Letter to the Update editor: pregnancy was prerequisite to marriage
Thanks for the latest electronic issue of AtMP Update. I would like to respond to Teri Hu’s article.
While Teri makes some good points, I think it would also have been worth pointing out that there has been, and is, a considerable variation in attitudes towards pre-marital pregnancy. While I agree with her point that in the times she mentions it was largely ignored if the couple got married, it is also worth noting that in many cultures and time periods it was not only condoned but EXPECTED as a pre-condition of marriage, either officially or not. Most “primitive” cultures, and pre-industrial agricultural societies tended to expect that a couple would start “seeing” each other and then make it “official” when she got pregnant. (And that the relationship would break up if she didn’t get pregnant within a reasonable time.) This was largely because children were a valuable resource, and a couple would want to prove that they were mutually fertile before engaging in a long term commitment. This even applied in early “straight-laced” America – analysis of birth and marriage records from the colonial periods seemed to show quite clearly that 70% or more of all marriages happened when she was expecting.
The key thing to those cultures seemed to be however that the marriages were more recognizing an already existing, stable and monogamous relationship, or at least one that was presented as such.
One can question whether there is a difference between a marriage that is a recognition of what already exists, or something that is at least pretended to be a prerequisite to a change in lifestyle.
– Arthur, from MA (My GF and I have been happily unmarried for 15+ years now, though we haven’t yet managed
to pull off the pregnancy outside of marriage trick – not for lack of trying.)
