Women were viewed primarily as objects of men’s pleasure - even by women. As I have noted previously, this used to be the way things were throughout the world. As Marion notes about his early teen years, he alone was ignorant of the fact that most of his male peers had long ago undergone a sexual initiation with a barmaid or a servant. But maybe Doug Phillips wished he lived in that culture. I won’t quote the description of an encounter between Ghosh and his maidservant here, but I found it devastating in the blase attitude of the servant. Their vaginas and their hands are equally necessary for sustenance. Worse than that, she just seems to take it as a matter of course - as do most lower income women - that they will have to put out to get by. Still, to get the funds to start her business, she sells her body. After her child dies, and she is abandoned by her husband, she opens a shop and restaurant. Particularly heart wrenching is the character of Tsige, one of my favorites. More than that, even those women who are “respectable” will engage in the practice whenever needed to keep food on the table during times of need.
Any and all of the men are able to, and often do, take advantage of the abundance of affordable harlots in town, and the culture just accepts it. Prostitution is an everyday occurrence in the book.
Much of this feels so repulsive to modern Western readers, but it is not that far removed from our own history.
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