The Sugar coated myth that our Ancestors were 'Pure' on their Wedding Night

[elan]

"The Sugar coated myth that our Ancestors were 'Pure' on their Wedding Night"

I think most people know their ancestors weren't always virgins. The first probate records I looked at had a fair amount of bastardly bonds. I remember a will where the deceased not only named his illegitimate son, he made the son's maternal uncle an executor. The mother was the daughter of a French born Major in the Revolutionary War.

[aries63]

There is a strong tendency to sugar-coat lots of things in genealogy, which is one of the things that really turns me off. Maybe that's why I find stripping away that veneer to find the skeletons in the closet so much more rewarding.

The idea that people in earlier generations were more chaste than in our current one flies out the window when you remember that prostitution is called The Oldest Profession, and that brothels operated pretty openly in the US well into the 20th century in many places, and that death from venereal diseases like syphilis was much more common then than now.

The advent of effective means of contraception, safe and legal abortion, sex education, and treatments for venereal disease are what give people more sexual freedom today than ever before. There are fewer social consequences of extramarital sex today, unlike a hundred years ago when a woman would be stuck with an "illegitimate baby" or a man with VD for the rest of his life. The idea of illegitimacy thankfully has changed.

From my family tree, I have a 3rd g-grandmother who had six children out of wedlock, from two married men, before she married and continued to have more children (I descend from one of the first group). And the death certificate of one of my much closer ancestors says he died of "lues" (syphilis), but I do not attach that to my tree. Even though I know it wasn't uncommon, I think that out of respect I shouldn't make it part of my tree.

And yet another pair of 3rd g-grandparents left a trail of documentation about the adultery that both of them committed in early 19th century Georgia, accused by multiple "witnesses" (what exactly did they witness?). A case where both husband and wife got around.

I look at it this way: if our ancestors were all so chaste, WE WOULDN'T BE HERE.

[PA2UK]

Originally Posted by Sarahsez

It was 1906 Arkansas. It's always been a joke in my family there that if you weren't married by the time you were 16, you were an old maid.

What county in Arkansas?

[Sarahsez]

Originally Posted by PA2UK

What county in Arkansas?

She is in the 1900 census for Newton County, but married in Johnson County in 1906.

[PA2UK]

Originally Posted by nightbird47

I suspect in another time she would not have ended up marrying as late or marrying her choice, but the world had changed.

Not necessarily. Look at other royal/nobility marriages from earlier in the 20th century/late 19th century, most women did not marry until they were in their 20s. Elizabeth's mother was 23. Granted, her maternal grandmother was only 19 but then her paternal grandmother was 26.

Here's all of Elizabeth's aunts and great aunts who married and how old they were when they first married (all those that I could find data on, I did not pick and choose)

Great Aunts:
Louise, Princess Royal was 22 when she married in 1889.
Maud, Queen of Norway was 27 when she married in 1896.
Lady Constance Bowes-Lyon was 28 when she married in 1893.
Lady Mildred Marion Bowes-Lyon was 22 in 1890.

Aunts:
Mary, Princess Royal, Elizabeth's aunt, was 25 when she married in 1922.
Mary Elphinstone, Lady Elphinstone, was 27 in 1910.
Rose Leveson-Gower, Countess Granville, was 26 in 1916.

So on the contrary, Elizabeth marrying when she was 21 was actually fairly young in comparison to most of her closest female relatives who married in earlier time periods.

I'm certainly not saying it was unheard of for any woman of any class to marry as a teen, just that by the 19th/20th century, and in any class, it was much more common for woman to marry in their early to mid 20s, so they certainly were not considered "old maids". Anyone who has spent time researching family history should know what a ridiculous notion that is and if not, they must not be paying very close attention to ages at first marriage.

Looking at my own tree, the average age at first marriage was 23, the mode was 21, and the median 22. These marriages occurred all over the country, sometimes in foreign countries, and spanned from colonial times up to current day. I accept that average age at first married might vary by location, but not so much that one was considered an old maid if they didn't marry as a teenager.

[PA2UK]

Originally Posted by Sarahsez

She is in the 1900 census for Newton County, but married in Johnson County in 1906.

Here's 1906 marriages for Johnson county, Arkansas:

https://familysearch.org/search/coll...ion_id=1417439

I am seeing more teenage brides than some other areas I'm familiar with, but there are just as many brides marrying around age 20-21.

[dinska]

Although I agree that our ancestors weren't perfect, my grandmother had a friend whose DOCTOR had to explain how to have sex well after she was married. I asked my grandmother if she asked her friend what they HAD been doing to try to get pregnant and she said no. (Sorry for that lack of details.) So I wouldn't be hasty to plunk our values down on our ancestors.