Page "Victorian era" Paragraph 98

This emphasis on female purity was allied to the stress on the homemaking role of women, who helped to create a space free from the pollution and corruption of the city.

In this respect, the prostitute came to have symbolic significance as the embodiment of the violation of that divide.

The double standard remained in force.

Divorce legislation introduced in 1857 allowed for a man to divorce his wife for adultery, but a woman could only divorce if adultery were accompanied by cruelty.

The anonymity of the city led to a large increase in prostitution and unsanctioned sexual relationships.

Dickens and other writers associated prostitution with the mechanisation and industrialisation of modern life, portraying prostitutes as human commodities consumed and thrown away like refuse when they were used up.

Moral reform movements attempted to close down brothels, something that has sometimes been argued to have been a factor in the concentration of street-prostitution in Whitechapel ( where the Jack the Ripper prostitute murders took place ), part of the East End of London, by the 1880s ( near the end of the 19th century ).