How did "No sex before marriage" ever get any purchase in Ireland

Shiraz 4.99

Surely if to try to repress a basic human instinct you are always going to be on a highway to failure.
This is a primal urge, like breathing, eating & the like.
Can you imagine the awkwardness of the wedding night to those who adhered ?.
Maybe you'd no choice if you hadn't got contraception, must have been a horrid lot of anal & oral back in the day, mind you there was no redtube so maybe it never occurred to them.

Anyway, a poor idea that was doomed from the start.

SEPT 23 1989

Shiraz 4.99 wrote: »

horrid lot of anal

worst band name ever

Rubberchikken

when the priests promised hell fire and damnation to those who did, some were bound to listen and believe it.
but based on the number of unmarried mothers in the 20s/30s etc , enough didn't.
it's good, in a way, that times have changed.

now few believe in hell fir or damnation, for that matter*phew*

BattleCorp

Funny, I've never felt that a load of anal or oral was horrid.

The Purveyor of Truth

Have to say, I actually don't believe in sex before marriage. Poor form to be at that lark when your bride is waiting at the church.

wazky

BattleCorp wrote: »

Funny, I've never felt that a load of anal or oral was horrid.

The OP must be on the receiving end of the anal, based on his viewpoint.

duchalla

BattleCorp wrote: »

Funny, I've never felt that a load of anal or oral was horrid.

That would depend on whether you're the pitcher or the receiver....

conorhal

No doubt the Catholic Church will take most of the heat for this, but the reality is that in an era where there was no mickey money, not corpo flat and no chance of sombody else raising your kids, while at the same time poverty was endemic and an extra mouth to feed was an unwelcome burden for families living ten to a tenement room, it's hardly a surprise that there would be a societal emphasis on not having children until you could house, feed and support them independently.
It may be human nature to want to have sex, but we're a little more complex then rutting animals, it's also human nature to be adverse to destitution and exclusion.

kiffer

Dublin once had one of the largest Redlight districts in Europe...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monto

ghostdancer

conorhal wrote: »

No doubt the Catholic Church will take most of the heat for this, but the reality is that in an era where there was no mickey money, not corpo flat and no chance of sombody else raising your kids, while at the same time poverty was endemic and an extra mouth to feed was an unwelcome burden for families living ten to a tenement room, it's hardly a surprise that there would be a societal emphasis on not having children until you could house, feed and support them independently.
It may be human nature to want to have sex, but we're a little more complex then rutting animals, it's also human nature to be adverse to destitution and exclusion.

yeah, except for the fact that large families were the norm and most of them lived in relative poverty.

there was no societal emphasis on not having children. there was a societal emphasis on getting married young. just because you were married didn't magically make you able to afford to have kids, especially when society dictated that the woman give up her job and start a family sharpish.

suicide_circus

No sex outside marriage is a feature of most world religions. Guidelines were drawn up which made practical sense at the time.

ahnowbrowncow

conorhal wrote: »

No doubt the Catholic Church will take most of the heat for this, but the reality is that in an era where there was no mickey money, not corpo flat and no chance of sombody else raising your kids, while at the same time poverty was endemic and an extra mouth to feed was an unwelcome burden for families living ten to a tenement room, it's hardly a surprise that there would be a societal emphasis on not having children until you could house, feed and support them independently.
It may be human nature to want to have sex, but we're a little more complex then rutting animals, it's also human nature to be adverse to destitution and exclusion.

And who was it that proclaimed using contraceptives was a sin?

conorh91

Shiraz 4.99 wrote: »

Surely if to try to repress a basic human instinct you are always going to be on a highway to failure.
This is a primal urge, like breathing, eating & the like.

That's why our culture of sex before marriage is probably a myth that society engaged in.

Look back in the births and marriage registers. In my parish alone, foundlings and illegitimate births were amazingly common occurrences in the 19th century. Even more common were newborns appearing five or six months after the marriage was contracted, and even a few children born from extramarital affairs are recorded.

I don't see why we should believe that sex before marriage was massively observed in the past. People married younger, so there were more virgin brides and bridegrooms, but I firmly believe that many people had sex before marriage; plenty of it, too.

Czarcasm

It gave people an unrealistic standard to adhere to, so they could feel morally superior to those that didn't adhere to said standard.

It's still as prevalent today as it always was, and that was long before religion was ever introduced to humanity. Religion just gave people a reason for their previously unjustifiable judgment of other people.

Ihatecuddles

I would have just stuck with the bum sex.

AndonHandon

I'm curious as to what people did if they didn't have sex before marriage? Or did they but turn up at mass on a Sunday and pretend they hadn't?

Dravokivich

mauzo! wrote: »

I would have just stuck with the bum sex.

Seemingly that's what some do in the states, those who've signed up for the "Virginity Ring" thing... :pac:

Shiraz 4.99

mauzo! wrote: »

I would have just stuck with the bum sex.

Then one night you'd get drunk & end up on the water slide instead

blastman

conorhal wrote: »

No doubt the Catholic Church will take most of the heat for this, but the reality is that in an era where there was no mickey money, not corpo flat and no chance of sombody else raising your kids, while at the same time poverty was endemic and an extra mouth to feed was an unwelcome burden for families living ten to a tenement room, it's hardly a surprise that there would be a societal emphasis on not having children until you could house, feed and support them independently.
It may be human nature to want to have sex, but we're a little more complex then rutting animals, it's also human nature to be adverse to destitution and exclusion.

....yet familes generally were/are larger when people had/have bugger all money. This Malthusian theory was discredited a couple of centuries back...

Celly Smunt

Only for the catholic chruch we'd be a horrible STI ridden incest loving cest pit.

Sauve

Holy God is watching ye and he won't be pleased.

shruikan2553

With no contraception and where you ended up if you did get pregnant I can see how it may have worked.

kiffer

kiffer wrote: »

Dublin once had one of the largest Redlight districts in Europe...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monto

OK so the population of Dublin was 400,000 in 1900, the Monto had 1,600 prostitutes.
That's nearly 1% of the female population of the city...
(1600/200000)*100= 0.8
So for every 200 men there were 1.6 dollymops.
Now, if every man visited a lady of negotiable affection once a fortnight how many Johns would each lady need to service a day?
My maths says just under 9.

Edit: which is probably a lot as I'm seeing stats of 10 a week for modern prostitution... and I'm not going to dig to much deeper.

Edit2: these numbers are terrible... the total population was 400,000 but that includes children and married people. And doesn't account for sailors and visitors.
Ugh.

Davarus Walrus

Lots of men trying to pull the skeleton out of themselves. And women repeatedly ringing the Devil's doorbell. That's a side of Ireland they don't look back on in Reeling in the Years.

suicide_circus

Davarus Walrus wrote: »

Lots of men trying to pull the skeleton out of themselves. And women repeatedly ringing the Devil's doorbell. That's a side of Ireland they don't look back on in Reeling in the Years.

I find this post exceedingly amusing