“it just wasn’t the done thing in those more devoutly christian times....”
THAT is hysterically funny! The idea that people were more Christian in the past gets lumped with the term, “good old days” — good only because it’s all in the past!
What that means, is that one is less likely to be shocked nowadays by the “secrets” of friends as few are truly discrete and hide their unsavory behavior anymore. People today no longer live lies; less hypocrisy abounds in public. Open lives is more the norm now.
“THAT is hysterically funny!”
Not really. It is a clumsy way of saying that the CULTURE was shaped by religious values. People haven’t changed in their nature since Day One, but when Culture degrades societies collapse.