Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner

...the other sex is separated into three sharp divisions, separated (two of them) by a chasm which could be crossed but one time and in but one direction  ladies, women, females the virgins whom gentlemen someday married, the courtesans to whom they went while on sabbaticals to the cities, the slave girls and women upon whom that first caste rested and to whom in certain cases it doubtless owed the very fact of its virginity...