In the Victorian era, defamation law was invoked to affirm the rigid sexual mores of the day. Statements that implied a lack of female chastity had ruinous consequences, and judges took it upon themselves to safeguard “defenseless and helpless women against false and malicious imputations, that tend to humiliate and degrade them in society.” Hardin v. Harshfield, 12 S.W. 779, 779 (Ky. 1890). Affirming the patronizing view of women as being “sexually pure,” the Kansas Supreme Court explained: “The world is censorious, and a woman’s or a maiden’s reputation for modesty and chastity is an asset of inestimable value. Its loss renders her poor indeed.” Cooper v. Seaverns, 105 P. 509, 515 (Kan. 1909).
In an effort to fit this contemporary worldview of female sexuality, states altered their defamation laws to create per se liability for statements impugning a woman’s chastity. See, e.g., Gates v. N.Y. Recorder Co., 49 N.E. 769, 770 (N.Y. 1898); see also Lisa R. Pruitt, “Her Own Good Name: Two Centuries of Talk About Chastity,” 63 Md. L. Rev. 401, 406 (2004). This change to defamation law had significant cultural consequences too. It reinforced the idea that without a reputation for sexual purity, a woman’s value was either greatly diminished or utterly non-existent. See Lisa R. Pruitt, “On the Chastity of Women All Property in the World Depends”: Injury from Sexual Slander in the Nineteenth Century, 78 Ind. L.J. 965, 1016 (2003). It also provided a legal tool for avoiding any discourse about women’s sexuality, driving open talk of overt female sexuality underground. See id. at 1016-17.
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