So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[GHT]

I grew up in a religious Northern Ireland where about the only thing you ever hear from the Church (protestant and more evangelical denominations even more so) about relationships is "you have to get married before you have the sex". I've seen many times younger people getting married because they were desperate for a shag whether they were suited to the long term or not. Many of them did manage to make a successful go of it, even if they had their relationship challenged by being married much earlier than they were ready for. Personal morality is personal morality and I certainly don't think it my place to deny consenting adults their own choices in relation to when (not) to exercise their sexuality, but when you see the effects of a hard line on this area, especially considering that when some of these rules originated people would be married as soon as puberty kicked in, rather than, as is increasingly a norm now, their middle thirties....

That's a fair description of the changing attitudes towards sex and sexual relations. It wasn't until 1967 that England and Wales decriminalised homosexuality, it would take Scotland until 1980 and Northern Ireland, 1982 to do the same.

Attitudes to heterosexual relations have been easing but back in the sixties if a young couple were getting married it would be a fine line whether or not their first born was just inside the woman's confinement period.

Those Victorian attitudes still persist. In 2014 the Conservative-Lib/Dem coalition government ran a petition that might have taken the country back to Victorian times. https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/52833

My wife and I married young, in a few weeks time we shall celebrate our fifty-fifth anniversary. Today it's no big deal for married couples not to have children, but back when we got married, being childless had as much stigma as a pregnancy out of wedlock.

 

[tonyb]

I grew up in a religious Northern Ireland where about the only thing you ever hear from the Church (protestant and more evangelical denominations even more so) about relationships is "you have to get married before you have the sex". I've seen many times younger people getting married because they were desperate for a shag whether they were suited to the long term or not. Many of them did manage to make a successful go of it, even if they had their relationship challenged by being married much earlier than they were ready for. Personal morality is personal morality and I certainly don't think it my place to deny consenting adults their own choices in relation to when (not) to exercise their sexuality, but when you see the effects of a hard line on this area, especially considering that when some of these rules originated people would be married as soon as puberty kicked in, rather than, as is increasingly a norm now, their middle thirties....

Those sexual mores are from a time of generally shorter lifespans, less reliable contraception, greater infant mortality, a much smaller population, and far fewer years of education and not being in the “productive” workforce, The very idea of a “teenager” is a fairly recent phenomenon.

My Dear Old Ma was married at 17 to fellow five-plus years her senior. That was smack middle of the last century, well within living memory. These days many might look askance at that.

I met my wife when she was 22 and I was 40. I suppose some might not approve of such a wide age difference, but nowhere near as many who disapproved (mostly behind my back) of my longest-term relationship prior to meeting the young woman who would become my wife — an on-again-but-mostly-off-again relationship of more than 20 years duration with a woman 14 years older than me.

It doesn’t take any great insight to understand why the older woman/younger man romance is less common and less socially acceptable. Men generally remain reproductively viable decades longer than women. Like most biological realities, we don’t think it so much as feel it on a more primal level. And sex is about as primal as it gets.

 

[Edward]

Those sexual mores are from a time of generally shorter lifespans, less reliable contraception, greater infant mortality, a much smaller population, and far fewer years of education and not being in the “productive” workforce, The very idea of a “teenager” is a fairly recent phenomenon.

I remember being taught about that in GCSE biology. Took me a while to get my head around the coincidence of readily available contraception and rising birthrates in the UK in the 60s; my biology teacher, a very practical lady, just said in her matter of fact way "Before contraception, there were fewer unplanned pregnancies because you just didn't dare do it."

 

[Edward]

That's a fair description of the changing attitudes towards sex and sexual relations. It wasn't until 1967 that England and Wales decriminalised homosexuality, it would take Scotland until 1980 and Northern Ireland, 1982 to do the same.

Attitudes to heterosexual relations have been easing but back in the sixties if a young couple were getting married it would be a fine line whether or not their first born was just inside the woman's confinement period.

Those Victorian attitudes still persist. In 2014 the Conservative-Lib/Dem coalition government ran a petition that might have taken the country back to Victorian times. https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/52833

My wife and I married young, in a few weeks time we shall celebrate our fifty-fifth anniversary. Today it's no big deal for married couples not to have children, but back when we got married, being childless had as much stigma as a pregnancy out of wedlock.

To be entirely fair, that petition was submitted by a member of the public, rather than the coalition government! It clearly wasn't as widely supported as I suspect the petitioner anticipated....

The decriminalisation of same-sex sex between men (never women; legend has it that Queen Victoria, known for being quite interventionist in politics, refused to accept that lesbians existed, though I suspect it had rather more to do with the standard issue misogyny of the political classes of the day, and phallocentric understandings of sex) is notable in particular for having been somewhat ahead of public opinion in its time; as recently as 1990, Jason Donovan successfully sued the Face Magazine in libel for suggesting he was gay, and that alone. He was widely criticised for it at the time, as was the ruling; certainly only a handful of years later there was no way that a simple allegation of non-heterosexuality along would be considered libelous (as distinct from a charge of dishonesty or hypocrisy).

 

[LizzieMaine]

My great grandmother "had to get married" in 1911 when she was 17. My grandmother "had to get married" in 1933 when she was 22. My mother did not "have to get married," at 20, in 1959, because her mother drilled the matter into her from childhood, but she knew more than a few high school classmates who *would* have "had to get married," but who took steps to, in her words, "get rid of it." Such was the world, and such were its people.

 

[tonyb]

Women were considered something akin to property even within our lifetimes. It was still common for Sally Anderson to become Mrs. Robert Jones when she married Bob. It was only recently that offspring weren’t automatically given their father’s surname, and it’s still the most prevalent practice. The examples go on and on.

 

[Turnip]

 

[tonyb]

I’ve known couples who met in their teen years and even prior to that who got married and stayed married — more or less happily, judging from all outward appearances. But, like most of us, I presume, I’ve known more people who married young and divorced. And married again. And again. And …

I recall entertaining arguments during the debates over same-sex marriage that perhaps the state ought get out of the marriage business altogether. I don’t suppose that our society would get to that point anytime soon. There are centuries of tradition and practical reasons to maintain the institution. But there’s something to the argument. More than half of all marriages end in divorce. (It’s true that those who marry multiple times skew those stats. I have a brother now on his fourth marriage.)

It wasn’t so long ago that same-sex marriage or anything resembling it (state-recognized domestic partnerships, for instance) lost at the ballot box overwhelmingly. It went something like 0 for 32 until a couple states reversed that trend and the Supreme Court legalized the practice nationwide.

I had long viewed it as a matter of simple fairness. I had a business relationship with an elderly fellow who had been in an exclusive domestic relationship with another man for more than 50 years. When he died, his partner received zero survivor’s benefits, never mind that both paid into the system all those years. That matter has since been addressed.

 

[Turnip]

After living together with my girlfriend since almost 30 years meanwhile we still don’t feel a need to meet a registrar in consideration of his/her/div. trade.

 

[tonyb]

If being married presents a significant obstacle to getting out of a chronically unhappy relationship, as it certainly can, then I pity those so burdened.

My other brother, the good one, who died in 2007, married the woman he met in high school, but not until they had been a couple for more than a decade and she found herself in the family way. She also died too young, late in 2016, when she succumbed to ovarian cancer.

 

[tonyb]

….

The decriminalisation of same-sex sex between men (never women; legend has it that Queen Victoria, known for being quite interventionist in politics, refused to accept that lesbians existed, though I suspect it had rather more to do with the standard issue misogyny of the political classes of the day, and phallocentric understandings of sex) is notable in particular for having been somewhat ahead of public opinion in its time; as recently as 1990, Jason Donovan successfully sued the Face Magazine in libel for suggesting he was gay, and that alone. He was widely criticised for it at the time, as was the ruling; certainly only a handful of years later there was no way that a simple allegation of non-heterosexuality along would be considered libelous (as distinct from a charge of dishonesty or hypocrisy).

Gotta wonder if old Victoria was telling more than she knew.

I knew too well a person who seemed incapable of NOT attempting to control social situations and the others involved because he was often incapable of controlling himself.

Lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil, et cetera.

 

[belfastboy]

That's a fair description of the changing attitudes towards sex and sexual relations. It wasn't until 1967 that England and Wales decriminalised homosexuality, it would take Scotland until 1980 and Northern Ireland, 1982 to do the same.

Attitudes to heterosexual relations have been easing but back in the sixties if a young couple were getting married it would be a fine line whether or not their first born was just inside the woman's confinement period.

Those Victorian attitudes still persist. In 2014 the Conservative-Lib/Dem coalition government ran a petition that might have taken the country back to Victorian times. https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/52833

My wife and I married young, in a few weeks time we shall celebrate our fifty-fifth anniversary. Today it's no big deal for married couples not to have children, but back when we got married, being childless had as much stigma as a pregnancy out of wedlock.

With my wife for 49 years now. We have no children. Can honestly say in those 49 years we never had to deal with questions or any negativity regarding our childless state. Maybe it is a British thing?

 

[Tiki Tom]

In the late 1980s, I got the job offer that launched my professional career. It necessitated moving across the country. I decided to propose marriage to my girlfriend on New Years Eve, well before the move. Quite romantic. A couple of days before Christmas, she grabbed me by the neck and said “if you think I’m gonna follow you across the country without a ring on my finger, you’ve got another thing coming, buster!”
My embarrassed response: “shshsh! Shsh. Just wait a few days.”
Her: “umm, okay. Sorry.”
We have now been married thirty plus years. Happily, I might add. But the memory always makes me smile.

 

[GHT]

With my wife for 49 years now. We have no children. Can honestly say in those 49 years we never had to deal with questions or any negativity regarding our childless state. Maybe it is a British thing?

Congratulations on your forthcoming golden wedding anniversary, are you planning anything special?
Back in the day childless couples weren't the only topic for the neighbourhood busybody. "You can't possibly not give your child a sibling. You have two boys? Oh but you must try for a girl!
A neighbour where we lived in East London got firmly put in her place when she told my wife not to leave it too late before starting a family. "The workings of my uterus is not up for public discussion," the neighbour was told.

 

[belfastboy]

Congratulations on your forthcoming golden wedding anniversary, are you planning anything special?
Back in the day childless couples weren't the only topic for the neighbourhood busybody. "You can't possibly not give your child a sibling. You have two boys? Oh but you must try for a girl!
A neighbour where we lived in East London got firmly put in her place when she told my wife not to leave it too late before starting a family. "The workings of my uterus is not up for public discussion," the neighbour was told.

I often figured the reason we were not harassed about having children is folks thought we would be crap parents so it was for the best.

 

[tonyb]

I often figured the reason we were not harassed about having children is folks thought we would be crap parents so it was for the best.

I always figured that the juvenile justice system was burdened enough without my adding to it.

 

[tonyb]

Congratulations on your forthcoming golden wedding anniversary, are you planning anything special?
Back in the day childless couples weren't the only topic for the neighbourhood busybody. "You can't possibly not give your child a sibling. You have two boys? Oh but you must try for a girl!
A neighbour where we lived in East London got firmly put in her place when she told my wife not to leave it too late before starting a family. "The workings of my uterus is not up for public discussion," the neighbour was told.

Gossiping was a favorite pastime among the grownups in my extended family back when I was a kid. There’s little doubt in my mind that a couple remaining childless more than two or three years into their marriage would have been the subject of a whispering campaign. (More like stage whispering, really.)

 

[Edward]

With my wife for 49 years now. We have no children. Can honestly say in those 49 years we never had to deal with questions or any negativity regarding our childless state. Maybe it is a British thing?

I can definitely confirm it's an Irish thing, whatever the Brits do. My brother went through it all. After being together from their last year in school, all the way through university and graduated, they had a couple of years of nothing but "so when are you getting married?" from far too many people. Then they got married and thought that would be the end of it. Oh, no - four years of "Kids?", followed by four more of "Will you have another?" Their youngest was born in 2010.

I got a lot of it too, but it all quieted as soon as I hit thirty still single and with no relationship at the time. When I did meet my wife, we were already in our forties, got married in our mid-late forties, and fortunately by then nobody went on about kids. The only time it comes up is when I have to explain for the n millionth time that my pets are not a substitute for a human child, because my pets were wanted.

Congratulations on your forthcoming golden wedding anniversary, are you planning anything special?
Back in the day childless couples weren't the only topic for the neighbourhood busybody. "You can't possibly not give your child a sibling. You have two boys? Oh but you must try for a girl!
A neighbour where we lived in East London got firmly put in her place when she told my wife not to leave it too late before starting a family. "The workings of my uterus is not up for public discussion," the neighbour was told.

From what I gather, this is now still all too common. Tends to be women who get it worst, though. I was always regarded, weirdly, as a bit of a 'lad' for not wanting kids; I've known women, even in the last decade, be told they were "unnatural" to their faces if they didn't want kids.

 

[Trenchfriend]

My surprise of the year:

The rubber seals for your shower hose are indeed available separate, packed in 4 pcs-pack. You're not forced to buy a new shower hose, in 2023!!

 

[LizzieMaine]

From what I gather, this is now still all too common. Tends to be women who get it worst, though. I was always regarded, weirdly, as a bit of a 'lad' for not wanting kids; I've known women, even in the last decade, be told they were "unnatural" to their faces if they didn't want kids.

I used to be pretty aggressive in dealing with these types by telling them flat out that it didn't matter what my decision was one way or another, I was incapable of it. And I milked the phrase for all it was worth in hopes of making them feel like dirt for asking. Maybe next time they'll mind their own friggin' business. But now that I'm long past reproductive age anyway, I never get asked by anyone, and it's a relief not to have to deal with it.