Of course not everyone was a virgin bride. But more were than nowadays.
There were also “shotgun” weddings back in those days, so that couples who jumped the gun made it right by getting married.
I wonder, what year was the "tipping point" for this? During what year did social expectations shift in the direction of having sex before marriage vs. waiting until marriage? I know the decline was gradual, but there was a definite shift at some point. I remember in the early '90s a girl tried to describe her live-in boyfriend as her "fiance." These days, if a woman says she has a boyfriend (not husband or even fiance), she has to explain/defend why they are living apart and not together.
These days, the people who decide to wait for marriage are seen as the rebels and freaks.
I wonder about those who (bitterly) joke that their sex life ended with marriage rather than began with marriage.
“I wonder, what year was the “tipping point” for this? During what year did social expectations shift in the direction of having sex before marriage vs. waiting until marriage?”
Circa 1968. Reason: the Pill.
I wonder, what year was the “tipping point” for this?
Clinton-Lewinsky
Nowadays I see people refer to their partner in cohabitation as their husband or wife - when they aren’t married in any way, shape, or form.
I have failed to notice if "bitterly" has had any role in the process.
More just another shrug of the shoulders and "it is what it is" declaration.
That was the necessary paraphernalia for the war against natural sex.
A couple of years ago, some guy who was big in the Playboy Empire (Editor in chief? CEO? I can't remember what) wrote a book on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Playboy brand. His topic was a celebration of the Sexual Revolution.
He correctly opined that contraceptives are THE necessary paraphernalia of the Sexual Revolution. Why? Here's where it gets interesting. NOT ONLY because contraceptives denature heterosexual intercourse so that those most-dreaded complications ---babies--- don't result, BUT ALSO because the contraceptive mentality legitimizes every kind of sexual perversion.
"Perversion" is not the word he used --he termed it something like "sexual preference". But "perversion" is, by definition, any kind of "preference" which in practice ditches the essentially procreative structure and meaning of intercourse. By far the most numerous practitioners of denatured sex, and thus re-definers of marriage, are contracepting heterosexuals.
It's not just the rejection of marriage. It's the rejection of natural sex.
And if this made for "better sex," America would be a f***ing paradise. But now --- for so many --- it's purgatory or worse.
I don’t think anyone waited until marriage in the 1980s. Extremely religious people maybe.