What has sex got to do with being married?

 

This might be what you would think a marriage guidance guide from the 1950s would declare, but not so with the National Marriage Guidance Council’s Sex in Marriage pamphlet here in the Family Planning archive at Glasgow Women’s Library. In my second blog reflecting on my research placement working on the Family Planning archive I delve into the somewhat surprising world of 1950s marital sex…

Sex and Marriage, National Marriage Guidance Council, Marriage Counselling, J.H.Wallis & H.S. Booker and The Art of Marriage, Mary Macaulay
Sex in Marriage, National Marriage Guidance Council; Marriage Counselling, J.H.Wallis & H.S. Booker and The Art of Marriage, Mary Macaulay

Published in 1958, the National Marriage Guidance Council’s understated and very practical booklet provides information and guidance regarding a range of topics including: frequency of intercourse, mutual pleasure, family planning and even the size of certain appendages! It certainly doesn’t shy away from rather explicit guidance regarding sex which came as quite a surprise I must admit. The section which discusses the importance of the female orgasm was especially a revelation. Taken for granted in today’s sex literature, the female orgasm is rarely examined and so it was oddly moving to read a celebration of female pleasure from such an unexpected source.

Not only does the booklet boldly discuss sex in marriage, it also explores the importance of mutual understanding, love and even gets rather poetical in tone:

They need to listen with the ear of the spirit as well as of the body so that ordinary human selfishness is overcome.’

I readily admit that I was beginning to get quite seduced by the whole thing. It wasn’t until I came across parts of the booklet that emphasised the importance of sex between married couples only that I began to understand that this is the booklet’s purpose: to seduce me into marriage, and more importantly, into staying married. The National Marriage Guidance Council (now known as Relate) was set up by clergyman Dr. Herbert Gray and a group of colleagues in the 1930s due to their growing concern that the social and political upheaval of the modern age was threatening the institution of marriage [Jeffries 2013].  This booklet then is not only a practical guide for the newly married couple at the beginning of their relationship, but an instruction manual in how to keep a marriage going, and perhaps more importantly on how to avoid divorce. This leads to some interesting discussions about power and rights in relationships, including:

Sometimes a woman has to be kind and generous to her husband and give him pleasure that she does not entirely share, but provided it does not hurt her there is no experience more warmly satisfying for a woman than giving pleasure to the man she loves, quite apart from sharing his climax.

This conflict between the rights of each partner in regards to intercourse, the passive role that women are encouraged to play and the dangerous implication that her ‘natural’ role is one of giving pleasure despite her own feelings, are detailed throughout the booklet and often undermines its other rather more liberal messages.

'The Brides First Dinner Party' by Ray Prohaska, 1952 (Pinterest)
‘The Brides First Dinner Party’ by Ray Prohaska, 1952 (Pinterest)

Of course, there are also no discussions of gay and lesbian relationships or of sex outside of marriage. Though Relate now provides guidance for all kinds of relationships, the message of this early booklet is that you can orgasm to your heart’s content as long as you’re a married heterosexual, and most importantly, that you stay that way.

The Sex in Marriage Pamphlet is available to view on the Glasgow Women’s Library website here under the reference code FP 4/1, or you can visit the library and come have a peek at it in person!

Bibliography: JEFFRIES, S., 26/10/2013, 2013-last update, Relate: 75 Years of Marriage Guidance [Homepage of The Guardian], [Online]. Available here [24/4/2016, 2016].

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