Few features of classic bourgeois life have been more remarked on and bewailedthan its morality, often derided as rigid, puritanical, and hypocritical,especially in regard to sex. Nineteenth-century moralists made large demands onspeech and behavior in the name of decency and decorum, often in strikinglyinconsistent ways. Men were allowed satisfactions considered unthinkable forwomen; representations of unclothed bodies were taken for granted so long asthey could be assigned to some distant or mythical realm, but moralistic viewerswere shocked by Manet’s ironic and playful contemporary nudes (incontrast to Mauclair’s celebration of them), and even by the suggestionof a falling gown-strap on the bare shoulder of an elegant woman in a portraitby John Singer Sargent. We can defend bourgeois morality on the grounds thatmany human societies have imposed narrow and inflexible standards of proprietyon dress, demeanor, and public expression, especially for women, and thathypocrisy has reared its head wherever ordinary flesh-and-blood humans havesought to exhibit strict moral and religious principles in their daily lives.Bourgeois themselves were the first to call attention to hypocrisy in theirmidst, condemning it in the name of transparency and truth. In addition, PeterGay’s detailed and colorful studies have shown that manynineteenth-century middle-class women and men lived far more open and variedmoral lives than has commonly been supposed, often regarding sensual and eroticsatisfactions as a highly desirable part of respectable existence. Even hisaccount leaves many features of the traditional picture intact, however, andwith them the need to make sense of the perplexing contours of modern bourgeoismoral belief and behavior.