ABSTRACT
In the last half-century changes in attitudes towards the family and food are considerable, not as striking as those towards marriage, but very important. Many young women may then have come to marriage not greatly aware of its sex side. For a very long time drink was, apart from the danger of 'the sack', the greatest fear of the respectable working-classes. It hung over many threatened households as heavily as the mortgage repayments can elsewhere. In earlier days one met on entering many a pub the mixed smell of beer and fags; today one is more likely, especially in the big cities and the not-predominantly working-class bars, to meet that of wine and drugs. It is 'common knowledge', though not widely enough admitted, that on the whole the health of working-class people before both of this century's major wars was much poorer than that of those in better-off groups.
