Generationchickenbreast. Dating........

[samurai_sarah]

I think the only difference is sometimes the so called 'good girls' didn't have premarital sex purely because of the lack of reliable birth control. My nana actually told me that she thought it was 'too much of a risk'. But her parents had the opposite of Dede & ExGay's baby. My great uncle was born 6 months after they got married & they didn't have micropremies in the 1910s. :lol:

Did too. My family tree (dating back till the 1600s) totally proves that micro-preemies existed, when you compare the date of marriage, and the birth of the first child. In living memory, we've got one remarkably healthy, still-living micro-preemie that was born four months after the wedding! :lol:

[Peas n carrots]

Did too. My family tree (dating back till the 1600s) totally proves that micro-preemies existed, when you compare the date of marriage, and the birth of the first child. In living memory, we've got one remarkably healthy, still-living micro-preemie that was born four months after the wedding! :lol:

DH is really into geneology, and his working class Irish/Scottish family (Glaswegians) had a very high incidence of "micro" premies.

Also, there is more than one marriage that broke up, and the spouses remarried without ever getting a divorce. I think that the wealthier had the connections to help them access doctors willing to do abortions or had money or influence to give to the church to grant an anulment. Working class folks just had a shotgun wedding if the woman got pregnant, and if they divorced the couple went their separate ways.

[miffy]

Did too. My family tree (dating back till the 1600s) totally proves that micro-preemies existed, when you compare the date of marriage, and the birth of the first child. In living memory, we've got one remarkably healthy, still-living micro-preemie that was born four months after the wedding! :lol:

Its amazing that such technology existed in the days when medicine consisted of 'saw it off' 'bleed it' 'leeches' '& 'last rites'

[Curious]

To be involved romantically with someone you don’t intend to marry is something only the most recent generations think is normal. If you really think about, the idea is absurd and we should be ashamed for going along with this notion born from a self-indulgent, sex-crazed society, made popular when the birth control pill became accessible. That, if nothing else, should give us great pause.

So I'm not a big history buff and don't know a lot of nitty gritty details about a lot of different time periods, but I watch a lot of discovery ID, which is a very educational channel, I find.

I was watching some show a couple nights ago and they were talking about a women in the late 1800s or maybe very early 1900s that had killed a bunch of infants, by burying them in her garden (some of them when they were alive, even).

How did this woman come to have access to a large quantity of newborn infants, you ask? She was something called a baby farmer. Apparently, people back in ye olde times had sex out of wedlock and :shifty-kitty: got pregnant. When that happened, some of these women didn't want to have a risky back alley abortion so they went ahead and had the baby, but they couldn't just...keep them. No that is crazy talk. They took the babies to these baby farmers where they apparently paid these people to care for the babies that they couldn't claim as their own.

It was apparently a very lucrative business. I'm guessing that means more than 1 or 2 ladies had teh ebil sexy times out of wedlock :wink-kitty: I'm not too good at math, but I'm pretty sure that was more than "a few decades ago."

edit: here is a link about the woman, it talks about the episode of Deadly Women at the very bottom: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_and_Sarah_Makin

[Rowan]

This comment made me smile. My grandma died two years ago, she would have been 95 today. But she used to tell me how she would bring her little sister along on dates if she didn't particularly like the guy but couldn't get out of the date.

While we are sharing kick-ass grandma dating stories....my grandma used to go out on THREE dates in a single night! My grandfather worked the evening shift and her father wouldn't let her go out as late as it was to see him after work. But he didn't mind if she was already out - so she'd line up one or two dates before grandpa was off of work and then go out with him at the end of the night. :lol:

Of course, she would have more dates in some nights than I have had in the past year. :cry:

[changemanagement]

Heh. My grandparents who were born in 1896 and 1898 did not have an arranged marriage, nor did their parents. Where do they get these ideas from? Do they just make up shit on the fly?

[samurai_sarah]

Its amazing that such technology existed in the days when medicine consisted of 'saw it off' 'bleed it' 'leeches' '& 'last rites'

Modern medicine could learn an awful lot. But it might be statistically interesting to note that all those preemies were firstborns. :lol:

[Effie]

Eh what does she mean with fear of science in her latest "public school is so evil" post?

Wait, the 'fear of science'-part goes to a parody of Miss America. Is Kelly really that dumb that she thinks it's for real?! :?

[2xx1xy1JD]

To be fair, I did have a set of great-grandparents who had an arranged marriage. Kelly would say that they stayed married for over 60 years. My late grandmother, however, would point out that her father never really loved her mother and wanted to marry someone else. Ya, the good ole days.

My grandmothers were both avid daters.

If anything, my maternal grandparents' story illustrates the problem with being too focused on marriage and marrying in haste. They got married during WWII while my grandfather was in the air force, and there was pressure to marry during a short leave before he was shipped overseas. After the war, when they actually had a chance to spend some real time together, it became blatantly obvious that they were not compatible.

Meanwhile, I had no intention of looking for a spouse when I met my husband at the age of 16. We started dating, and we never had a reason to break up. 8 years later, we got married. I wasn't marrying a stranger - I had a chance to get to know his whole family and circle of friends, see him at his best and worst, know his personality, share in struggles, work with him, observe first-hand how he related to children in his care, etc. The decision to marry him was made with full knowledge and confidence.

I get the sense that many of those who discourage dating fear the idea of premarital relationships more than they fear the idea of bad marriages.

[Just_Jane]

I think Fundies like to think of the past in G-rated Disney like terms. The reality of it was less than innocent.

[NurseNell]

It was common during colonial times to get married after the first child was born or while pregnant. The preacher man was a circuit preacher, he covered a large area. If a couple wanted to marry they told the community and from then forward they were considered married. When the preacher came he then did a ceremony or sometimes just recorded the marriage.

I have found only one "micro-preemie" in my genealogy. I have both grandfathers' sides done back to the 1600's but I haven't gotten very far with my immigrant grandmothers. The "micro-preemies" might show up there. My great grandmother died from kidney disease. Her widower married his deceased wife's aunt 1 day before my great half uncle was born! :shhh:

It wasn't uncommon for grandparents to raise a grandchild as their child. Sometimes the child knew, other times he didn't.

[GolightlyGrrl]

I think Fundies like to think of the past in G-rated Disney like terms. The reality of it was less than innocent.

So true!!! My great-great grandma Lizzie divorced her cad of a husband because not only was he a raging alcoholic but because he was also married to another woman at the same time! The divorce created a bit of a scandal because of Lizzie being Roman Catholic but she refused to be messed with by some trifling man whore.

[Trynn]

In that show from the 50s Father Knows Best, the oldest daughter... Kathy? One of the girls is named Kathy, but I can't remember which. Anyway, She's going steady now with this guy, but before that she scheduled a date with some other guy. The girl won't break the date because she's not the type of person to ever break a date. This gets resolved at the end of the show with her current steady thinking, "well, if she's not the type to ever break a date that's good, because that means she'll never break a date with me."

So yes, very much a non fundy friendly culture.

[RosyDaisy]

Heh. My grandparents who were born in 1896 and 1898 did not have an arranged marriage, nor did their parents. Where do they get these ideas from? Do they just make up shit on the fly?

There are no arranged marriages in my family tree for at least 5-6 generations. Beyond that, I can't say with certainty because there is nobody alive in family that can give an answer. Anyway...these people must believe that because the royalty and nobility had arranged marriages, that everyone had an arranged marriage. That is simply not the case. Poor folks didn't care. They had no land or wealth to keep in the family.

[curlykate]

Modern medicine could learn an awful lot. But it might be statistically interesting to note that all those preemies were firstborns. :lol:

When my Grandma would tell us stories about times when she was growing up, one of her favorite sayings was "it's funny that after that first baby came along, all the other ones took 9 months!!"

[idonthaveajname]

Good Lord, the comments on that post are...scary.

I met my now-husband about 13 years ago and fully intended for him to be short-term fling. What can I say? He was (and still is) adorable.