Harlots, Bawds, and Concubines (Oh My!) Quiz

Answer: Rahab

Rahab was a harlot of the city of Jericho. She hid Joshua and the Israelites on the roof of her home when they were sought by the king of Jericho and prevented their capture. She also acted as a spy for the Israelites and was instrumental in aiding their conquest of the city.

She made a bargain with Joshua that she would thus assist him and his people if they would deal kindly with her and her house. Because of her actions Rahab, despite her past, was counted among the righteous and was eventually married to the Israelite Salmon, with whom she had a son, Boaz, who in turn married Ruth. Rahab is mentioned in the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, who takes considerable pains to point out that she is among the ancestors of Christ.

Answer: She paid to rebuild the walls of Thebes, destroyed by Alexander.

Phryne was reputedly one of the most beautiful women of her time. She was put on trial at one point for profaning the Eleusinian mysteries and seemed about to lose her case. Her lawyer (who was also her lover) dragged her in front of the all-male jury and tore open her robe, whereupon she was acquitted.

She agreed to rebuild the walls of Thebes, which had been destroyed by Alexander the Great, on the condition that a plaque be inserted which read "Destroyed by Alexander; rebuilt by Phryne the Prostitute". (p.s.

It was the empress Theodora of Byzantium who built a home for aged prostitutes; read on.)

Answer: St. Afra

Afra died c.304 A.D.; she had been a prostitute, but was converted to Christianity (and thus, one presumes, away from harlotry) by a German bishop. When she refused to sacrifice to the pagan gods, she was burned at the stake.

As for the others, Mary of Egypt and Pelagia of Antioch obviously were not from Germany. Both were former actresses and prostitutes (if you were one, you were assumed to be the other) who were converted and became hermitesses in the desert. Pelagia (who was probably legendary) apparently exchanged harlotry for cross-dressing; she dressed as a monk and lived in a cave adjoining a monastery, for reasons that are rather obscure (and probably should remain so). Mary Magdalene? Not only was she not of German extraction (she came from Magdala, which was along the Sea of Galilee) but there is actually no mention in the Gospels of her having been a prostitute, though she is universally assumed to have been one (for more information on Ms. Magdalene, you might want to play my quiz on the subject).

Answer: Lucy Locket

"Lucy Locket lost her pocket;
Kitty Fisher found it.
There was not a penny in it,
But a ribbon round it."

And you thought this childish rhyme hinted at nothing darker than a little petty larceny! Locket and Fisher were both prominent London prostitutes of the 18th century. Lucy was the favorite of a wealthy gentleman, appropriately named Mr. Pocket, until the aggressive Kitty set her cap for him; whatever Kitty wanted, Kitty usually got. The line about the pocket being empty ("pocket", in this context, means purse) is a reference to Kitty's fee; she was the highest paid prostitute in London. Stories of her mercenary ways abound; she once refused Casanova himself when he offered her only two thirds of her usual fee.

In addition to her bedroom achievements (which must have been considerable), she may also have been the true inventor of the sandwich: on one occasion, a customer stiffed her of half of her usual fee of 2,000 pounds and tendered her a paltry 1,000 pound note. She publicly placed the note between two slices of bread and ate it (the Earl of Sandwich was a friend of Kitty's and may thus have been inspired to invent his famous eponymous snack). Kitty was once called upon by novelist Jane Austen, of all people (this was a friendly call, mind you, not "business"); Jane was, apparently, suitably impressed. Kitty eventually married a nobleman and ended her days in the country where, by the time of her death, she was regarded almost as a saint.

Answer: "Rent" (Broadway musical)

The musical "Rent" is a contemporary reinterpretation of Puccini's opera "La Boheme" which, in turn, was an operatic version of Henri Murger's 1846 novel "Scenes de la Vie Boheme" which was, in turn, based on Murger's own experiences as a struggling writer in Paris among other struggling artists and women of "easy virtue". The character of the tubercular Mimi, though similar in certain respects to that of "La Dame aux Camellias", was actually based on another woman of Murger's aquaintance.

Dumas fils' novel was adapted as a play during his lifetime and was a favorite vehicle of Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonora Duse, among other prominent actresses. The libretto of Verdi's "La Traviata" was adapted from the play by the librettist Piave. In America, the play was called "Camille", even though the heroine's name is Marguerite; apparently, we Yanks are just too lazy to be bothered saying "The Lady of the Camellias" (Sarah Bernhardt used to giggle whenever she heard the play referred to as "Camille"). The classic 1936 film starring Greta Garbo was an adaption of the play. The character of Satine in the 2001 film "Moulin Rouge" (not to be confused with a much earlier biopic about Toulouse Lautrec, which starred Jose Ferrer) is clearly based on Marguerite Gautier from the Dumas novel and many of the plot devices used in the film are borrowed from Dumas' original.

The real Marie du Plessis was actually a far cry from the version offered in Dumas' novel. She was a peasant girl from Normandy who came to Paris at the age of fifteen, determined to live the good life, even if she had to sell herself to do so. Unlike the fictional Marguerite Gautier, she was not secretly longing for true love; her philosophy was best summed up by her passion for camellias: "I like camellias bacause they have no scent, and rich men because they have no heart." Although she and Dumas were lovers, he was certainly not the true love of her life; to the extent that she had one, it was probably the composer Franz Liszt, who nearly talked her into marriage. She died in 1847 at the age of twenty-three, which sent the city of Paris into such mourning that Charles Dickens commented "One could have believed that Marie was Jeanne d'Arc or some other national heroine, so profound was the general sadness." After her death, her belongings were put up at auction to pay off the mountain of debt she left behind.

Answer: Marie Jeanette Kelly

No laughs here, I'm afraid. Marie (or Mary) Kelly was murdered on the night of November 9, 1888. Two features distinguish her from the Ripper's other victims; she was the youngest, at age twenty-five (the others were in their forties or late thirties) and she was the only victim killed in an indoor setting. Her body was found in her room, horribly mutilated in ways I'd rather not describe; fortunately, she had probably died of a cut throat before any of the other mutilations were inflicted. Though other prostitutes were brutally murdered in and around Whitechapel after Kelly's death, she is generally regarded as the last to have been killed by the Ripper himself; the rest were probably copycat killings.

The true identity of Jack the Ripper remains a mystery; the list of possible suspects includes Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, his physician, Sir William Withey Gull, the poisoners George Chapman and Thomas Neil Cream, the poet James Kenneth Stephen (a cousin of Virginia Woolf), and, most recently, artist William Sickert. The likeliest explanation, however, is that he was a quite ordinary person of unremarkable appearance, who happened to be monstrously deranged.

Answer: "Wild Bill" Hickok

Jane was born Martha Jane Cannary in Princeton, Missouri c. 1852. There is some question as to how she came about her famous nickname; most assume that it referred to her career as an adventuress, which began when she was still in her teens. Others insist that it was her generosity in times of calamity, such as the smallpox epidemic of 1878. Early in her life, she frequented the rough company of Montana's mining community, with whom she was known to drink and carouse fairly often. She also acted as a cavalry scout for Col. George Custer and others.

During the Gold Strike, she made the aquaintance of "Wild Bill" Hickok; although the two never married, they did have a passionate on-again, off-again relationship. Between bouts of fidelity to each other, Hickok enjoyed the charms of other Western lovelies and Jane suported herself by working as a prostitute. She did marry a man named Clinton Burke in 1885, but he soon deserted her. "Calamity" Jane died in 1903 and was buried in Deadwood alongside "Wild Bill" Hickok, who had been murdered in a saloon in 1876.

Answer: Tzu Hsi, Empress of China

The early life of Tzu Hsi is shrouded in mystery; we know virtually nothing of her before she became an imperial concubine, under the name Lady Yehenara (she was of the Yehe tribe). When she bore the Emperor Hsien Feng his first son, the future Emperor Tung Chih, she quickly rose in prominence. Eventually she became Hsien Feng's wife and, after his death, the Dowager Empress. Although Tzu Hsi has often been depicted as a sort of Chinese Lady Macbeth, a recent biography by Sterling Seagrave presents a more sympathetic and circumspect view of her, dispelling some old myths and canards.

Did you pick Theodora? Little is known for certain about the early life of Justinian's queen; she is believed to have been a circus performer (according to one of my sources, she was a mime; take note, Islingtonian) and/or an actress (you know those actresses!). After becoming empress, she outlawed enforced prostitution, built a home for elderly prostitutes, and enacted divorce laws which gave women more rights. Although she is generally believed to have been an invaluable asset to Justinian, she did not bear him any children; he was succeeded by his nephew, Justin II.

Catherine the Great? Although her many amours are the stuff of legend, the former Sophie Augusta Fredericka von Anhalt-Zerbst was still a virgin when she was brought from her native Pomerania to become the bride (not concubine) of the future Peter III of Russia. Indeed, she remained a virgin for some time thereafter, since Peter suffered a deformity of the foreskin that made consumnation of their union impossible; he was also unwilling to undergo the necessary surgery to correct the problem. Eventually, for the sake of Mother Russia, some of Peter's friends got him blind drunk and called in a surgeon to do the deed. By this time, however, Catherine had begun looking elsewhere; the rest, as they say, is history.

Okay, I put Victoria in purely for shock value. If you picked her, you should be sent to bed without your hot milk and be served cold porridge for breakfast. For shame!

Answer: Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor

While there have undoubtedly been many women (and men, for that matter) connected with Britain's various royal families who could fairly be called whores, the Duchess of Windsor seems to have actually carried professional credentials in that respect. During her first marriage to Commander Earl Winfield ("Win") Spencer, she traveled with her husband to Hong Kong, where (at her husband's urging!) she underwent training at a number of Chinese "singing houses" (where singing was the least of the activities) and learned the erotic arts of Fang Chung. Unfortunately, no sooner had she perfected these techniques than her husband (who was bisexual) made the vexing decision to move in with a man! Determined not to let all her hard-learned expertise go to waste, Wallis, according to biographer Charles Higham, was "...notoriously a kept woman...even during her marriage to Win she was bedded by rich men."

Two husbands later, Wallis got to practice her craft on the future Edward VIII, who famously abdicated the throne (which he didn't want anyway) rather than give her up. According to her intimates, Wallis was furious at this turn of events and went into a blind rage, smashing everything in sight. She had wanted to be either queen or mistress to a king, not the wife of an exiled Duke. Nevertheless, she married Edward and the two spent the rest of their lives complaining bitterly about the raw deal they got from the royal family while, in fact, living lives of nearly comparable luxury and privilege without having to do anything that might be described as "work". Their second favorite topic of conversation was their lifelong admiration for that lovely man, Adolf Hitler, and what a pity it was that "Roosevelt and the Jews" had dragged everyone into WWII. The admiration was mutual; Hitler thought highly of Wallis and said that "...she would have been a good Queen."

Answer: Sausalito

Stanford (born Mabel Janice Busby) was a prominent San Francisco madam, owning a fashionable bordello on Pine Street. In 1949, she retired and "went square", opening up the still-existant Valhalla Restaurant. When some self-righteous locals painted the building bright red in protest, she proudly refused to repaint and let the scarlet color remain.

She eventually gave up the restaurant and began dabbling in politics; she was elected to the Sausalito city council in 1972 and became the city's mayor in 1976. Affectionately (or, in some cases, sarcastically) referred to as "Madam Mayor", she had become a beloved figure in Sausalito by the time of her death in 1982.

Her autobiography "Lady of the House" had been published in 1966.