Facts

*In 1960, 1 in 3 children lived in poverty.
* Fewer than half the students who entered high school in the late 1940s ever finished.
* In 1940, one American child in ten did not live with either birth parent. Today the figure is one in twentyfive.
*More couples reported their marriage "happy" in 1977 than in 19537.
*A woman over 35 has a better chance of marrying today.
*In the 1950s, 25% of Americans lived below the poverty line.
*Men who failed to marry were considered immature, selfish, or homosexual. A man without a wife found it difficult finding work or getting promoted.
*Unmarried people were paid less than married people, becuase, "their needs were lesser."
*In her book, Private Lives: Men and Women in the '50s Benita Eisler quotes film producer Joel Schumacher, "No one told the thruth. People pretended they weren't unfaithful. They pretended they weren't homosexual. They pretended they weren't horrible." The uniformity we sense about the 50s, with everyone happily "fittint in" was, in fact, a great number of frightened people pretending to fit in and pretending to enjoy it.
*A "sure cure" for homosexuality for men or women was marriage. The myth was propagated not just by popular culture, but by the psychologists and psychiatrists as well. When marriage failed to be the "cure," as it always did, having a child would surely take care of the problem. When that didn't work, a second child was "prescribed." When that didn't work, well, the least you could do is pretend to be heterosexual and do your duty - for your children's sake.
*Alcoholism soared in the 1950s.
*Wife-beating was not really considered a crime. Many psychologists exaplined that battered wives were masochists who provoked their husbands into beating them.
*A husband raping his wife was not a crime at all, but a sign that the woman was deficient in fulfilling her marital obligations.
*One half of the marraiges that began in the 1950s ended in divorce.