ABSTRACT
While adolescent sexuality, pregnancy, and childbearing in the United States are suddenly receiving an extraordinary amount of attention, there is almost no research available from the past on these issues. The age at menarche appears to be associated with many different factors, such as, fatness in adolescence, physique, health status, genetics, and socioeconomic status. The best-established factor, however, is nutrition with severe malnutrition delaying menarche. During the 1970s adolescent premarital sexual activity had increased dramatically. Zelnik and Kantner estimate that the percentage of never-married metropolitan area females ages 15–19 who have engaged in sexual intercourse increased from 27.6% in 1971 to 46.0% in 1979. In England the loosening of popular convention about sexual behavior quickly followed the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 as secularization replaced Puritanism. In New England there was a steady and quite visible erosion of church and civil opposition to premarital sexual activities.
