Josephine Butler

British Parliament passed the Contagious Diseases Acts in 1869 to stop the spread of venereal diseases, especially among the Royal Navy. The law afforded police broad powers to arrest and detain any women suspected of prostitution and subject them to degrading physical examinations. Josephine Butler (1828-1906) recognized the double standard. She had witnessed it years earlier at Oxford, at the university where her husband George taught. A well-respected university don (professor) had seduced and impregnated “a young girl,” leaving her in degraded, difficult straits. The girl subsequently killed her newborn and was incarcerated. Her crime was undeniable, but Josephine was stunned that the man who created the circumstances faced no consequences. She became acutely aware of how deeply the double standard for men and women was ingrained in British society. Why were the transgressions more grievous for women than for men? Josephine’s daughter Eva died years earlier after falling from a banister while playing with her three older brothers. The tragedy plunged Josephine into deep grief and depression. She asked God to guide her “to find some pain keener than my own…to meet with people more unhappy than myself.” She came to a moment of clarity with the double standard in British life. She and George invited the young girl after her jail time to live and work in their home. Josephine took to the streets to minister to ‘fallen women” and uncovered the horrors of child prostitution and sex trafficking. She labored tirelessly for sixteen years to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts, for which she received death threats, mobs disrupting her work, and ostracism from British society. She is hailed in our day as a pioneer feminist and social activist. Much has been made of what she did; why she did it often goes unreported. She lived a life immersed in prayer and practiced the maxim she popularized, “God and one woman make a majority.” Prayer as intimate dialogue with God informed her public life. Her biography of Catherine of Siena provided historical justification for how prayer and social activism work together. In her memoirs, Josephine reflected on her anger with the Contagious Diseases Acts, “Surely there is a way of becoming angry without sin,” she wrote. Then she prayed: