Abstract
M.A. (Psychology)
Teenage pregnancies should be understood in terms of a changing of sexual behaviour, slowly evolving over many centuries. In contrast to our modern world, New England puritans in the seventeenth century demanded that the entire community conform to the exemplary moral codes drawn up by the first settlers. Civil magistrates or ministers were responsible for quickly and publicly chastised sexual offenders. One of the sources estimate that in the late 1670's well over one half of the guilty couples involved in premarital pregnancies found themselves convicted and punished. In England the loosening of the popular convention about sexual behaviour was followed by the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 as secularism replaced Puritanism. Observers noted steady but noticeable erosion of church and civil opposition to premarital sexual activity. In Essex County, the number of civil prosecutions dropped and the penalty ranged from corporal punishment to paying a fine. In Middlesex county, Massachusetts, signs of moral irresponsibility in fornication cases increased, starting in the 1660's (Vinovskis, 1988). When prominent church leaders such as Jonathan Edwards in the eighteenth century tried to punish the lax moral standards of their parishioners, they found they could no longer count on the support of their congregations and the rest of the community. Simultaneously with the unwillingness of the civil or church authorities to punish cases of pregnancies, parents gradually lost their ability to persuade their children to marry according to their parent's wishes. In the absence of concerted communal or familial efforts to curb the problem of teenage pregnancy, a general loosening of sexual behaviour occurred among early Americans. Sexual intimacy returned as a normal part of courtship behaviour and practices such as bundling became more common. The promise
to marry rather than the marriage itself often led to sexual intercourse amongst couples. As long as the community was not burdened with the financial burden of illegitimate children, citizens tolerated premarital pregnancies. The result was not a breakdown of social mores in the early Republic but a shift in the definition of appropriate behaviour between individuals in love. Shorter (in Vinovskis, 1988) concludes that central in the history of courtship over the past two centuries had been the enormous increase in sexual activity before marriage. Before 1800 it was unlikely that the typical young woman, would have coitus with her partner and certainly not before an engagement had been sealed, and probably not as a fiancee either. After 1800 however the percentage of young women who slept with their boyfriends or fiancees rose steadily. Today it is a common phenomenon.