Mind-boggling story of my great-granny

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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

I’ve definitely heard (and boggled at) reliable accounts of couples who have used the urethra for penetration. I can’t work it out myself but it’s documented.

My great grandfather was illegimate. His mother was in service and my family myth is that his father was one of the house family and therefore that we have some noble ancestry. Goodness knows if there is any truth to that bit at all (it’s possible obviously although I have no idea how ‘noble’ the family was) but I’m interested that it seems he was brought up in his family and his illegitimacy was not concealed in any way.

When I had my first period I was about 14.I didn't know anything. My mother eventually told me it was something that would happen every 4 weeks. I burst into tears.
I was told nothing about sex or pregnancy or how it happened.
Fortunately when I was17 I started nurse training and learned about things then.
Years later I told my mum, and her answer was well it's a good job you are a Nurse then.

Grandma was born before 1900. A sister of hers had illegitimate children. The larger family may well have been ashamed, but she was not banished in any way and her siblings accepted it and supported her and the children in a normal 'family' way.

On another side of my family, I think great-grandfather might have given some financial support to his brother-in-law's illegitimate child - 1890s. The child wasn't embraced into the family but from what they said later in life, great-grandfather's children obviously knew that this little child was their cousin. A later generation said, " Oh, THAT'S why mother always let him leave his bike at our house when he went on the bus".

I know there's always been 'shame and scandal in the familee' but so many families and neighbours have offered understanding and kindness to their girls.

I was supposedly a couple of weeks early born 8months to the day after the wedding in 1979 at 7lb 8oz, they weren't impressed when I worked that one out

My gran born 1912, was told that once men had an erection they couldn't help themselves but to have sex with a woman. So it was her job presumably to avoid ever getting into that situation until married.

Tampons were thought only suitable by many for married women because it was thought their use meant you were no longer a virgin. And virginity in a woman was prized.
My gran used old rags for her period that she washed. I only know because she tried to offer rags to my mum to use and my mum refused saying she had to buy her pads from the shops.

Yes that was a common belief.

My DM (born in 1947) used tampons from her first period - she came on when she was about to compete in a swimming gala. Apparently her PE teacher coached her through where to put it through the loo door and then sent her out to swim. All very jolly hockey sticks and practical - she was at boarding school.

She was always very open and frank about things like periods and sex, but she was in London and a teenager during the 60s and definitely embraced the social changes!

I think the sixties sexual revolution affected middle class people in cities most. In more traditional families, small towns, and villages the old sexual attitudes still lingered on. Even in the eighties although there were plenty of single teenage mothers, myself and my friends knew that was just about the worst thing that could happen to us.

Imagine the cystitis! As so often, I am so grateful to have been born when I was.

I was 14 and went to my foster 'mum' and said I'm bleeding. She gave me a packet of sanitary towels and said not one word. I had no idea what was happening, that it would happen nor a thing about sex. then her husband hurt me and I learnt far too much

Men are such arseholes tbh.

I had a very young colleague in 2004 who was extremely distressed because she had been coerced into sex by one of our managers who said she had made him aroused and he had 'blue balls' and this was apparently dangerous for men without relief and so she felt she had to go through with it.

It was not the first time I have heard about blue balls and how dangerous it was for men to experience.

I'm so sorry, @BirthdayRainbow.

My mother did this too - early 60’s.
I can still clearly remember her handing me a leaflet about sex matters while she was doing the ironing. After a few minutes she asked if I had any questions, I said no. That was the sum total of my mother’s input. When I started my periods I was just handed a packet of towels and a horrible belt and told to never make a fuss.
A very unfeeling person my mother. My father was remote and equally unemotional.

How on earth is that possible?

Reminds me of a Hayley Mills film in the 1960s. Young couple living with his family and unable to consumate the marriage and all the angst they go through until everything works out. I think the husband was played by Hywel Bennett. I think it was called The Family Way which seems odd as "in the family way" usually meant you were pregnant so I might have got the title wrong.

The attitude that men just couldn't help it and somehow desperately needed to have sex just because they had an erection, obviously carried on throughout the seventies, when we were expected to find it funny and totally acceptable that perverts like Benny Hill and his co horts were shown chasing women all over the place at the end of his programme. Appalling to think that this was viewed as wholesome family entertainment.

I remember a woman at work in the 1970s asking me what I thought about her teenager daughter using tampons. I was a bit puzzled and she said she was worried as her daughter wouldn't be a virgin. I told her you were a virgin if you hadn't had sex so it was safe to use them. She then asked about plucking eyebrowns, her daughter wanted to but she felt if she plucked her eyebrowns as a teenager she'd be an "old bag" by 30. I never quite worked that one out.

I hit my teens in the 60s and I never heard men couldn't control their urges. The only thing my mother ever said about getting pregnant before marriage was that it wasn't a good idea but we'd (me and the imaginary baby) would always be welcome at home and she didn't approve of families who turned pregnant girls out of their home.

One thing makes me laugh when useless men are discussed on here. I'm from a big Irish family, when one of my aunts was marrying an English man granny would be very pleased as her daughter would be living the life of luxury with a man who would cook, do housework, change nappies. This was the 1950s and both grannies really believed all English men were like that. On the other hand if a son married an Englishwoman it was very sad, he wouldn't be looked after the way he would be if he married an Irish woman. Shocking to look back on and I have no idea where they got their ideas from.

Maybe he didn't ever show her his penis and they just DTD in the dark.
My paternal grandparents never saw each other naked (married in 1916 and he died in 1961). They had 4 children.

Funny how things have returned, not exactly rags but period knickers, similarly disposable nappies and now cloth/reusable ones.

Thank you @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g sorry to momentarily bring a lovely informative thread down. I've enjoyed reading people's stories much and have learnt a lot. I love history anyway.

I remember being sent to the local chemist with a note from mom, this would have been late 50s maybe very early 60s. I realised when I was a bit older the note was asking for a packet of sanitary towels. They were produced from under the counter wrapped in brown paper so I didn't know what they were at the time. Shameful things wrapped in brown paper, contrast with now with quite graphic adverts.

I also remember aged about 10 or 11 being sent to the local herbalist shop for "women's gold tablets" and given half a crown to make sure I kept quiet about it. I later found out these were supposed to be a way to end an unwanted pregnancy. When I was older and asked her about them she said my aunt, dad's sister, had recommended them. I was upset that she'd involved a child in that.

I am 58 and was brought up in suburban England. My periods started at age 11, so 1976. I was taken down to the Wool Shop where my mum had a whispered conversation with the lady who ran it and we took home a brown paper bag which contained a plastic harness affair where I could press stud a towel into. I was tiny and it was like sitting on a log. Oh the marvels of tampons, mooncups, period undies...

I’m 62 and hated using the very padded sanitary towels. I used the ones which supposedly would stick to the gusset of my knickers but they usually shifted a bit. I always felt embarrassed buying them at around the age of 12 in case anyone I knew spotted me at the shops!

I do remember a nurse/rep from a pharmaceutical company giving the girls a talk in our first term at secondary school - and proudly displaying a sanitary belt and huge Dr.Whites sanitary towels. The horror!

We had a machine on the wall in the girls’ toilets at school which afaik burned soiled sanitary towels. However it was extremely loud so everyone would know if you used it (including the boys outside) so it was rarely used and bins were provided eventually.

One day when I was about 13 or 14 I asked my mum if I could try using one of her Tampax tampons which she kept in the bathroom cabinet. She replied that they were only for married ladies.

The real reason didn’t occur to me until a very long time afterwards….but I did try to use a Tampax and found it very painful to insert and it was months later before I tried again. (I just didn’t fancy using Lillets without an applicator - putting a finger inside myself and getting blood on it just seemed revolting until I was in my later teen years).