Premarital Sex

Pre-marital Sex in America Discussion/March 1998

Query From Erika Kuhlman kuhlerik@fs.isu.edu 23 Mar 1998

While discussing Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's _A Midwife's Tale_ (drawn from a late 18th century diary) in my historiography class, one of my students asked when and why pre-marital sex became taboo in American society. We discussed some possible answers, such as a growing need for social control, influence of the Catholic church--does anyone have any more specific answers to this question, or know where I could look? Thanks.

Responses:

From Jaime Staraitis jaime-staraitis@augustana.edu 24 Mar 1998

Essentially what you're looking at is virginity, or when society sanctions losing it, right? i think sexual activity and how we treat it pertains to the whole western world, not any one country independently. I think any of Andrea Dworkin's work would be infinitely helpful, also Ms. Magazine. Why not try any of those women/health/teen magazines like Cosmopolitan, etc? Some of them have been running for a long time and would have some interesting articles and letters.

Finally, consider the possibility that, according to some segments of American culture, premarital sex is still not ok, or, suddenly its not ok anymore. Grocery store magazine covers are all about the AIDS scare and other diseases which push way down the level of sexual activity among some individuals, especially emergent in mid nineties.

From Rodney Hessinger hess@vm.temple.edu 24 Mar 1998

A wide range of answers have been posited to this query. Most historians have seen the decline in premarital pregnancy as somehow part of a larger trend of an emerging Victorian prudery-- which merely begs the question. The three most common answers have been 1)that women were gaining greater control of their bodies and did not wish to suffer the consequences of premarital pregnancy-- this explanation needs to be understood in a context in which American communities were increasingly unable to...