A sacred responsibility in some ancient Pagan traditions, priestesses, or women functioning as priestesses, would give themselves to partners as a way of honoring the goddess. Money collected for this—as with the collection plate in churches—was given to the temple dedicated to the particular goddess. Long forgotten due to the ascendancy of Christianity which opposed such practices, the rediscovery of this sacred Pagan practice was vilified by Christian archeologists as “prostitution,” even though they also called it “sacred.”