mother’s work as a prostitute, then later a brothel keeper) forgives her mother’s early choice to work as a prostitute, given the options available, but cannot forgive her later choice to go into the business herself. Viv draws a clear moral line between those who take such work to survive and those who makes such work available, and who make a living of its profits. I’d like to think more about this aspect of the ethics of sex work. As usual what I’m curious about are the ways in which the wrongs of the brother owner are different than the wrongs of the factory owner, for both profit off the labour of others, work that would be none by no one were the alternative not starvation or the streets for oneself and one’s children. Shaw says he wrote the play, "to draw attention to the truth that prostitution is caused, not by
female depravity and male licentiousness, but simply by underpaying,
undervaluing, and overworking women so shamefuly that the poorest of
them are forced to resort to prostitution to keep body and soul
together."
