Apparentemente periferica. Prostituzione e regolamentazione della morale sessuale in età moderna

Abstract

Prostitution has been traditionally treated as a phenomenon related to marginality, both by scholars and by observers contemporary to the periods considered in the volume. As Marzio Barbagli shows, however, it is central, intertwined with the organisation of communities. This essay reads the history of prostitution and the history of marriage from a comparative perspective, highlighting unexpected connections. Marriage is the institution that legitimises sexuality, making it decent and productive. Prostitution, too, with the various forms of regulation produced over a centuries-long history, has been the object of an economy of money and morality that incardinates social organisation.