ship_manifesto

No, I've read that about 17th and 18th century life as well; among the upper classes, where marriage wasn't as much about love as about money, a woman's purity was important until she married, after which she was given much more freedom. Men have always had the "right" to have as many women as they want, and in those times (according to my research) they gave a certain amount of leeway to their wives as well, with a mutual agreement to be silent about it in public.