catseye
Old lady trouser-smell with yesterday's knickers
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2010
- Messages
- 8,826
- Location
- York
Well yes, but Walter Scott wasn't exactly known for his historical accuracy - and a novel is akin to ghost stories, they have to be 'dramatic'. Like all those heroines in the early B&W films being thrown out into the snow by rapacious landlords; no doubt it happened, but not quite as frequently as popular culture would have us believe.The plot of Heart of Midlothian revolves around a woman who was sentenced to death for concealing pregnancy and subsequently losing the baby. It is set in 1736 and was written in 1818.
Edit - sorry, he was stolen and sold by gypsies. Either way, it is not a good look for how unmarried mothers were treated.
Many many girls, particularly servant or working class girls got pregnant 'out of wedlock'. Lots of them. Many just got married off to the first man who'd have them, others just dumped the children on their mother or sisters. They weren't killing themselves in their thousands because of the 'shame'. Until the Victorians came along and told them they should.