How much pressure was there for women to marry in 1934?

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I'm just pondering my own gran who's now dead. She married a gay man & didn't have dc for 9yrs. The dc weren't his. I'm just curious what life was like for women at that time. She was quite empowered and capable & vibrant. He was extremely violent.

Lots of men wiped out because of 1st ww, so fewer choices of husband, plus economically women couldn't really survive without being married at that time, and women expected to stop work upon marriage. Plenty of gay men did get married because of shame/stigma, but it wouldn't have been a topic of polite conversation so likely she wouldn't have known she was marrying a gay man.

Once married, difficult/impossible for a woman to get divorced, plus if she did her children automatically went to the father, because she wouldn't have been able to work and look after them, plus social stigma of a 'broken home'.

No fertility treatment, so if she wasn't pregnant quickly, she would have been blamed for 'not doing her wifely duties' - it was always viewed as the woman's fault.

It sounds like your gran did her best in the face of tough choices and few options. There's a really good book called 'Singled Out' which focuses on this generation of women and their lives, which may give you some more insight.

All the above plus homosexual acts were illegal so getting married was a good smokescreen for a gay man. If caught out dtd he could always claim he was a straight, married man, the other guy had forced him. It must have been an awful way to live, always the fear of arrest and almost impossible for two men to live together openly.

My own grandma married in about 1935 she was pregnant so I guess it was expected you married at the time ,sadly the baby died at three weeks of age from gastroenteritis, it's largely suspected my Grandma couldn't produce enough milk ,she then had my uncle who died a few weeks ago just 14 months after her deceased child he was bottle fed ,my mum was born in 1942 and her youngest brother in 1947,it was an odd time I guess and it was between the wars and men had been or were away fighting

I forgot to mention her dh was a divorcee. That got me pondering. He was 30 and she 24 when they married.

I wonder if it's possible to find his divorce certificate & whether it states a reason for divorce?

No idea but my mum.managred to get hold of her deceased brothers death certificate he died in 1936 so maybe

@Speedweed that book does look good. Reviews give insight too. www.amazon.co.uk/Singled-Out-Virginia-Nicholson/dp/0141020628/ref=asc_df_0141020628_nodl?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=311024204769&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2097451136877804996&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1007099&hvtargid=pla-417121293721&psc=1&th=1&psc=1&dplnkId=a1694ba7-abe5-4231-899c-4eef6f2904bf

My grandmother born 1910, got married at 25, so around the same time. No pressure to get married younger. There are loads of photos of her with a big group of friends having fun before she married, group holidays etc. Looks like she had a brilliant time.

My Mum got married at 16 and my Nanna didn't approve, but did let her go ahead with it. She should have put her foot down and made her wait.

My Mum married in the 50s, and has said there was much status to be had from being a married woman.

Fast forward to 1981 and Diana Spencer, bred for nothing but to "marry well," the kudos of her bagging the heir to the throne outweighed any misgivings about age difference, previous attachments, incompatibility and so on. And I include her in that , she conveniently seemed to forget it later but I think getting a high ranking husband was the only way poor Diana had of pleasing her parents. In Charles I think she thought she had knocked it out of the patk.