The Gender Equality Checkpoint

[Sundae]

I found out as an adult that my Great-Grandfather was not married to my Great-Grandmother. He moved in and out of the house and in and out of prison. And it was not thought of as evil or disgusting - it was a convenience. He stored stolen goods at her house, and she could have been called on to testify against him in court, not being his wife. But he was already married, and marriage was for life, purely because (as you say) divorce was the privilege of the wealthy.

Not that she'd have let a copper in the house. She'd have hit him with a ladle and shrieked the place down until the neighbours came to make it a proper East End street party.

She married in the end, and stayed with him for life. He raised my Nan as his own. But Nan kept her father's name and still saw him every now and then. No word on whether her Mum did (I bet she did, because he sounded like he could talk the knickers off a nun).

Despite what romantic novels tell you, outside of Royalty and the Great Houses, where inheritance was an issue, being born out of wedlock held no stigma back then. I can only talk about the working poor of London, but WWI certainly helped a few girls without rings on their fingers get accepted. It was family business, and families got on with it.

I mean don't get me wrong - it depended on circumstances. Women were still being put in mental health units for liking the old hokey-pokey too much, ending up with their babies taken away and subsequent grief and/or post-natal depression leading to a stay so long they became institutionalised.

And Mum's cousin was forced into marrying his pregnant girlfriend the day she turned 16. I mean they're still married happily now, with two grown daughters. But it shows teenage pregnancy is nothing new.