Her rich boyfriend pays her rent, lavishes her with gifts, and takes her on luxury vacations. So why isn't everyone congratulating Melissa Beech on her good fortune?

In a society that long ago discarded the ideal of premarital chastity, youthful fornication has lost its shock power. If Miss Beech were merely sleeping with a college classmate, her behavior would be no different than that of millions of other young women in 21st-century America, and nowadays only the strictest of religious conservatives would condemn it. None of those passing judgment on her, however, speaks the language of sin. Her stone-throwing Pharisees are strictly secular.
Much of the opprobrium heaped on Miss Beech took her to task for failing to live up to the careerist ideals of feminism.

(Cross-posted at The Other McCain.)