Bringing syphilis into the marital home was considered a social disgrace and a tragedy, but it was one for which errant husbands who visited prostitutes and who kept mistresses tended to be blamed. Medical texts generally addressed the problem from this perspective while partially exonerating the man for his conduct by claiming that the true root of the issue lay with the selfish immorality of those in the sex trade.10 The possibility that a man might choose to marry a woman with a sexual past, who had been exposed to the disease, seemed unconscionable.
