The Moral Hypocrisy of Victorian Britain's "Fallen Woman" Archetype

The depiction of women’s bare, sexualized bodies in English Pre-Raphaelite artwork opposes the Victorian era’s strict moral standards and reveals the sexist hypocrisy present in Victorian society. In many Victorian paintings, the naked female body was depicted alluringly, posing with milky white skin and lustrous hair. These paintings might lead onlookers to believe that Victorians were promiscuous and free in their expression, when in fact they were quite the opposite. The Victorians were famously prudish, imposing strict social norms upon polite society.  Any and all sexual matters were incredibly taboo, and sex was restricted to a means of conception- unless you were one of Britain's many prostitutes.

  According to William Acton, as early as 1841, there were 9,409 prostitutes in London alone. In fact, a bill named the “Spooner Bill”, after its author, was proposed to the House of Commons in 1846 in order to curb prostitution. The bill was unsuccessful because “certain men, whose names were ‘some of the highest and noblest of the land’, were identified as ‘customers’ of prostitutes.” Despite this, prostitutes continuously faced discrimination because of the nature of their profession. Many Victorians believed that prostitutes were immoral women who corrupted good society in their quest for money. In reality, they were, by and large, desperate women who were ousted from high society and had few job options besides prostitution. Really, few (if any) Victorian women wanted to be prostitutes. It was a position that desperation forced them into. The tragedy of these women’s stories was exemplified in the ‘Fallen Woman’ archetype of the 1840s. 

Infidelity

Past and Present Triptych (1858), Leopold Egg

The Fallen Woman archetype is a woman who loses her place in society, often by being unfaithful to her husband, turns to prostitution for survival, and then commits suicide out of shame. Augustus Egg depicted the Fallen Women in his triptych, Past and Present. The first scene shows a middle-class man who has discovered his wife’s infidelity. He is glassy-eyed as if in a trance, and his skin is a sickly yellow. He looks almost corpse-like with his hollow eyes and jaundiced skin, contrasting with the emotiveness of the wife begging at his feet. In the back left, there are two young daughters who are playing with a tower of cards. One of them turns back, noticing the scene, and knocks the card tower over. It is an obvious metaphor for how their own household has just toppled over. The bag and umbrella in the foreground of the image indicate that the mother is leaving. If she leaves, it is almost guaranteed she will have to turn to prostitution as a means of survival. Yet, despite the upsetting nature of this scene, I believe it is the least nightmarish in its palette and subject matter compared to the next two. 

In the next image, the two daughters from the last scene, now grown, are seen grieving together in a moonlit room. One girl stares forlornly at the moon while the other sobs into her skirts. The orange haze covering the painting is disquieting and contrasts with the relative normality of the previous painting’s palette. This is because another tragedy has occurred- the girls’ father has died. They are functionally orphaned now.

The final image is set underneath a dodgy stone bridge, a common spot for prostitutes. The mother from the first image stands with her hair undone, gazing out at the moon and open waters. She is now a prostitute and carries a child born from her prostitution on her back. It is implied that she may commit suicide by drowning, firmly defining her as a fallen woman. The image invites pity. The mother and daughter are staring longingly at the same moon, likely wishing for each other's company.

However, to a Victorian audience, it would also overwhelmingly stir the wife's disgust. It was a mortal sin for women to cheat, but with men, it was tolerated as a minor offense. According to the British Lord Chancellor in 1857, “wife might, without any loss of caste, and possibly with reference to the interests of her children, or even of her husband, condone an act of adultery on the part of the husband; but a husband could not condone a similar act on the part of a wife.”  A woman could be divorced on the grounds of infidelity based on the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857 (which Egg’s triptych was meant to protest), but a man needed additional offenses to be divorced. In divorce, and often in inheritance cases, women were denied any allotment of property or money on which to sustain themselves. The law clearly stated that women could not cheat, but men can- or even should! It was normalized and encouraged for men to “vent their animalistic sexual desires” on prostitutes so as not to sully their pious wives.  

Despite prostitutes' commonality and the fact that they were most often forced into their position by desperation, many Victorians believed that prostitutes were dirty and immoral wretches who purposefully corrupted good society in their quest for money. As such, when the Contagious Diseases Act of 1864 (and subsequent amendments) sought to stop the spread of venereal disease, efforts were confined to prostitutes and not their customers. The bill “legalized prostitution but entailed legislation enabling police to arrest women suspected of being prostitutes and the subsequent examination of them for signs of venereal disease”. These examinations dehumanized prostitutes by subjecting them to invasive examinations and substantiated a system of moral inequality. Women had to be sexless creatures, while men’s desires could be fulfilled at the expense of the prostitutes. Yet, amid severe regulation of the female body, women were still commonly depicted in sensual portraits.

Fantasy

Lilith (1887), John Collier

The Pre-Raphaelite movement, of which Egg was inspired, arose in the mid-1800s and was notable for its abundance of beautiful, nude women. It rejected the modern teachings of the Royal Academy of Art and sought to return to the time before Raphael’s influence on art. Pre-Raphaelites' work often incorporated medieval elements, a focus on nature, and sententious characters from classical literature. Pre-Raphaelite artist John Collier depicted one such character in his 1887 painting, Lilith. In the bible, Lilith was Adam's original wife before she defected and transformed into a snake to trick his second wife, Eve, into eating the apple of temptation. She is known as a vicious murderer, the original Fallen Woman, and -in the Jewish bible- also occupies the role of a succubus. Yet, within John Collier and other Victorian artists' work, her depiction is “guided by a certain affection for these subversive figures…painters focus on showing Lilith as a seductress, whose beauty men cannot resist,” rather than on her moral character. Her character’s opposition to the desired submissive and chaste woman of the Victorian era inspired both disgust and inexhaustible fascination among Victorian men. Accordingly, Lilith’s portrayal in Lilith is very sensual. 

Firstly, her hair is long and undone, which in Victorian society would be limited to the bedroom. On most occasions, women’s hair must be neatly piled into a style or covered by a veil/shawl. The absence of such styling outside the bedroom was scandalous. Lilith’s flowing hair is thus a cultural emblem of her depravity and desirability. You can see that in the final painting of Egg’s triptych, the fallen woman now has her hair down. Her hair even resembles Lilith’s in thickness and texture!

Secondly, Lilith is naked except for the snake she is known for. Until the 1880s, Victorian women were told that the only undergarments covering their naked bodies should be white to symbolize their purity and virginity. The wild, tempestuous snake, comfortably encircling Lilith and conveniently covering her groin, is opposite this standard. The snake, being her only covering, is both a sexual fantasy and symbolic of the popular view regarding Victorian women’s sexuality.

Because they conceived and birthed children, they were seen as closer to nature and, therefore, more prone to nature’s wildness. That is why part of why women’s bodies and wills were so heavily controlled by Victorian morals. Their sexual freedom was seen as an evil thing that needed to be fettered by pure white chemises and pious husbands. Women, like Lillith, who indulged in their carnal instincts, were to be ostracized, hated, and lusted after.

Conclusion

In summary, Egg’s Past and Present triptych and Collier’s Lillith exemplify the two contrasting standards for women in 19th century England. The Past and Present warns against lust by utilizing the Fallen Woman archetype, and Lilith romanticizes the Fallen Woman as an object of sexual desire. The hypocrisy of these standards is evident in the advent of modern websites like OnlyFans. OnlyFans is an online service that is known for catering to men’s sexual desires. It is one of the largest distributors of X-rated materials today. It is a far cry from the prostitutes of old London, though OnlyFans’ majority female employees face similar criticism.*

Like English 19th-century prostitutes, they are often characterized as money-hungry, lustful women who are corrupting society with their practices. In light of the historical precedent of Victorian England, I believe the general public’s criticisms should shift to OnlyFans’ customers. The ~75% of female creators on OnlyFans and the thousands in the London Prostitution market would not exist if there weren't men willing to pay for their services. Imposing restrictions based on moral indignation has historically served to punish sex workers, pinning the blame solely on them for others' patronage. The moral expectations of past and present women are impossibly conflicted by the desires and expectations of men.

 *To be clear, OnlyFans' employees have far more control and agency over their bodies than Victorians. Unlike Victorian women, OnlyFans' employees are not overwhelmingly forced into their line of work. My comparison of these two lines of work is to compare the criticism they receive(d). 

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