To Love and Obey

In the 1960s and 70s the traditional ideals of marriage were questioned as never before. These were decades of greater affluence, optimism and experimentation, in which rebellious youth was in the vanguard of a cultural revolution. One of the archetypal feminist rebels of this period was Rosie Boycott and the co-founder of Spare Rib describes why she once rejected marriage and how she lived the 'sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll' lifestyle to the point of self-destruction. The sexual experimentation of the period is captured by Anne Geraghty and Martin Gerrish, who joined the Orange People and lived in free love communes, but ended up marrying each other. Divorce was on the increase during the 1960s and 70s, made possible by divorce law reform. Convent girl Maureen Flanagan married an Irish navvy who resented her career as a model, and when she became the Sun's first Page Three girl their marriage was over. Debutante Fiona McCarthy escaped the upper-class marriage she loathed after meeting and falling in love with Sheffield silversmith David Mellor - and marrying him. Yet despite the increase in divorce, marriage was very popular and the majority of marriages remained quite conventional. In the so-called Swinging Sixties there were still many virgin brides like Alan and Judith Kettly, who tell the moving story of their courtship, while black Labour peer Rosalind Howells describes her successful mixed-race marriage.