'maintain respectability' is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
It is most commonly used in the imperative form (as a command) when giving advice or giving direction. Example sentence: "If you want to achieve success in your career, it is imperative that you maintain respectability at all times."
The physical remains, however, speak of a determination to maintain respectability no matter how difficult the circumstances".
Fifty years ago, researchers have found, as many as a third of American marriages were precipitated by a pregnancy, with couples marrying to maintain respectability.
There are some streets which show efforts to maintain respectability and an appearance of comfort; but most folk seem to have given in.
Although momentary acts or behaviors can lead to getting infected (or infecting someone else), socially-embedded and socially-meaningful patterns of behavior (such as trying to maintain respectability in the eyes either of non-user relatives or of "righteous dope fiends") involve long-term maintenance of safer (or riskier) behaviors.
Educational success and religious devoutness both bring social honour, while restrictive norms, in particular for young women not to show an interest in sex, and conforming to village expectations, are both about maintaining respectability.
She tries to maintain her respectability, "to be good," but, whenever lust sparks, an untamable part of her is ready to burn down everything in her life.
Marginalizing young girls with the stigma of "slut" has serious consequences not only for the girl who is marked but for the girls who see what happens to her and fear also being labeled a "slut" and will do anything to avoid it and maintain their "respectability," including silencing their needs, desires, questions, voices, opinions, experiences and burgeoning sexual awareness.
The advantage of psychological operations was their deniability – important for a regime that wanted to maintain its international respectability.
Maria Bystrova made Hagar's Eldest Sister a puritan who desperately seeks to maintain an aura of respectability.
Of course, Collins and the Mets want to win as many games as possible to preserve their pride and maintain a measure of respectability.
That might be because the Oscars' producers are desperate to maintain a veneer of respectability and Globes producers are greasing the wheels and praying for a 12-car pile-up.
