… both the biological and socially-constructed definitions of the sexes. In terms of sociability, female beauty became a public symbol of moral superiority and sensibility, further unified by the prominent cosmetic trends in the eighteenth …
… simply an issue of virginity but had become a complex social performance marked by a range of signs that amounted to a public display of purity. The battles over women’s hands, and over the kiss, were clearly unequal in physical terms. …