Fallen woman

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"Fallen woman" is an old-fashioned term that was used to describe a woman who had lost her innocence, and fallen from the grace of God. In 19th-century Britain especially, the meaning came to be closely associated with the loss or surrender of a woman's chastity and with female promiscuity. Its use was an expression of the belief that to be socially and morally acceptable, a woman's sexuality and experience should be entirely restricted to marriage. The term was often more specifically associated with prostitution, which was regarded as both a cause and effect of a woman's "fall". The term has considerable importance in social history and appears in many literary works.

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