ABSTRACT
This chapter considers pre-marital heterosexuality, examines marriage, and explores non-marital adult; heterosexuality. It begins by calling for the queering of heterosexuality as part of the historical approach to understanding individuals; lives and experiences. Helen Smith's work on male same-sex desire in the north of England has demonstrated how some working-class men saw sexual activities and/or relationships with other men as compatible with continued satisfaction in marital and domestic heterosexuality. The history of heterosexuality in the early to mid-twentieth century has traditionally focused on the ‘rise of companionate marriage’. Long-term marital separation was a fact of life for many migrant workers who had travelled to Britain alone to find work. The dominance of reproductive years in historical accounts of marital sexuality has limited our understanding of sexuality during mid- and later-life transitions such as having adult children, menopause, widowhood, divorce, retirement and old age.
