Women were expected to have sex with only one man, her husband. However, it was acceptable for men to have multiple partners in their life; some husbands had lengthy affairs with other women while their wives stayed with their husbands because divorce was not an option. If a woman had sexual contact with another man, she was seen as "ruined" or "fallen". Victorian literature and art was full of examples of women paying dearly for straying from moral expectations. Adulteresses met tragic ends in novels, including the ones by great writers such as Tolstoy, Flaubert or Thomas Hardy. While some writers and artists showed sympathy towards women's subjugation to this double standard, some works were didactic and reinforced the cultural norm.