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?

My mother married in an Empire line gown in 1960. My grandparents rented the newly weds a house a hundred miles away to keep the timing of my birth quiet. My parents hated each other. I was the only girl in my class at high school with divorced parents. It was socially unacceptable. As recently as 1991 I forgot my contraceptives when I went "home" for my wedding. Emergency GP appointment "you're more responsible than your mother ever was then"?

.......and then when I had my own children the whole thing had flipped and rather than midwives etc just being rude to unmarried mothers it seemed they were just rude to everyone refusing to use a woman's title or to refer to a partner as a husband. Being right on wasn't the answer - treating EVERYONE with respect was.

My FIL was born out if wedlock, sent to be brought up by carers, not told who father was, bullied at school to point he still cried about it as an old man. This was in France but doubt much different here, suspected to be maid / large chateau owner.

I can remember in the late 70s, a slowly increasing number of young women were allowed to keep their babies, but often still wore a wedding band when they were out and about to stop the dirty looks. Families were becoming more supportive generally- some of them anyway.

And in the late eighties I know of a family who raised a child as their own when she was actually her ‘sister’s’ child. They were a professional family, quite old-fashioned generally.

It does seem to be different depending on what sort of background you are from. Bohemian middle class - it was more likely to be ok. Traditional middle class - a no-no. What used to be called Lower-middle/Upper working class - more likely to be frowned upon for longer, a no-no, but in some working class communities there was much more sympathy and empathy by the late 60s anyway.

I think in 1949 it would have been frowned on and given a sense of shame across all communities.

And I disagree that during the war no questions would have been asked, although the war widow excuse was more available.

My Dad (born 1941) was the only one of his siblings born in wedlock. My darling Grandma had two girls (my aunts) with a much older man who was still married and had abandoned his previous family. They could only marry when the wife had died. There was a lot of shame apparently but my Grandma was a very tough, resilient lady and very different to the sweet old lady I knew!

The truth only came out when my Dad starting digging into family history after his parents were both dead. His eldest sister DID know but had never spoken of it for the shame of it. The second sister really struggled with the truth for the rest of her life. My Dad is now the only one of that household left. He has traced his half brothers and sisters from his Dad’s first marriage and they (much older) are long gone but there is a half niece who is almost my Dad’s age and my Dad has contacted her and is now very firm friends with her and her family.

Hope all that makes sense. The story is really interesting with lots of twists and turns. My Dad has memories of things that never seemed quite right and strange conversations but the “big reveal” finally made everything make sense.

When his father died, my Dad was helping my Grandma sort through his things and fund his 1st World War paybook. He read it and said. “Look at this Mum. They got your name wrong in the bit that says next of kin”. Obviously it was wife number one. My Grandma still didn’t tell the truth and this was 1964.

I think the war changed things a bit, but in the 40s a lot of children with no Dad used to say that their father had died in the war to “legitimise” themselves.

My grandmother got pregnant with my mother in the early Fifties. It was seen as a very extraordinary gesture that her guardians told her she only had to marry my grandfather if she loved him and that they would help her raise the baby alone if she didn't.

She did love him and they did get married. But she's eternally grateful that she was given the choice.

My grandmother got pregnant with my mother in the early Fifties. It was seen as a very extraordinary gesture that her guardians told her she only had to marry my grandfather if she loved him and that they would help her raise the baby alone if she didn't.

She did love him and they did get married. But she's eternally grateful that she was given the choice.

My parents weren’t married when I was born in the 1950s. DM was married to someone who wouldn’t give her a divorce. They covered it up by not telling anyone & pretending that they were married.
They got married in secret in the 1960s. I didn’t find any of this out until my DF died a few years ago & I came across their wedding certificate. Keeping it a secret avoided any stigma & judgement from others.

I'd forgotten that when I had DS1 in the mid/late 1980s the maternity home tried to make me wear a wedding ring. I didn't know anyone (aside from my very culturally conservative mother) who cared, but the staff there still considered it to be a potential embarrassment.

In 1949 it would have still been frowned upon. It's mostly to do with the role of women in organised religion.

To have sex out of wedlock someone would have been seen as a "fallen woman" and therefore some/most families saw this as shameful.

It would be interesting to see how this grip loosened. I suspect there is s correlation between this and falling church attendance.

It was an awful stigma back then. When my mum started dating my dad in the late 40s, someone she barely knew came up to her at work and said: "I believe you're courting (Dad's name). You do know his parents aren't married don't you?!" I don't think she did know at that time, but to my mum's credit she told them to mind their own business.

Op why are you asking specifically about 1949? My story is that even in the 2010s a close relative lies to my parents about when she got married as she had her 1st child a year before she got married. They were raised as Muslims but aren't practicing. The stigma in the Asian community is still huge

My GPs were Scottish (think religious Highland areas), GF came from a very upper class family. 1945 he was married with no children, had an affair with my gran and she got pregnant with my eldest Uncle. He HAD to get divorced (his exw was actually lovely and became one aunt's godmother!) and lost everything monetary, including a stately home, inheritance etc... had to have a shotgun wedding to gran. It was an unhappy marriage. It was scandalous back in the 40s, enough so that my GF lost almost everything to try and do the right thing/keep some face about getting someone pregnant.

When I was training as a teacher in the (supposedly) "Swinging Sixties" more than one of my friends fell pregnant. If they decided to go ahead with the pregnancy, they were expected to continue with/finish their training elsewhere, if at all. The father of the child usually proceeded with their education as if nothing had happened.; very hypocritical.
One of my aunties actually avoided making a big deal of her Silver Wedding because it would have been obvious, from the age of my lovely cousin, that he was already on the way on their wedding day.
Ironically, I think it was actually easier immediately postwar to explain away a child born out of wedlock as the offspring of a father killed in action; by the Fifties, the old conventions were making a bit of a comeback.

People seem to be using the word "bastard" here in both its modern and traditional (highly offensive) sense. In answer to your question, there would have been considerable stigma in 1949 although a lot of children has been born out of wedlock during the war, which might have softened attitudes slightly. It became hugely stigmatic again in the 50s and 60s and would still have been frowned upon well into the 1990s. I was born in 1969 to a single mother and I know my grandparents and aunt and uncle were deeply shocked and distressed when my mum told them (though very loving and supportive to us both thereafter).

When my nan was having my mum in hospital in the mid 40s there was another woman in the same ward who wasn't married. My nan was married but still a teenager. She remembered always how awful the staff were to this other woman. Rude and dismissive. But polite and nice to my nan always calling her Mrs Smith.

Shotgun wedding or adoption.

When I was at school, one of the 15 year girls became pregnant, (this was in the early 70s, in south London). She had to leave school and got married (abroad, where marriage at the age of puberty was permitted).

Having been born in similar circumstances and carried a silent shame I determined to do everything differently and was v upset when that seemed inconsequential to the ppint of my marital status not being acknowledged when I had my own children.

My dd has had some mh issues and it still irks that the hcps refuse to call me Mrs and acknowledge my dc were planned and veey wanted and provided with absolute security. Most children are bit this has somehow been lost.

Why do you ask OP? Is this something that affected you or someone close to you?

My nan was forced to marry a violent bully who had actually raped her (by modern definitions anyway). as it brought shame on the family.

A pupil in my year aged 14 in1958 got pregnant. 2 boys admitted to being a potential father and after the birth, as no DNA was available then and a blood test could not determine the father, both shared the child support- their parents paid it.
The girl's mother looked after the baby and the girl went back to school with no marriage being forced on her..
It was a scandal but there was no shunning. Abortion was illegal.
I seem to remember Elvis Presley was all the girls talked about at that time.

My grandma used to tell me stories of her friend who had baby out wedlock whilst single. She moved to a little cottage in the highlands to hide away and raise baby. My grandparents used to drive up regularily with supplies for her. Breaks my heart to think of her being shut away hiding.

She then met a man and married. He raised the child with her and they had more. But the stress of it all never left her.

My mother, born during WW2, was conceived out of wedlock, in a strict English Protestant family. Her parents married quickly before her birth, and mum only found out about this very recently - her parents had never told her (they died in the 1980's). Mum was afraid to tell me as she thought I would feel ashamed, which of course I don't.

Her childless married aunt and uncle were very keen to adopt her, and tried to persuade my grandmother to give her up. She didn't but they still doted on her throughout their lives.

A girl in my mother's secondary school died from a botched abortion in the 1950s and even her cause of death was hushed up due to stigma (and abortion's being illegal).

I can remember a girl in the early ‘60s her soldier boyfriend went away and left her pregnant. They were engaged but she had the baby adopted and then they married a couple of months later. I can remember being shocked by this as a child.