Although her transgressions were not of a sexual nature, Victorian society conflated the “broken woman” with the “fallen woman.” The woman who had lost her marriage and her home through her moral weakness was viewed with no less abhorrence than the woman who had engaged in extramarital sex. A woman who was “drunk and disorderly,” who embarrassed herself in public, who demonstrated no regard for her appearance, was considered as much of a degenerate as a prostitute.
