Warren's business partner and has in fact invested 40,000 pounds in the venture. In his own words, "The fact is, it's not what would be considered exactly a high-class business in my set -- the county set, you know.... Not that there is any mystery about it: don't think that. Of course you know by your mother's being in it that it's perfectly straight and honest. I've known her for many years; and I can say of her that she'd cut off her hands sooner than touch anything that was not what it ought to be.... But you see you can't mention such things in society. Once let out the word hotel and everybody says you keep a public-house."
So, the problem is much less with what an woman does in order to ensure her living, but more on how that is hidden so that to be able to fit into the rigid Victorian framework. The further reason for that is that the Victorian society does not want to know about the underlying reasons that force a woman into prostitution in those times, mainly because such a thing would open their eyes and would make them understand the symptomatic non-functionality of parts of the Victorian society. Hypocrisy helps hide things and make people ignorant of other existences.
However, the play is also a play about poverty and wealth and about oppression and freedom and I think that this is where the second part of the thesis can be best argued. Mrs. Warren does make her feeling out of prostitution (or rather by running a prostitution business), but exactly the fact that her profession places her outside the norms of society make her a much freer...
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