To remind people of why the sexual revolution happened:
My grandmother grew up in a Depression-era household brutal enough that her three older brothers actively encouraged her to leave as soon as possible, and assisted in a conspiracy to help her elope with a soldier when she was 16.
The soldier then beat the hell out of her for a few years, before running off and leaving her to raise her daughter (my Mum) on her own throughout the war. He never came back, fortunately.
In the 1950’s, she met a man kind-hearted enough to overlook the massive cultural prejudice against single mothers. He was a lifelong drunk, but you take what you can get. She then had half a dozen children in close succession, a process that stopped the instant that the contraceptive pill became available.
Her eldest daughter, my Mum, became pregnant at 15 (shortly before oral contraceptives). She was literally packed off to a nunnery; the neighbours were told she was visiting relatives in the country.
My mother never saw that child. She was told that she had a miscarriage, but was fairly heavily doped up. Given the practices of the time, it’s entirely possible that the child was stolen and given to some churchgoing middle-class couple to raise.
After my mother had me, she decided that was enough and went to the doctor for a tubal ligation. He refused to do the procedure unless she showed him my father’s written consent.
