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Young Serving Girl Increased migration to urban areas in the eighteenth century contributed to a loosening of traditional morals and soaring illegitimacy rates. Young women who worked as servants or shopgirls could not be supervised as closely as those who lived at home. The themes of seduction, fallen virtue, and familial conflict were popular in eighteenth-century art.
(The Beautiful Kitchen Maid, by François Boucher [1703–1770], [oil on canvas]/Musée Cognacq-Jay, Paris, France/Bridgeman Images)