The Modern Venus: Politicians, Gamblers, Lovers, and
Other Improper Ladies

A Modern Venus, or
a Lady of the Present
Fashion
NYPL, Print Collection


The Kettle Abusing
the Pot
NYPL, Pforzheimer
Collection


Mrs. Jordan in the
Character of Hypolita
NYPL, Print Collection


Memoirs of
Harriette Wilson
NYPL, Pforzheimer
Collection

Lady Godina's Rout
NYPL, Print Collection


The Poll
NYPL, Print Collection


The Rt Honble Lady
Eleanor Butler and
Miss Ponsonby …
NYPL, Pforzheimer
Collection

If the Romantic era offered new ways to be good, it also offered many ways and places for women to have fun and to get into trouble; these included gambling, politics, theater, pleasure parks, operas, masquerades, and—not least—adultery. Not all of them were entirely new, but they came to the fore in these years, in which women performed a risky balancing act between having a good time and being good.

Since divorce was almost unobtainable, there was little recourse for an unhappy marriage. The sexual double standard—by which men could do as they liked, but women had to make sure that their sons belonged to their husbands—meant that the stakes in games of love were high indeed, and sex tinged everything, from politics to theater to the roulette wheel. The risks were not equal: wealthy women had a cushion of money and social connections, while poor women who had a bit of bad luck might quickly find themselves working as prostitutes. In the middle were actresses and courtesans, the latter decidedly improper, the former now able to retain their good names—if they worked very hard at it. Finally, the Romantic era saw the beginning of modern lesbian culture, exemplified in the now-obsolete social relationship known as romantic friendship, held up as a model of female virtue and devotion—as long as there was no hint of sex..