Mind-boggling story of my great-granny

[SafeMouse]

I've been looking into my family tree a little bit, and my great granny. My gran (her daughter) is still alive, sharp as a tack and a wonderful character. I saw her Monday evening with my findings.... welll.....

I think I knew great granny had been married twice but that was about it. She'd actually got married at 15 (!) And was married for 9 years before first husband died. 14 months later she married my great grandad. She had no children from her first marriage, and 5 from second (Inc my gran her only girl).

So, I bring this up with gran and she says, all nonchalant 😆 'well she didn't know how' . Apparently she was very 'proper' (higher working class, devoutly religious Victorian family) and never consummated her marriage because she had no idea what sex was. Neither did husband 1 by the sounds of it. She desperately loved and wanted children and didn't know why she wasn't getting pregnant and far too embarrassed to ask anyone.

Husband 1 shuffled off his mortal coil, then I'm guessing she had quite a startling wedding night with husband 2.

My gran knows this as just before her marriage great granny sat her down to have what sounds like a very painful conversation about how babies are made 😆

I just can't stop thinking about the poor woman now. 9 years! What did they do? Had DH1 not tragically died young would she have been a virgin all her life? Would someone (a doctor?) At some point explained sex to her? It's very mind-boggling

Wow - my DM told me no such thing, and I was a teen in the 70s.

So did I. I am 63.

There’s something really heartwarming about the thought that your dd has brought a small measure of justice to this woman’s memory.

It’s taken 5 generations of women to break down those attitudes and prejudices. Even if those facts had been known in her lifetime, they still wouldn’t have been received with kindness and compassion. Even children who were raped could expect to be judged as temptresses who led good men into sin.

Sadly, as the news will tell you, there are still judges who comment on the victims of child sexual abuse as ‘no innocent’ etc.

I got ‘the sex’ talk off my gran too! She was born in 1908, got married at 18 and said she had no idea what to expect. After 2 months of marriage went to confess to her parish priest that she’d committed adultery, and really embarrassed when he asked what she had been doing. She told him and discovered that was married sex and not adultery! When she came to give birth, she was convinced baby came out of her belly button and asked nurse how does her belly button open. She said she was absolutely shocked and amazed when a nurse told her that ‘baby came out same way it got in!’

This has triggered a memory of a conversation I had when I was about 10. My friend had just started secondary school and had heard about men weeing inside women. Even at that tender age I knew it was nonsense.

My mum definitely gave the impression that it was somehow ‘not right’ for me to be using tampons at 14, though was non-specific about why because that would have entailed an even more awkward conversation - and this was 1981, as I said upthread.

I agree with a PP that this may have been somewhat class related. My parents’ families were WC Londoners and it was very much taboo and ‘not nice’ to talk about anything to do with sex or biology - there was a lot of shame and embarrassment around it, and I honestly think (despite being warm and loving people) they just didn’t have the words or the education to talk about it, even though pregnancy outside marriage was apparently just about the worst thing that could happen to a woman when she was young.

It was all very nod-and-a-wink, scant information and questions brushed under the carpet, so I spent my childhood and adolescence feeling very confused. My mum once told me the extent of her sex ed was her GM telling her to ‘keep both her legs in one stocking’ - and yet she didn’t try to make things easier for me, even going to the extent of having me removed from a basic biology class in primary school about bodies and childbirth, because she thought it was inappropriate information for 10 year olds. I did once find a brand new child’s sex ed book hidden in a cupboard - but she’d never actually given it to me and by then I was much older and that ship had well and truly sailed. Thank god for teen mags and school!

My mum was also very trad and untouched by feminism or the sexual revolution, and I think that also played its part. She hated that I kept my own name after marriage and was open-mouthed with shock that I didn’t iron DH’s shirts - even though we both had equally demanding and knackering jobs and sorted out our own work stuff, she really couldn’t get her head around it - and this was the bloody 2000s!

I’m guessing those who had mums who were more engaged with women’s rights, or better educated/enlightened themselves may have fared better?

Having started off in 1972 (aged 12) with the belt and loop pads, I was encouraged by my mum to try tampons. Never looked back.

I’m in my late 60s. DM told me about periods only about a week before I started at 12. My sister and I shared a room but DM didn’t include her in the conversation, so she had a terrible shock when I woke up that day in a bloody bed!

We also used the belt and looped towels for our periods for years. I was too scared to use tampons until my first experience of sex!

DM told me the mechanics of sex and we had some basic sex ed at school, mainly in Biology lessons. However, I often babysat next door’s kids. One of the parents was a marriage guidance counsellor and had a lot of very interesting and helpful books. So I usually spent the evening reading books like “The Joy of Sex” - very enlightening!

I and DH made sure our children had a much better sex education by introducing topics at suitable ages and being open when they wanted to ask questions. They are now adults and seem to be OK!

My mother thought tampons were wrong and horrifying for all women! Not her only hang up around sex and bodily functions, but fortunately she did explain the facts of life to me in a reasonably straightforward and unfrightening way, and I did have some idea about periods before the first one arrived. She provided me with some sort of special pants and pads that fastened together with press studs. Not great. Fortunately stick in pads became available not long after that, or maybe they were already around but came down in price. This was the mid 70s.

My mother said not one word to me about periods or sex. I found out about everything via the library and sent off for free samples of various products. We had a talk about periods at secondary from someone from a san pro company who left us all a little bag of stuff, and a formal sex ed video but I’d read all about it by then. I assume I said things in front of my mother so she knew I knew, but we had basically no conversation about it ever. I can’t even remember how supplies were bought when I eventually started very late in the day.

I was well informed myself though - lots of reading! The belts etc were all featured in Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret and as a result I looked for them in shops, and you could still buy them in the 80s but press ons were what most people used. I used tampons from day one.

I talk to my kids about as much as they like. And I talk a LOT (more than they like!) about consent and the bullshit that is porn.

Hard to imagine how different things were. This has been a fascinating thread!
One small anecdote from my family in a Catholic country in the 60s; my parents did not have sex before they got engaged. However before they got engaged, they ended up in a bed together. They had stayed up very late talking and my DM (who was staying in the house but in a separate bedroom) had ended up getting in to the bed with DF - they didn't do anything just fell asleep. They were found in the morning by my Granny who was not only outraged but deeply hurt and disappointed. My mum, telling me the story years later, remembered how very ashamed they had both been because no-one believed they hadn't had sex.

My mum definitely gave the impression that it was somehow ‘not right’ for me to be using tampons at 14, though was non-specific about why because that would have entailed an even more awkward conversation - and this was 1981, as I said upthread.

Completely agree. I was supplied with towels (stick on versions thankfully) and told that tampons were not suitable for girls, only "married ladies". This would have been about 1984.

I think there was a general opinion amongst women that men were unable to control their urges and if a woman gave them the slightest opportunity they would be ‘taken advantage of’. All men were considered beastly creatures and nice girls made sure they were kept safe at all times. This attitude continued into the sixties and seventies. It dates from times when if a woman got pregnant before marriage, whether consensual on her part or not, her life was ruined. My great grandmother got pregnant before marriage and my grandmother was frankly terrified of the same happening to her .

Haha I’m not going to tell you how old I was when I found out that oral sex was much more than just talking about it! 🤣

I came across this when I was researching family history. In the recorded deaths page 1896 - poor illegitimate Robert died at 3months of infantile decay.
Probably a common outcome then.

My DM was a perfectly ordinary woman, who was not educated beyond high school and certainly wasn't engaged with women's rights. I don't live in the UK however. I don't think she would have been shocked if I had wanted to keep my name after marriage, or if I didn't iron my DH's shirts. He did all the cooking and that didn't faze her.

When I was young, here in Australia it was usual to announce a baby's birth in the local newspaper. The weight of the baby was included. It was very common to read notices along the lines of 'To Jo and Eric, their first born. Weight 8lbs 140z, premature.'
So many very large premature first babies!

I was born in 1973 and my mother told me very strongly that tampons were only for married women. because I was a horserider (cream jodhpurs!) and a swimmer it made life very awkward because everyone (father etc) knew when I was having my operiod because I would not be able to compete. I had a heavy flow and would never be able to use napkins while wearing jodhpurs. (Not only because it was hideously uncomfortable).

I also was talking with DH yesterday.... when i was around 12 my pervy uncle (we all had one of those, right?) used to grab my breasts and my crotch before going in for a tongue kiss. I once pushed him away hard and my mother slapped me and screamed that she did not care what anyone did to me I was not to shame the family. (By resisting I believe). I then found out (mother told me the night before my wedding- she got royally pissed and then weepy) that her father and brother had raped her and the other sisters for years but her mother told them not to shame the family by speaking out.

Life for women is hard. Has always been hard. But hopefully nowadays we know (mostly) better than to shame the victims. It's by no means perfect yet though- women who go through rape trials have their histories and life stories crawled through and made out to be 'not so innocent'. One day I hope society will call men to account properly. Perhaps not in my lifetime.

My mother got most things wrong but one thing that she did right was to help me send off for numerous free samples of various san pro.

I know a girl I was at school with got some tampons (she would have been about 15) and her mother was not best pleased.

My school only had machines with pads in, it was RC and all girls so I don't think the nuns would have approved of tampons.

I started my periods before high school but I unexpectedly started one day at school. I went to the nun who was head of year and she took me to the senior toilets that had the machines, bought one for me and then asked if I knew what was happening.

The poor woman probably thought it was my first period and couldn't understand how relaxed I was about it.

In 1982 ish, we had to ask the school office for a towel and were give a box with a Dr Whites in it which was compressed and when you opened it it sprung open and was the size of a mattress,it had loops and safety pins to pin to your knickers. You walked like John Wayne with one of them!

But without an understanding of the female body, you know your penis is hard but you won't know where it goes. He likely knew what touching it did, but how would you guess the woman had a hole between her legs where you're meant to put it? She'd know she peed and bled from there but wouldn't necessarily equate this with a hole suitable for an erect penis.

I assume Adam and Eve did nothing until they saw some animals copulating and he went looking for a hole without teeth

You don't pee from the same hole as you bleed.

But many people think you do. The urethra is tiny and easy to miss from the touch - assuming you spend any time at all touching yourself there. And men pee from the same hole they ejaculate from after all.

Yes, my Granny did, as I think I mentioned a few hundred posts ago, even though she had three births.