Bedroom secrets from 100 years ago: unique research shows how marriage and intimacy differed and how they were surprisingly the same as today
What's going on behind the bedroom door?
Today's times seem to be open (too open, according to some) to practically everything, and this also applies to various expressions of sexuality. But looking back in history, some tend to think that people used to be more moral, took marriage more seriously, which also made them more faithful and happier... and everything was somehow more idyllic. It's a nice idea, but it's miles away from reality. At least that's what the aforementioned research from the 1920s shows. Psychiatrist Hamilton gathered quite detailed information about what was going on in the bedrooms of those days - and although his research group, consisting of a hundred women and a hundred men, had certain limitations (because of their ability to answer questions and reflect complex feelings, the respondents tended to be more educated and from the middle and upper classes of society), it can certainly "hold up a mirror" to today's society to some extent.
Hamilton published the results of his research in 1929 as a purely scholarly book , A Research in Marriage, and a year later he and his colleague Kenneth MacGowan published selected findings in popular science form as What is Wrong with Marriage. Their findings show that, in many ways, marital cohabitation has not really changed, despite a number of significant societal changes over the last century.
Both the minimum number of sexual partners and the (surprising) efforts to prevent conception
Although entering into a marriage without prior sexual experience seems strange to say the least, it was a relatively common practice a hundred years ago. Yet, as the aforementioned research has shown, the marriages of those who entered into it as virgins/virgins were happier. Having a single sexual partner, i.e. your spouse, was in the past an imaginary "recipe" for a happy cohabitation. Of course, with today's perspective, one might rather speculate that what one doesn't know, one doesn't miss either (and after all, Hamilton himself soon came to related fundamental insights regarding infidelity...).
While no sex before marriage sounds more or less backwards, and many might conclude that our ancestors were subsequently just concerned with procreating children, men with making money, and women with adequately caring for their families, the opposite is true. In fact, the research also showed that all of the participants in the study had used contraception at some point (except for those who knew they were infertile). What's interesting about this is the fact that the sale and distribution of contraceptives was heavily restricted at the time. This is one reason why Hamilton did not elaborate on what types of contraceptives the participants had in mind, merely noting that "only half of the respondents felt that the contraceptives they were taking were safe. Less than a third of women and less than a quarter of men found contraceptives satisfactory," he added. The (in)efficacy of some of the devices used is evidenced by the fact that 21% of the women surveyed had an abortion (which de facto corresponds to the frequency of abortions today).
Ignoring women's needs
Although Hamilton does not define sexual intercourse in his research, it can be assumed that it is vaginal intercourse - and this is the one that proved to be not very satisfying for women, as 46% of them had never experienced an orgasm (unlike men, who were supposedly always satisfied). It's been very under-researched, perhaps because most sex researchers are men - and there is virtually no valuable material on the physiological or psychological aspects," Hamilton said in reference to female satisfaction during sex. And this is undoubtedly a very timeless finding.
Zdroj: Giphy
Let's have a go
But Hamilton made some very interesting findings, particularly in relation to infidelity. While it might seem that those who enter marriage pure as a lily would be moral and faithful, it turns out that especially around the age of 40, the situation changes. And especially sexually unsatisfied women (if we were to be specific, two-thirds of the respondents) decided to look for some sort of recreation outside the marriage bed at this time. Hamilton, too, then concluded that it was the desire for a better sexual experience that drove women into the arms of other men (but reportedly did not help them much).
Hamilton also touched on work activity in his research (since it was not quite common for women to work at the time). And as it turns out, if the wife was gainfully employed, the marriage was less happy. The same was true for differences in education, which did not contribute to happiness in cohabitation. The bottom line is that intimacy and satisfaction in marriage seem to face similar difficulties today as they did a century ago. To idealize our ancestors' marriages as a prototype of the correct norm is indeed a step in the wrong direction.
