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Relationships

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Do you think this is normal for a family in a rural region in the 90s?

220 replies

Moralitym1n1 · 11/03/2019 12:49

(it has actually continued into the '00s as well)

  • females (not sure about males) don't have sex before marriage
  • females (as above not sure about males) have a curfew while single and while dating. (Weekend curfew later than weekday one).
  • all live at home until married
  • if females (no idea about males) go on trip with boyfriend before married, separate rooms and chaperon eg brother goes on trip as well (shares room with bf)
  • all females except one becomes house wife after marriage (the one exception actually works in same place as husband)
  • large families (4 min.) after marriage
  • regular church attendance
  • (before marriage) females encouraged to participate in beauty pageants and similar 'lovely girl' competitions
  • no artificial contraception (except barrier methods at risky times alongside NFP)
  • no separate socialising from partner (both males and females)
  • almost exclusively family socialising (both)
  • discouragement from drinking alcohol (both but females more than males)
  • both males and females strongly encouraged to study and work close to home (as above only one female cont'd to work after marriage.

I don't think this was average/normal in the 90s but am being told it was.

OP posts:
PeachMoon · 11/03/2019 13:51

Also, my mum was married at 18, a mother of 2 by 20, in the 80's and she didn't work, drink or even learn to drive until well into the 90's. She has a lot of sisters who were almost all housewives as well, but I don't think this was "encouraged" as such, it was just the circumstances of the time? All my cousins have careers, some have moved away (including me) some had kids before marriage, etc, and no-ones ever blinked an eye. The weird part from your post to me is not that people live(d) this way, but that someone would be possibly enforcing it - THAT is not right.

Moralitym1n1 · 11/03/2019 13:51

*was

OP posts:
Margotshypotheticaldog · 11/03/2019 13:51

Was it lovely girl competitions or Irish dancing with the wigs and the make up? Both equally creepy

Margotshypotheticaldog · 11/03/2019 13:53

Crossed posts.
So no dancing then? Just lovely personalities ☺
The Rose of Tralee Regional qualifiers??

BeGoodTanya · 11/03/2019 13:56

I am from a working-class, very devoutly Catholic family in rural Ireland, and I left school in 1990, so was a young adult in the 1990s. Some elements of what your ex says are certainly not widespread for that period in Ireland, a few are characteristic of poor, devout rural households with a low level of parental education.

I know literally no one who stayed living at home until they married, or who became a housewife 'automatically' on her marriage. I have three younger siblings, and we've all spent long periods studying, living and working on other continents, and only one of us now lives in Ireland, nowhere near our parents -- no expectation we would stay close to home.

Four children for my generation would be very unusual (see info below on contraception) -- none of my siblings, married or not, have children, I have one child. I would say there's far more in-family socialising here where I live now in rural England, than in rural Ireland in the 1990s.

Some parents probably imposed curfews on YA children living at home, and were definitely less liberal than now about letting a boyfriend or girlfriend stay over -- in a devout family, the adult child going away with a boyfriend or girlfriend would have just lied and pretended they were going with a friend.

Regular mass attendance while living at home was normal, but quite often people just glanced in the door, so they could simply report that Father X had said mass when asked.

I think I knew of one person who entered the Rose of Tralee first round, because it had always been her granny's dream, but she showed up in a tux and eyeliner rather than a lovely dress, and was eliminated immediately. We always thought it was hilariously awful, and mostly for Irish-Americans who showed up and did Irish dancing and read embarrassing poems to Gay Byrne. Grin

We all had sex before marriage, but remember that the availability of contraception was only beginning to be liberalised (in 1991 the Virgin Megastore was sued for selling condoms without a pharmacist present), so people were more sexually cautious for good reason, especially in rural Ireland, where buying condoms before they were available in pub vending machines meant walking through a line of your grannies' friends waiting for prescriptions in a small local pharmacy and asking for them across the counter, or waiting to bulk buy in the nearest city.

The abhorrence of alcohol is not terribly uncommon (though still a minority thing) among my parents' generation (born around the end of WWII) there had been such an epidemic of male alcoholism in Ireland, for various complex sociological reasons, in the early 20thc, that there was a thriving Catholic temperance movement (the 'Pioneers'), for entirely sensible reasons. It was normal for my generation to pledge not to drink alcohol when you were being confirmed (though I didn't, and my mother was mortified). Neither of my parents drink, would feel at all comfortable in a pub, and know nothing at all about alcohol every Christmas I have to stop my mother pouring a full lemonade glass of whiskey for a visiting uncle, because she has no idea about measures/potency, and thinks a small glass 'looks mean'. (Also, I think they've had the same bottle of whiskey for about 20 years, purely for visitors.)

Moralitym1n1 · 11/03/2019 13:56

The weird part from your post to me is not that people live(d) this way, but that someone would be possibly enforcing it

I could be wrong but I got the impression that it was 'encouraged' because one woman working outside the home out of 6/7 (?) seems strange to me, especially when several are graduates and healthcare professionals. The fact that the only one working outside the home happens to work in a small organisation alongside her husband (given their view of separate activities) seemed significant too. I also got the impression they idealised motherhood and wifehood.

OP posts:
PeachMoon · 11/03/2019 14:00

Ah yep, I know what you mean, one of my cousins was crowned Business Name Queen, with a ballgown, crown, and everything, I completely forgot about that! I definitely remember seeing competitions like this in the likes of Bundoran or Dungloe/Gweedore in summertime.... starts to think I was maybe raised in a cult... Confused

Moralitym1n1 · 11/03/2019 14:01

So no dancing then? Just lovely personalities ☺
The Rose of Tralee Regional qualifiers??

There could well be a talent section as well, I wouldn't be surprised - I've never been to one and the man I was in a relationship with quickly clocked my lack of enthusiasm, I think.

Yes, the winners of local ones do go on to represent their area in larger regional ones.

OP posts:
Moralitym1n1 · 11/03/2019 14:05

@PeachMoon

Grin

When I think back to some of the stuff I was subjected to as a child .. we did black and white minstrel shows at primary school in the 80s, singing "oh lordy, pick a cake of cotton", we collected golly wog badges from marmelade.

But I'm going off on a racism tangent ..

Even the messages about women on British and American TV growing up, the Benny hill show, the carry on films ..

OP posts:
SuziQ10 · 11/03/2019 14:07

Sounds exactly like the life of someone I met through work when I used to work in a library a few short years ago. She was 22 awaiting marriage, not allowed to socialise outside her own family / family friends, go anywhere without chaperone, even work she would always be dropped off and collected by her father or brother. Her lunch would be prepared for her by her mother each day and she'd never leave the premises to go to the shop or anything like the rest of us as she was 'not allowed'. She had to tell her parents all the staff in the workplace were female (don't see how they could have believed this). They were not Christian but still religious. This is London in 2014.

I thought it was abuse wrapped up as religion / culture. Find it odd that many people accept living this way. And that we accept it as outsiders & brush it off as it's 'their religion'. She was a bright, funny girl I still think of her and hope she's ok. She left the job quite suddenly.

Moralitym1n1 · 11/03/2019 14:09

but remember that the availability of contraception was only beginning to be liberalised

True - though I think you could get condoms in Northern Irish bar toilets from the 80s (?) and it's a short drive over the border.

OP posts:
Moralitym1n1 · 11/03/2019 14:10
  • pick a bale of cotton
OP posts:
PeachMoon · 11/03/2019 14:11

The more I read the more comes back to me haha, my granny on my dad's side was a pioneer, so she didn't approve of drinking but it certainly didn't stop anyone else haha!

We did go to mass a lot, and I was an altar girl from 10-12 and in the choir in my teens, but nowadays I think hardly anyone in my family goes to mass except at Christmas, Easter, etc (probably since grandparents passed away).

I think there are chunks of Donegal where everything you've described was actually fairly normal in the 90's, maybe less so in the 00's, but some places are just slower to progress and some are still in a complete timewarp!

Moralitym1n1 · 11/03/2019 14:13

that there was a thriving Catholic temperance movement (the 'Pioneers'), for entirely sensible reasons. It was normal for my generation to pledge not to drink alcohol when you were being confirmed

Yes I'm not Catholic but I've heard about the pledge and about pioneers from Catholic friends.

(There was also a protestant temperance movement to some extent).

It could very well be the case that they, through church, all took the pledge.

Thanks for your comprehensive post @begoodtanya

OP posts:
Moralitym1n1 · 11/03/2019 14:18

@suziq10

That's awful, poor girl.

I agree about it being abuse packaged ax religion/culture.

Same with many cultures,including. Irish travellers - which someone mentioned. On a documentary they kept saying "gypsy women don't work" (outside the home); more like "gypsy women aren't allowed to work".

OP posts:
justasking111 · 11/03/2019 14:21

My Mother grew up in Kilkenny, came to London stayed with Aunt, married and had three children she did approve of contraception. She tried to bring me up as a good girl. No sex before marriage (which I would then have to endure), curfews, I rebelled somewhat. She thought me an awful slut. We had so many arguments because in her own way she was jealous of my freedom.

Moralitym1n1 · 11/03/2019 14:25

every Christmas I have to stop my mother pouring a full lemonade glass of whiskey for a visiting uncle, because she has no idea about measures/potency, and thinks a small glass 'looks mean'.

😁.

Reminds me of going to Barcelona and the bar tender doing "say when" with a bottle of gin when I asked for a gun and tonic ... Unimaginable in the UK and Ireland.

OP posts:
Moralitym1n1 · 11/03/2019 14:25

*gin!

OP posts:
Moralitym1n1 · 11/03/2019 14:27

No sex before marriage (which I would then have to endure)

The sex or the marriage? 😉

OP posts:
Moralitym1n1 · 11/03/2019 14:30

She thought me an awful slut.

By the end of the relationship with this man it was clear he was completely unaccepting if any sexual relationships id had outside of a super serious, committed, marriage intended relationship. I felt like he thought I must be sad, ashamed, feel used about them. Makes me angry even now, which is partly why I'm posting I suppose.

OP posts:
Moralitym1n1 · 11/03/2019 14:37

@MarDhea

I'm wondering - I'm from a bit away so when I was in the town I was always with him and people were obviously not going to say anything. Even if out and about on my own occasionally while there, most people are not going to say anything.

OP posts:
lisasimpsonssaxophone · 11/03/2019 14:40

I used to know a few Catholic families who were a bit like this though perhaps not as extreme. Couples in their late twenties who’d been together for years, since they were teenagers, who still kept up the act that they weren’t having sex (pretending to book separate rooms on holidays, not admitting that they were living together even when they definitely were, and so on). I think the parents must have known it deep down but as long as everyone could keep up the pretence then nobody had to acknowledge it and everyone stayed happy!

isabellerossignol · 11/03/2019 15:59

I can't speak for rural Irish Catholics but in N Ireland Protestant circles in the 1990s it was very very common to not have sex before marriage, or at the very least to pretend to not have sex before marriage.

And whilst I wasn't raised in one of the more extreme religious households, my parents did have a lot of authority over some aspects of my life, which I accepted as normal such as not allowing me to go across the water to university. When I was in my late 20s and married, I remember my father searching my cupboards to check that I didn't have alcohol in the house.

BlackPrism · 11/03/2019 16:40

Maybe in rural India? In the Uk no...

Orangecookie · 11/03/2019 17:45

I live in Ireland. It’s fairly common, not all of it but a lot in 2019! In where I live anyway.

Times are changing, and many don’t go to church every week but everyone gets confirmation and communion, most stay at home until marriage, most socializing is within families, who are very clannish and not very open to new people, large families, wife stays at home. Many kids of both sexes have sex before marriage, many drink, many are out late. But noticeably different than city life in UK.

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