Scandalous Sexual Behavior
That Thomas Hardy, there's always something sexually questionable in his works—well, questionable by Victorian standards that is. In "The Ruined Maid," for example, 'Melia has clearly moved up the social latter by having some type of sexual relationship outside of marriage. In one of the most depressing novels ever, Jude the Obscure, two people have a serious sexual relationship even though they're not married. Then of course there's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, another Hardy novel, which also tells of a "ruined woman" (ruined not by her own choice) who suffers some pretty terrible consequences.
Now, Hardy didn't write about all this stuff because he was perverse and dirty. On the contrary, he was upset with the sexual norms of his time and frequently created characters who challenged the boundaries within which they were supposed to live. His Victorian readers weren't crazy about this way of doing things, and Hardy was frequently criticized as a result. It didn't seem to slow him down, though, and this poem is a testament to that. You go, Thomas.