How does one catch gonorrhoea?

[Stanwix England]

I have a lot of similar stories in my family history majm, only further back.

One of the biggest eye openers for me while researching my family history has been the number of illegitimate babies, who were kept by their mothers, who form part of my family tree. I'm currently looking a Victorian era branch of my family and most of the women were pregnant when they got married. Some split up from their husbands, or their husbands left them, and ended up living with and having children with other men.

Yet these women don't seem to have been shunned by society, many go on to marry other men when their first husbands died and keep their children with them. I've got at least one relative whose son, on paper at least, seems to have had a good relationship with his step-father as he named his eldest child after him, surname as a middle name and all.

I suspect that the poverty of these people was a factor. A lot of the families I've been looking at are just renting a room or two in a house, in situations where at least four families are stuffed in one house. 17 to 20 people in one not particularly large house. I think that in those circumstances, people were just practical and understood that women had to do whatever they could do to get by, and if that meant having a relationship with another man once their husband had walked out, then so be it. Working women's wages were typically pretty low - how else could you get by?

I currently live in an ex-mining community and one thing that has been passed down to me anecdotally from the past is that if a women lost a husband in a mining accident, she would almost inevitably marry another miner in a matter of months. Her feelings didn't come into it, as a woman with children she couldn't survive on her own income and had to take practical steps in order to provide for her children.

[River Tyne Lass]

My thoughts too, Rena, regarding 'mere clickbait'.

[Viktoria]

Annie, it is not “ less sex” that makes a woman decent or otherwise, it is with whom she has sex, her legal partner or someone else.

A married couple can be raving sex addicts with each other,  that is perfectly alright, but outside the marriage no, ,absolutely no!

That is the difference between decent and otherwise.
Paid or free , sex outside marriage is adultery, the possibilities we have discussed,STD,s and a stone  in that pool has very far reaching circles.
Free love, call it what you will ,always has serious repercussions ,and often
ends in innocent people being betrayed ,hurt and made seriously ill ,even unborn babies.
Women pay a higher price in such things , it is up to,us to look after ourselves as far as possible .
There are always innocents like Alice ,and it was a great tragedy that girls with no knowledge ,( parent’s efforts to protect them ,) did exactly the
opposite , like lambs to the slaughter they were  used and abused, paid the  price in social terns in ignorance and as in Ireland were treated like
criminals .
Viktoria.

[Jebber]

Military locations have always attracted prostitutes, in Germany where it was legal, they used to gather outside the barracks in the evenings. When living in Berlin in the seventies, on many occasion we wives were  accosted by the ‘girls’ when going into the barracks to evening classes, they thought we were stealing their business.

Being legal, the ‘girls’ had regular medical checks, so the risk of men catching VD was much reduced.
These days if the men do catch something it’s considered a self inflicted injury.

If you want to learn more about prostitution, I suggest reading A Chatham Scandal by Brian Joyce.   Although about Chatham, much of it applies to any Garrison of Naval Town, it’s covers the lives of prostitutes and poor women, the law and Lock Hospitals for the treatment of venereal diseases etc. It’s a great read for social history.

The Lock Hospitals were virtually prisons under another name, the women and girls were locked in and not allowed to leave. It shows the double standards where the women were the problem and the men innocent.

[Erato]

"That is the difference between decent and otherwise."

Pope Viktoria has spoken.

[River Tyne Lass]

I agree that historically these women and girls in the past who gave birth to so called 'illegitimate' babies were not the 'harlots' and 'criminals' that they were often made out to be.  I agree  they were more likely to have been the innocents of society.  Likely not understanding the repercussions they and their children would have to face.  Over trusting dreamers perhaps, who believed in happy endings. 
I have a Grandmother (died long before I was born) who was born  'illegitimate' in 1895.  When I looked into her background looking at records and newspapers, I discovered that her Mother had only been 17 when she gave birth.  This Great Grandmother was the eldest in what was to be a family of ten children. Her Father, my Great x 2 Grandfather appears to have been a violent drunkard.  It hardly surprises me that she may have just been a terribly naive young girl looking for love outside her awful home life. 
When I first obtained a copy of my Grandmother's birth cert I felt pain in my heart seeing my Great Grandmother described as her 'Mother' for what would be the one and only time it would seem. Grandmother was fortunately kept in the family but from then on they were 'sisters' rather than Mother and Daughter.  A very heavy price I feel not to be able to 'own' your true relationship .  Great Grandmother went on to marry and had five more children.  All these did well.  My Grandmother appears on none of the family portrait photos with her half siblings.  It would appear that my Great Grandmother and Grandmother kept the secret from the other children (half siblings) until both their dying days.  I get the impression from things I have heard that my Grandmother seems to have had a chip on her shoulder and always seemed to have had the sense of being an outsider.  How sad!  I am glad that things are much better in society these days. It would seem ridiculous these days to have to give up your child just because you aren't married.
Even Royalty in the past sometimes paid a high price.  I have read that Queen Victoria's Uncle William had many 'illegitimate' children (ten  I think) with the actress Dorothy Jordan.  His parents totally shunned these Grandchildren and William was later virtually forced to marry someone else.  However, new wife Adelaide was a kind person who accepted all his children.  William's eldest by Dorothy later committed suicide. 

[Viktoria]

"That is the difference between decent and otherwise."

Pope Viktoria has spoken.

How would you define decent Erato?
Do you think it is important to be decent when that means not betraying someone to whom you made vows.?
Not doing things that can never be undone ,from which there is no going back.?
Not  breaking vows made when things were all  lovey dovey but when things are not so good forgetting them?
To be decent in this context is greatly to do with being faithful, an outmoded
idea to some people nowadays it would seem.
But not to others.
You made an inflammatory statement Erato so expect to get at  least somewhat singed !
We wanted a loving settled home for our children so that is why I only threw the clock at my husband once!
Viktoria.

[Erato]

"You made an inflammatory statement"

Okay, you're right; not the pope, just Mrs. Grundy.

[antiquesam]

My paternal grandmother had three children out of wedlock, in 1912, 1915 and 1916. She was a servant when she had my father and seemed to bring up all of them to be respectable citizens. My father becoming a Master Mariner. She lived with her grandmother and her brother in Devonport and as far as I know never married. Was she immoral, or indecent?