Flora Tristan argues that many prostitutes were forced into the business because of hunger and lack of wealth; at the end of the day these women needed to do whatever they could to put food on the table and keep themselves from starving.  Tristian even goes to the London streets one evening to observe the prostitutes.  Most of Tristan’s argument implies that men perpetuate the role of the prostitute in this society, because women are treated lower than men, and thus roles like this exist for them.  Tristan also says that “three or four years is the life period of half of the London prostitutes” because they’re made to drink alcohol and live a life deprived of nourishment, proper medicine and medical care, and the normal cares that life would provide for them.  Towards the end of her argument, Tristan says that men are ideally the cause of prostitution, as they destroy family affections, and allow love to take no part in their lives.

Magdalen by Amy Levy supports the arguments that Flora Tristan makes in her article; Levy does not put blame on the prostitute herself, but rather on the man (and society as a whole) that have put her into the position she is in.  The speaker in the poem is speaking to a man, one that has gotten her ill, and reveals at the end of the poem “the doctor says that I shall die. / It may be so, yet what care I? / Endless reposing from the strife, / Death do I trust no more than life” (Levy).  It is here the audience sees the speaker trusts death no more than life; life being one that has let her down and led her to prostitution, a life that has allowed her to become ill with no medical treatment or care to recover.  The viewpoint of the poem as well as the events that unfold and where the blame is placed all point towards Amy Levy agreeing with Flora Tristan—that society is to blame for the position these women are in.