Editing Sacred prostitution (section)

===Babylonia===
According to [[Herodotus]], the rites performed at these temples included sexual intercourse, or what scholars later called sacred sexual rites:

{{blockquote|The foulest Babylonian custom is that which compels every woman of the land to sit in the temple of [[Aphrodite]] ([[Ishtar]]) and have intercourse with some stranger at least once in her life. Many women who are rich and proud and disdain to mingle with the rest, drive to the temple in covered carriages drawn by teams, and stand there with a great retinue of attendants. But most sit down in the sacred plot of Aphrodite, with crowns of cord on their heads; there is a great multitude of women coming and going; passages marked by line run every way through the crowd, by which the men pass and make their choice. Once a woman has taken her place there, she does not go away to her home before some stranger has cast money into her lap, and had intercourse with her outside the temple; but while he casts the money, he must say, "I invite you in the name of [[Mylitta]]".  It does not matter what sum the money is; the woman will never refuse, for that would be a sin, the money being by this act made sacred. So she follows the first man who casts it and rejects no one. After their intercourse, having discharged her sacred duty to the goddess, she goes away to her home; and thereafter there is no bribe however great that will get her. So then the women that are fair and tall are soon free to depart, but the uncomely have long to wait because they cannot fulfil the law; for some of them remain for three years, or four. There is a custom like this in some parts of Cyprus.{{sfn|Herodotus|loc=[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+1.199 vol.1 p.199]}}}}

The British anthropologist [[James Frazer]] accumulated citations to prove this in a chapter of his magnum opus ''[[The Golden Bough]]'' (1890–1915),<ref>{{harvnb|Frazer|1922|loc=abridged ed. [[s:The Golden Bough/Adonis in Cyprus|Chapter 31: Adonis in Cyprus]]}}; see also the more extensive treatment {{harvnb|Frazer|1914|loc=3rd ed. volumes 5 and 6}}. Frazer's argument and citations are reproduced in slightly clearer fashion by {{harvnb|Henriques|1961|loc=vol. I, ch. 1}}</ref> and this has served as a starting point for several generations of scholars. Frazer and Henriques distinguished two major forms of sacred sexual rites: temporary rite of unwed girls (with variants such as dowry-sexual rite, or as public [[defloration]] of a bride), and lifelong sexual rite.{{sfn|Henriques|1961|loc=vol. I, ch. 1}} However, Frazer took his sources mostly from authors of [[Late Antiquity]] (i.e. 150–500 AD), not from the Classical or [[Hellenistic period]]s.<ref>[[Herodotus]] and [[Strabo]] are the only sources mentioned by Frazer that were active prior to the 2nd century AD; his other sources include [[Deipnosophistae|Athenaeus]], [[De Dea Syria|pseudo-Lucian]], [[Claudius Aelianus|Aelian]], and the Christian church historians [[Sozomen]] and [[Socrates of Constantinople]].</ref> This raises questions as to whether the phenomenon of temple sexual rites can be generalised to the whole of the ancient world, as earlier scholars typically did.

In [[code of Hammurabi|Hammurabi's code of laws]], the rights and good name of female sacred sexual priestesses were protected. The same legislation that protected married women from slander applied to them and their children. They could inherit property from their fathers, collect income from land worked by their brothers, and dispose of property. These rights have been described as extraordinary, taking into account the role of women at the time.{{sfn|Qualls-Corbett|1988|p=37}}