University of Sussex
Browse
Adultery_in_postwar_England.pdf (178.6 kB)

Adultery in post-war England

Download (178.6 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 04:46 authored by Claire Langhamer
Recent histories of twentieth-century heterosexual behaviour have tended to place the practices of young people centre-stage in accounts of social change. Trends in premarital intercourse have been presented as evidence of changing sexual mores: the varied experiences of married people, beyond the realm of fertility, have less often been interrogated. Yet in the years after the Second World War, extended access to fault-based divorce, a state-sponsored determination to remake family life and an increasing emphasis upon the relational aspects of marriage ensured that marital infidelity was prominent in public discussions of sexual and emotional life. This article therefore investigates illegitimate sexual and emotional intimacies involving married rather than single heterosexuals, unpacking the social meanings and significance of adultery in post-war England. It explains why attitudes towards adultery hardened across the period, even as the practice became apparently more common, by exploring the growing centrality of love and sex to discursive constructions of marriage. In so doing this article offers an account which destabilizes a ‘golden age’ characterization of post-war marriage and challenges linear models of sexual and emotional change.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Accepted version

Journal

History Workshop Journal

ISSN

1363-3554

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Issue

1

Volume

62

Page range

86-115

Department affiliated with

  • History Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2012-02-06

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2012-08-10

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2012-08-10

Usage metrics

    University of Sussex (Publications)

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC