The Guardian recently published an excerpt from a forthcoming book, The Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolution, by Faramerz Dabhoiwala. After relating a case in which two adulterers were put to death in 17th-century New England, Dabhoiwala claims the 18th Century saw a major change in attitudes toward sex. The first piece of evidence he is offers is this:
The most obvious change was a surge in pre- and extramarital sex. We can measure this, crudely but unmistakably, in the numbers of children conceived out of wedlock. During the 17th century this figure had been extremely low: in 1650 only about 1% of all births in England were illegitimate. But by 1800, almost 40% of brides came to the altar pregnant, and about a quarter of all first-born children were illegitimate. It was to be a permanent change in behaviour.
The excerpt doesn't specify Dabhoiwala's sources for these figures, but he's a historian specializing in this period, so I'll take his word for them. However, the claims still raise several doubts:
1. The number of illegitimate births doesn't tell us the number of illegitimate conceptions. (Perhaps they were called "musket marriages" then?)
2. It is unclear how accurately 17th-century busybodies could ascertain what percentage of brides "came to the altar pregnant". Lots of women successfully hide pregnancy, especially early on.
3. Given the severe punishments Dabhoiwala mentions, there was likely a huge motive for fornicators to hide their activities in any way possible, such as not reporting births, abandoning babies, avoiding official registries, using fake names, forging documents, and so forth.
4. Even today, attempts to collect accurate data about sexual habits are fraught with difficulty (see The Pocket Guide to Critical Thinking, pp. 74-75, 95-96). I have even less confidence in the statistical competence or honesty of whatever state functionaries did the data collecting in the middle of the English Civil War.
Maybe Professor Dabhoiwala has reasons to assuage these doubts, and maybe he discusses the fine points in the footnotes of his book. But as it stands, there's no good reason to believe the claims made above. It could just as easily be the case that people were more willing to admit to hanky-panky in the 19th Century.
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