It's fascinating to me the extent to which in many ways Victorian real life was more forgiving than Victorian fiction, or at least, was not subject to the constraints placed by Mudie's Circulating Library! I have a whole stack of books which are All More Complicated about Women's Plights of the period and whether e.g. one misstep was a life sentence and the extent to which society was prepared to be forgiving up to a point (one little illegit, okay, she was beguiled/abused by a rotter, more than that she is either not learning her lesson or steeped in lust).