Half-Virgins, Whole Women? Marcel Prévost's Les demi-vierges (1894)

Abstract: The very year that Irish feminist Sarah Grand coined the term "New Woman" to refer to women who sought to better themselves through education and/or work and to play a more active role in society, Marcel Prévost published Les demivierges , the novel that propelled the concept of the "half-virgin" into the public imagination. The bulk of the novel deals with the interactions between women and men who struggle to come to terms with their loss of primacy in the sexual dynamic. In his preface, Prévost predisposes the reader to condemn this new kind of woman and to understand the threat she poses to the turn-of-the-century man. But as the plot unfolds, it becomes clear that his messaging regarding women is far less straightforward. This study examines the process by which Prévost fleshes out the demi-vierge and problematizes his own preface's depiction of a figure that remains alive and well to this day in popular culture and media.