ABSTRACT
The year 1857 was not only that of the Matrimonial Causes Act, it also marked one of a series of high points in the press agitation about the ‘Social Evil’ of prostitution. The ‘private shame of divorce’ and the ‘public shame of prostitution’ (Trudgill 1976:179) were thus brought together under the same spotlight. The result was the production of a moral panic about both male and female sexuality, the institution of marriage, and ‘immorality as a pervasive social fact’ (ibid.). This moral panic was clearly an important factor in the sensation novel’s representation of sexuality (especially female sexuality), and a source of its particular preoccupation with marriage and with various kinds of extra-marital relationships.
