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The reissue of Married Love soon after Channel 4 broadcast a documentary on the life of Marie Stopes late in 1995 received a wide, on the whole quite sympathetic, coverage in both the national and local press. Perhaps inevitably, almost all the papers found that Marie Stopes still being a virgin (legally at least) when she wrote the book was particularly newsworthy. The Daily Mail even used this in its headline.
This was unfortunate since surely the sexual experience, or otherwise, of the author is of little importance compared with the impact the book had on sexual attitudes and practices. Perhaps as the First World War came to an end society was ready for change but the importance of Married Love as a catalyst in the emancipation of men and women, especially women, from the dark ages of Victorian sexual hypocrisy would be hard to exaggerate. That The Independent could call the book an old favourite and the Lancashire Evening Post suggest it to be of historic interest only illustrates just how much things have changed since its first publication in 1918.
Longer articles in The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent, the Daily Mail, and The Scotsman focused naturally enough on her life after the book was published. Being determined in some cases to find the heroine’s feet of clay some writers seemed to find it difficult to reconcile their admiration for her work on birth control with their distaste of her interest in eugenics. If only, they seem to be saying, Marie Stopes had just advocated contraception and kept quiet about those things which today are regarded by the writers as not being politically correct. But would such a woman have written Married Love when Marie Stopes did? It seems very doubtful.
Following what appears to be a long tradition The Times did not review the reissued Married Love. In 1918 it refused to advertise the book and in 1928 Marie Stopes was told it was ‘a family newspaper’ and so not a proper medium for her views (1). However, it has readers who find it necessary to tear out pages carrying reproductions of paintings of nudes before allowing their ten year old children to see the paper (2). It does seem that there are still some places which the basic message of Married Love has yet to reach.
John Timson
References:
(1) Rose, June. Marie Stopes and the Sexual Revolution, 1992, pp. 108 & 190.
(2) Letters in the Magazine section, The Times, Saturday 29 June 1996.