victorian morality

[Siamese Girl]

The OH's family haven't ever produced a baby less than 9 months after marriage  and I've traced them back to about 1600, but then they were always comfortably off and educated and went in for marriage settlements and that sort of thing so I think the daughters were probably fairly well guarded until the wedding day!

From what I've seen, I don't think illegitimacy was such a horrendous stigma until the Victorians really got going on it.

Carole

[Shropshire Lass]

Has anyone any light to shed on this?  I don't know if it's a rural myth.

I read - but can't remember where - that the tradition in Wales was for the couple to live together after a public declaration/engagement but, if the girl didn't become pregnant, the couple could part.

Monica

[LizzieW]

The Book of the Week on Radio 4 this week, had a theme running through about the history of London and its people during Shakespeare's time.  He figured in the book.

Mention was made of the fact that couples were supposed to remain celibate until they were betrothed and then they were free to do as they wished.

Lesley Hannah - I never told my mother that her mother was 3 months pregnant when she got married, she would have been  mortified, she was so straitlaced about sex.  Although I did tell her that her mother's eldest sister had a child at 16 when unmarried and then another one about 18 months later.  She didn't marry the boy concerned until after her father died as he didn't like him, despite the fact he let him live in his house.

Lizzie

[ozlady]

What about the old tradition of "bundling?" That took place in many parts of the UK.

[adee7]

OK, I'll ask.   

What was 'bundling'?       

Kathleen

[ozlady]

The couple were wrapped up tightly together in a bed. It supposedly "encouraged intimacy without actual sexual intercourse".  Yeah, right!

[adee7]

RIGHT!!     

Was that during the Victorian era?             


Kathleen

[indiapaleale]

I don't know if we're more or less moral - but we're a lot less hypocritical!

Monica

Monica,

I think that younger people are somewhat less hypocritical ........as long as they are talking about their own peer group.

But I think that most people are hypocritical.....(me included)...do as I say...not as I do.

It's hard to be perfect....!!  

In researching my family, I have found all kinds of illegal, immoral, unsavoury
goings on.......most before 1900!....My cousin was horrified when I told her that our gggrandad died from an overdose of opium...and this was in 1840.

The olden days were raunchy......and the modern days are raunchy!

 

[lesleyhannah]

 I had to tell my mother I was pregnant. In those days (1960) you couldn't get married without the written permission of your parents  if you were under 21 - and I was a teenager! As I didn't know where my father was I lied and said he was dead (a lesson to all genealogists - people don't always tell the truth on BMD certs!).