When did it become socially acceptable to have a baby without being married?

[Lambsandchicks]

1990s? Or before that? Any history/sociology experts around?

I was born in 79 to unmarried parents and they never had any problems

I was born to a single mum in the late 70s, and it was very much a scandal. People were awful to DM - including the staff on the labour ward.

Couples living together was also still risque in the 90s - there was even a comedy about it

It really wasn’t. I left university in 86. Everyone shacked up with someone. I’ve still got loads of friends who’ve never got married. And I’m in my late 50’s. I know more people who’ve never married than l do who have.

@kitcat15

I had my first 1990 ...no one batted an eyelid

They did, you just didn't see it.

@Thehop

I was born in 79 to unmarried parents and they never had any problems

At that time it was different for an unmarried couple living together than for a single woman.

@Blackbirdflyintothelight

I was born in 1988 to unmarried parents. It was certainly unusually still - in school I was the only one in my class who's parents were unmarried and school would always call my mum "Mrs" by default - but I didn't feel any stigma. Just that it was a bit different.

When I got married in 1968 I was almost 21 and the first of my circle from school not to 'have to get married'. I think by the mid 70s attitudes were changing.

Oh, and a teacher at my school in the mid 90s was rumoured to have lost her job because she got pregnant when not married. It was a Catholic convent school, so plausible.

I was pregnant and unwed in 1979 and I was asked at my booking in appt if I was getting married. I told them yes the wedding was all planned and she said oh good otherwise she would have to refer me to a social worker.

Interesting question. I was at school in the 70s and 80s and even divorce was very, very unusual. There was definitely nobody 'born out of wedlock' in the whole time I was there. What's more, pretty much all the mothers were SAHMs, but the families still managed to pay school fees out of the father's income (and there weren't 'new money' jobs around then - it was all doctors, lawyers, accountants - people who would now struggle to pay school fees on one income).

They did, you just didn't see it

Who?

My friends didn’t care, my parents didn’t care, ex dh’s parents didn’t care, siblings didn’t care.

Who were those people who ‘cared?’

I think 80s.

"I'm sure it was more accepted in big metropolitan areas than in small, close villages."

Well, yes, but also many people wouldn't even know I suppose and in a more anonymous place a woman could just not correct people who took her for a widow or a cohabiting couple could let people presume they were married.

1980’s. Lots had changed by then. Women were becoming empowered. The pill was an accepted norm and family planning clinics had been giving it to single women since the early 70’s. Abortion had been legal for over 15 years Many of the old attitudes that were based in the ‘no sex before marriage aka good girls don’t’ were being left behind by the next more ‘liberal’ generation. A generation that had lived through the 60’s and were now parents themselves.

My mum had my sister in 67 and she’s never forgotten the 17 year old in the next bed who had a little boy she named Michael. The young woman had been sent to a mother and baby home by her mother to have her baby. Her mother told family and neighbours she was training to be a nurse in London. She desperately wanted to keep her baby but he was being adopted. My mum told me at the age of 15 in 88 that she would support me if I ever got pregnant and could never understand how anyone could force their daughter to give up their baby.

Agreed, @CaptainMyCaptain - the scandal for my DM was that she had no intention of marrying the father, or even having anything more to do with him. That she wanted to raise me alone ruffled a lot of feathers.

Well, yes, but also many people wouldn't even know I suppose and in a more anonymous place a woman could just not correct people who took her for a widow or a cohabiting couple could let people presume they were married

But why would a woman care? I would have been more embarrassed at being married than not being married.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

Couples living together was also still risque in the 90s - there was even a comedy about it

It really wasn’t. I left university in 86. Everyone shacked up with someone. I’ve still got loads of friends who’ve never got married. And I’m in my late 50’s. I know more people who’ve never married than l do who have.

Well, you speak about your experience and I'll speak about mine.

But if we were the same age, why would they be so different?

I fell pregnant in 86 and was told by my parents that I had to get married. As it turned out, I lost the baby but I'd already shamed my parents enough that they wanted me out if the family home.

And it was unacceptable to live with a Man without being married. So the wedding went ahead.

The marriage lasted 5 years and the shame of having a divorced child in the early 90s was another of my failings in my parents eyes

I was born in 1968 and only 1 girl in my primary school ‘didn’t have a dad’. We were all quite fascinated by it tbh.

The series was actually late 80s rather than 90s, but if cohabiting hadn't been controversial at all at that time, the premise wouldn't have worked.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_of_Us_(1986_TV_series)

Mid to late 80s?

I was raised Catholic and in the early- mid 70s we knew 2 families whose daughters were married off quickly at 16 and one at 19 due to being pregnant.
16 ! I can't believe it now.

I remember working for the DHSS in the late 1970s in the section that dealt with Maternity benefits. If an unmarried woman claimed maternity allowance the payment book was sent in a plain brown envelope(instead of a window envelope) with her name but no title written on the front (to save her blushes).

Gwenhwyfar l don’t know how our experiences are so different.

No one even noticed that programme. I vaguely remember your but not as a risqué or social commentary.

Maybe Manchester was different. Out of the 25 people at my ante natal class, 4 were married in 92.

15 people not 25!