Bridal pregnancies?

[Viktoria]

I don’t get it, that the ‘ deed’ having been done  , that punishment helped at all.
Marry ,yes in those far off days before ( as it seems to an oldie like me) girls were paid for having children out of wedlock!
The girl needed financial help and support .
Both she and the young man had to face up to responsibilities .

Surely there was more chance of the marriage working if  uncritical help and support was  given, anyone will tell you of the joy grandchildren bring and why deny yourself that because of social mores.?
Nothing could be undone by harsh treatment .

It is an anomaly or an alonomy  to me that in the days when girls knew very little of “ the facts of life “ and even went to their marriages totally
ignorant ,that those who had a baby before marriage,were condemned yet now when the average Primary School child knows quite a lot ,girls get benefits if they have a baby ,even though contraceptives are readily available unlike previous generations.
 But the world keeps turning and marriage is a relatively new institution
when you think how long humans have inhabited the  earth.
I mean, men did need to know to whom they were leaving their best club!
Viktoria

[coombs]

I think bridal pregnancies was a combination of either a shotgun wedding from the bride's father, or just doing the decent thing once the woman announced an unexpected pregnancy, or waiting until a pregnancy to secure a marriage.

[andrewalston]

One of my great grandmothers married in Lancaster on 25th July 1903 and gave birth in Bolton on 9th August. We reckon she caught the fast train. 

A pair of my ancestors married in 1807 just a month after the birth of their THIRD child. Father is named on the baptisms of all three, and there's no obvious previous marriage for him.

[zetlander]

my grandparents married in the September and the following January their first child - my uncle - was born.

a great aunt married in the October 1910 and had her child in the following December.  She was 43 - groom 44. !

another aunt (farming family) pregnant at the altar told me it was done deliberately as farmers wanted to make sure their wives could have children - mmm??!

friends of my parents celebrated their Diamond wedding a year early becasue their first child was born 5 months after their actual wedding.  The happy couple were blissfully unaware that everyone knew of their 'real' marriage date.

[coombs]

I know a couple who married in 1839 but had their first child in 1834, the father's surname given as their middle name for the 1834 birth.

Also my great grandparents had a child in November 1895 with the father's middle name as a surname, and they finally married in September 1896.

[Maiden Stone]

another aunt (farming family) pregnant at the altar told me it was done deliberately as farmers wanted to make sure their wives could have children - mmm??!

My farmer GF picked a good 'un. A widow with only 1 child from 10 years of her 1st marriage, she produced 8 more in the first dozen years of her 2nd marriage, only 1 girl, and they all survived. Her child-bearing hips may have added to the attraction of her handsome looks and bright eyes. 

[Lisajb]

A couple in my tree married in their mid fifties, after they’d had 6 children. Their youngest child was was 12 when they finally got around to it.

She described herself as “wife” on the census throughout their time together. I’ve not so far found any evidence of him having another wife preventing their marrying.

A rootschatter once said to me “perhaps she was trying to save for a stupendous wedding hat, but children kept coming along!”

[larkspur]

"Well ... she would have to be a pretty damn good cook for a man to knowingly and willingly take on another man's child. "

My great grandfather married my great grandmother when she was six months pregnant with another mans child. How can I be sure?   Her mother registered the babe and declared that the husband was not the father!!

[IgorStrav]

There are evidently so many different potential explanations for the 'bridal pregnancies' mentioned here.

I think what it certainly demonstrates is that in the past there were rather more views about intimate relationships before marriage, 'living in sin', 'saving a girl from disgrace' etc than the standard view many of us were brought up with

Don't you find, (from the Victorians' influence on the previous generation?), views generally used to be:

"sex before marriage is unforgivable and cannot ever be justified and I would never have done it, and nor would anyone else in my respectable family, how do you dare to even suggest it......
and
women who indulge in sex before marriage are wanton, harlots, should be locked up to prevent contaminating other women, and certainly not supported or encouraged, except if you treat them with disdain ever afterwards
and
men who indulge in sex before marriage, well that's only to be expected.  Boys will be boys"

History is not so much 'facts' as 'what you say about it'