A Guttmacher Institute study released Tuesday, December 19, 2006 shows that, More than nine out of 10 Americans have had premarital sex. These high rates extend even to women born in the 1940s, challenging perceptions that people were more chaste in the past and lending credit to Casey’s contention that generations of the past were at least as sexual as those of the present.
“This is reality-check research,” said the study’s author, Lawrence Finer. “The vast majority of Americans have sex before marriage, including those who abstained from sex during their teenage years.” To me this study simply shows the obvious; premarital sex is normal behavior for the vast majority of Americans, and it has been for decades. I have a feeling, though, that the religious right may have a problem with it.
I wonder if the difference, is in how openly people talk about things now. I would only guess if no one talked about it in “the old” days, it appeared to not be happening. Besides when something like unexpected pregnancy, in those days the child was shipped off to “aunty’s house” or similar location, away from the home town.