How big was the stigma of being the child of unmarried parents in 1949?

[Iltropicana]

Was it still frowned upon then? What would have been the general view at that time?

I think that until the early 80 s, marrying a bastard was hugely preferable to not marrying at all, as far as children were concerned.

My father was given up for adoption in the 40s by an unmarried woman and everyone knew as it was a private adoption. He was referred to as a 'bastard' by both adults and peers. The shame has never really left him.

My friend's mum worked in a big psychiatric hospital in the '70s. Certain wards were full of elderly ladies who'd been banged up there in the '20s and '30s for having children while unmarried, or refusing to marry.

My GM had my uncle 3 years before she married my grandad. She never spoke about it, but they were both still married to to other people at the time, although she was separated. GM's parents had both died by then so she had no-one to disown her, but she had to put up with being married to a domineering, alcoholic bully for the next 25 or so years.

Her family background was unusual in that her own mother had children by 3 different fathers. GM grew up in care. Dad was also in care for part of his childhood although he doesn't know why. He talks about his foster mum fondly and I'd always assumed she was some sort of nanny or live-in housekeeper. My aunt put me straight on that a few years ago.

My grandmother gave birth to my mum in 1944..... she got married to my grandad quickly when she was 2 months pregnant. Grandad told all the family that my mum was a prem baby (she weighed 8lb) as the stigma was awful, he never celebrated their wedding anniversary as all his friends would figure out that grandma was pregnant when they married, even refused their 50th anniversary.

Huge.
During ww2 there was a suspension of normal behaviour and you could get away with things. However even then you had to pretend to be married with a dead husband or find someone and pass it off as his.

It was still quite a big deal in the 80s - my parents weren’t married when I was born. They got married when I was 4 weeks old and the official line was that they married on the same date the year previously, at my paternal grandparents insistence.

My grandmother was born out of wedlock (earlier - WW1, I think). She only admitted it shortly before she died. Her mother had posed as a widow and my grandmother had felt obliged to keep up the secret her entire life. She always viewed it as deeply shameful.

In the 1970s PiL got married because MiL was pregnant. FiL was always disturbingly honest with DH about how he didn't even like MiL that much. But he had to 'do his duty'.

I imagine 1949 wasn't great either.

In my family at least two babies that I know of, born in late thirties, early forties were raised by the family as just another child in the family.

One of the ladies never married. The other married and went on to have three more children and moved away. Her sons were not told that the nice girl at their grannies they assumed was a cousin, was in fact their older half sister. They found out after she died relatively young and were quite angry to have been misled.

I dunno, my family lived in the strictly moral Welsh valleys. But they were incomers from English farming stock and seem to have had much more liberal values. Certainly the women were well respected within the family.

TheSmallClangerWhistlesAgain - even more sadly, I had a friend who worked at one of the big psych hospitals in the 1990s, just before it got shut down and everyone was released into care in the community.

There were two women there in their 90s who had been sectioned in the 1920s for having children out of wedlock. They had lived their whole lives. He said it was actually incredibly sad as they had no understanding of the outside world, and were clearly going to be absolutely lost trying to deal with it. No family or friends left outside. No support. Only 70 years of institutionalization.

What Ada said, absolutely. During and shortly after the war years it was much easier to explain away illegitimate children. Nobody raised an eyebrow to women bringing up children as a single parent as sadly it was the norm in many cases. 1949 might have been a bit late however, but would have depended on how old the child was. If the child was born between 1938-45 than I wouldn't expect any questions would be asked.

I've done a lot of research into my family tree and prior to about 1900 they seemed quite happy to have children out of wedlock. I have one set of ancestors who got married the day before she gave birth in the 1880s and another set who separated and got bigamously married to other people, each pretending that the other had died in the 1890s. The census returns show that their children lived in each other's households, beyond their supposed deaths, so they were both complicit in it.

There was no cross referencing back then, and I'm not sure there is now. So it was very easy to move away from the local parish and declare yourself as a widow or single and free to marry.

My mum was born out of wedlock in 1943. My grandad arrived home from the war in 1945 after being a prisoner of war. My Nan didnt know he was alive until he came home.

He met my mum when she was almost 3, married by Nan and they had 50 plus blissful years together.

My Nan's mum and dad, and 6 siblings supported her . She wasn't cast aside, asked to move away or give up my mum. . They looked after her and my mum.

I often think what a bloody lovely family I was born into!!!

My mum was born out of wedlock in 1944, my gran had an affair with her work supervisor. Her parents disowned her byshe kept my mum. They only started speaking to her again when she married my grandad and he adopted my mum.

It would have been a real stigma. The whole plot of one of the Lord Peter Wimsey stories "The Nine Tailors" is about a murder committed to stop the world finding out two little girls are illegitimate.

My mum was born out of wedlock in 1942 and the stigma was so much that friends of the father's family virtually insisted on adopting the baby as their own if my gran agreed to move away. My gran refused, very strong woman, but suffered stigma, poverty and poor mental health for decades after because of that choice. My mum had to go to a church school as it was deemed to be the 'best thing' (made plain it was the best thing to try and teach the poor illegitimate kid some morals!). The whole stigma and effects affected my mum's relationship with her mum and I think even her parenting of us.

My DFather had a cousin who was born out of wedlock around that time. He left and moved to Australia as an adult because of the way he was treated. My great aunt raised him herself (MC family comfortable enough to support her) and later married another man.

I know a woman born in 1947. Her mum was unmarried...the plan was her gran would pretend it was her baby, having sent her away to have the baby.

That plan went to pot when she was born and was biracial. She had to leave her in foster care and her parents wanted to force an adoption.

I’m 30 and my DM had a shotgun marriage to my father to avoid the stigma! So I can’t imagine 1949 was more liberal than 1988.

My DGM is an Irish catholic though so not sure if that made DM more vulnerable to being shunned.

I’m still too ashamed to admit to many people that my parents were unmarried... and I was born in the late 80s. Obviously things have improved unrecognisably, but there is still a stigma attached to being unmarried in many circles. My parents would be pleased at becoming grandparents but simultaneously deeply disappointed in me.

My in-laws had to get married all of a rush in 1952 when they were expecting BIL. DMIL will not talk about the circumstances of their marriage, we don’t know the date of their wedding anniversary and there are no wedding photos. DFIL died over 30 years ago and DMIL has remained tight-lipped ever since. We learnt the little we know from DMIL’s mother who told us simply that DW’s parents had to get married.

We never discuss the subject now, but DMIL must be incredulous at how relaxed attitudes are these days.

My parents weren’t married when I was born in the mid 80s - they moved in rather alternative circles so I don’t think it was particularly stigmatised, but they got married anyway when I was about 1 because at the time, if my mum had died, my dad wouldn’t automatically have had custody of me due to their being unmarried despite their having been together for a decade - seems crazy now!
My FIL was adopted as a baby jut after WW2 - agree with previous posters that the war led to a relaxing of social norms as people ‘lived for the moment’; I get the impression the immediate post war years involved a lot of adoption, shaming and sadness as society tried to force itself back into pre war sexual and social norms in a world of newly independent women who had worked and had more freedom in the war years, and a shortage of men. It must have been a very hard time, I think.

My dad fathered a child in the 1970s but my DB was hidden from his family and my mums family (different mums). When I was born in the 1980s I was told about my brother when I was 6 but sworn to secrecy because he didn’t want extended family finding out. DB didn’t meet extended family and wasn’t known about by wider family until I invited him to my wedding when I was in my late 20s.

My DF would call my sisters boyfriend the “sin in law” up until they married this year

Born in the late 80's, and I've had quite a few comments and raised eyebrows (from arseholes) over the years, as I've always been open about the fact my parents were unmarried when I was born.

My parents both had friends who got pregnant as teenagers and went to mother and baby homes, in the 60's and early 70's. I can't imagine what it must have been like to be in those circumstances in the 1940's .

What about marrying a bastard in those times? I guess that was frowned upon too

Not really. It was more important to be married. Women were expected to put it with a lot more. My great grandma, got pregnant to her boss, who owned the house she worked in. She was forced to marry another member of the staff. Who was a bastard. She had my nana. Her husband was a cheating, abusive cunt. He died when they were 29 in an accident. She never remarried.

I was born in the 80s to married parents but they then split up. It was far less common then, and there was stigma.

My Aunt was unmarried and had my cousin in the 70s, my family are Catholics from derry. She had a hard time and many families would have sent her away. But my nan and grandad wouldn't have it and supported her in having the baby.

Mil had 2 pregnancies in the late 50s early 60s she was sent away to the nuns to have the babies one was raised in the family oh knows her as a distant cousin the other was adopted out if the family it's still not really talked about. I was born in 74 my parents weren't married it was still quite a thing then I was the only child at primary school who's mum and dad weren't married.