There is a lot of discussion about sexual promiscuity in this book. I believe many people believe such topics are new to our era, but things like that were going on a long time ago. I don't know how common it was though because this book is a work of fiction, but I'm sure some people participated in acts that were greatly disapproved of.
Miss Rose is an unmarried woman and plans to stay that way. She had an encounter with a married man who sang tenor in the opera, Karl Bretzner. She was just a teenager and admired Bretzner and attended all of his shows until he took notice of her and invited her to his private dressing room. Pretty quickly, some stuff happened and Rose was "tainted". She had to hide the matter and she moved with her brother to Chile.
One of Rose's brothers, John, also has sex although he isn't married. "[...] the girl could imagine him carousing with some of his flighty women friends, the ones who said hello in the street when Miss Rose wasn't with them." Prostitutes are mentioned hanging around the docks and that happens to be where John spends most of his time when he's visiting Chile.
Eliza also has a love affair when she's just a teenager. She meets Joaquin Andieta and they have secret meetings every Wednesday night when no will notice Eliza's absence. When he goes off to California to join the gold rush, she realizes that she is pregnant.
Again, this kind of promiscuity could just be in this book to make a good story, but I'm sure some people were like this in the mid-1800s.
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