0:00:02 > 0:00:06# She walks like an angel walks... #
0:00:07 > 0:00:11In '60s Britain, the popular ideal of a happy marriage
0:00:11 > 0:00:16was still rooted in age-old beliefs about a woman's role in life.
0:00:16 > 0:00:20It was a world in which women aspired to be beauty queens and brides of the year.
0:00:20 > 0:00:26However, the next two decades would start to turn these traditional expectations upside down
0:00:26 > 0:00:32as a new generation of young women began to question everything they had been brought up to believe in.
0:00:33 > 0:00:36I knew I didn't want to end up like my mother.
0:00:36 > 0:00:41I wasn't sure quite what I wanted to end up like because I didn't have a role model
0:00:41 > 0:00:47and I didn't have anyone around that I could look at and think, "I want to be like her or her."
0:00:47 > 0:00:51All I knew was that I didn't want to end up with my mother's boiling sense
0:00:51 > 0:00:54of just not having had a fulfilled life.
0:00:56 > 0:01:00Feminism challenged the belief that a wife's duty was to love and obey
0:01:00 > 0:01:06and that her natural place was at home looking after her children while her husband provided for them.
0:01:06 > 0:01:10To be a housewife, once a source of pride,
0:01:10 > 0:01:12became a badge of oppression.
0:01:16 > 0:01:21Women were taught to be in a certain position without freedom
0:01:21 > 0:01:24and suddenly, we were going to explode that.
0:01:24 > 0:01:26The genie was out the bottle.
0:01:26 > 0:01:31We were not going to go back into marriage and the nuclear family
0:01:31 > 0:01:35which did look to many of us like a prison.
0:01:35 > 0:01:40Yet despite the furious debates that raged about feminism and the permissive society,
0:01:40 > 0:01:46in the '60s and '70s, most young couples never lost their faith in marriage.
0:01:46 > 0:01:49It was more popular than ever before.
0:01:49 > 0:01:52And in the '60s, the romantic dream of married love
0:01:52 > 0:01:56still involved a traditional courtship and a virgin bride.
0:01:58 > 0:02:02Marriage is living together, sharing your life together,
0:02:02 > 0:02:04and the sharing starts with marriage.
0:02:04 > 0:02:08You don't take slabs of cake before the party has started,
0:02:08 > 0:02:12so you don't take lumps of marriage before the marriage has started.
0:02:12 > 0:02:17It's a serious commitment. It isn't something you just pop in and out of on a Sunday afternoon.
0:02:17 > 0:02:20We really felt this was something important.
0:02:20 > 0:02:25It's what we wanted to do and what we felt was going to make the best of our lives together.
0:02:25 > 0:02:28# So, darling, darling
0:02:28 > 0:02:30# Stand by me
0:02:30 > 0:02:33# Oh, stand
0:02:33 > 0:02:36# By me
0:02:36 > 0:02:38# Oh, stand
0:02:38 > 0:02:40# Stand by me
0:02:40 > 0:02:42# Stand by me
0:02:42 > 0:02:44# Whenever you're in trouble... #
0:02:44 > 0:02:49In the early '60s, the young generation grew up in a world
0:02:49 > 0:02:53defined by very different masculine and feminine roles.
0:02:53 > 0:02:57In the mating game, there were clear rules of engagement.
0:02:57 > 0:03:00A pretty girl was the trophy sought by every boy,
0:03:00 > 0:03:04but for him to marry her, she had to resist his sexual advances.
0:03:05 > 0:03:11London convent girl Maureen Flanagan was going out with the local gang leader.
0:03:11 > 0:03:16He came from a family of seven brothers - the Flanagan brothers,
0:03:16 > 0:03:18famous in Islington.
0:03:18 > 0:03:21He wanted me because I was the prettiest girl out of our crowd.
0:03:21 > 0:03:25Maybe I wanted him because he was in charge of his crowd.
0:03:25 > 0:03:27# You can dance
0:03:27 > 0:03:31# You can dance with the guy that gives you the eye
0:03:31 > 0:03:34# And let him hold you tight... #
0:03:34 > 0:03:37I was the fashion girl in Islington.
0:03:37 > 0:03:40What I wore on one Friday night...
0:03:40 > 0:03:43Up at Gray's or the Tottenham Royal
0:03:43 > 0:03:45or the Lyceum in the West End.
0:03:45 > 0:03:49What I wore on that Friday, the other girls wore the next Friday.
0:03:49 > 0:03:51# So, darling
0:03:51 > 0:03:54# Save the last dance for me... #
0:03:54 > 0:03:58So that was OK because he was quite proud of that.
0:03:58 > 0:04:02Nobody could come over and ask you to dance without asking him first.
0:04:04 > 0:04:08In the courtship ritual, a girl's virginity was her most prized asset.
0:04:08 > 0:04:13The only safe way to have sex was to marry young and many did.
0:04:14 > 0:04:16There was absolutely no sex.
0:04:16 > 0:04:21If I would have not been a virgin when he met me at 17, that would have been it.
0:04:21 > 0:04:25I might have been a bird for the night, girlfriend for a week,
0:04:25 > 0:04:28but never a proper girlfriend and never a wife.
0:04:28 > 0:04:30Even to assure him...
0:04:30 > 0:04:35I mean, I swore on my dad's, my mum's life that I had never had sex with the first boyfriend.
0:04:35 > 0:04:39But to assure him, he even went and asked him,
0:04:39 > 0:04:43and he assured him, "No, just kisses and cuddles. I never touched her.
0:04:43 > 0:04:47"I never did anything. I never saw her bedroom. Never, ever."
0:04:47 > 0:04:50That's how you had to be. You had to be a virgin.
0:04:52 > 0:04:55The popularity of the '60s white wedding
0:04:55 > 0:04:59was for most women both a fashion statement
0:04:59 > 0:05:02and a hard-earned symbol of sexual purity.
0:05:02 > 0:05:06My mother wanted me to wear a long, white wedding dress.
0:05:07 > 0:05:11I'd seen a picture of Brigitte Bardot getting married in a magazine
0:05:11 > 0:05:16in broderie anglaise, in a plain broderie anglaise, a little flared dress.
0:05:16 > 0:05:20I had to have the same. I couldn't find one anywhere.
0:05:20 > 0:05:23And so I went to Losners, the hire place,
0:05:23 > 0:05:27and there was a little broderie anglaise, nipped into the waist,
0:05:27 > 0:05:32flared out, so you could wear lots of petticoats, plain neckline, little veil.
0:05:32 > 0:05:37The wedding had to be, of course, in a Catholic church, on the 14th of January, 1961,
0:05:37 > 0:05:40a week before I was 20.
0:05:40 > 0:05:43# Love and marriage, love and marriage... #
0:05:43 > 0:05:47At the other end of the social scale,
0:05:47 > 0:05:53well-bred daughters of Britain's aristocracy met their marriage partners in the London season.
0:05:53 > 0:06:00It used to begin with an exclusive rite of passage - the presentation of debutantes to the Queen.
0:06:00 > 0:06:06This marked the entry of a procession of virgins into the upper-class marriage market.
0:06:06 > 0:06:12Fiona MacCarthy was one of the last debutantes to take part in a royal ritual that was phased out in 1958.
0:06:13 > 0:06:17We all knew that this was ending, that we were the last of the debs,
0:06:17 > 0:06:21so this gave it a kind of extra frisson of excitement,
0:06:21 > 0:06:23but all the same,
0:06:23 > 0:06:28I remember just having one of those little moments of thinking,
0:06:28 > 0:06:32"This is a strange thing. What am I doing here?"
0:06:36 > 0:06:40A debutante's virginity was vital to her reputation
0:06:40 > 0:06:42and to her marriage prospects.
0:06:42 > 0:06:47We were in this world where really sex wasn't talked about.
0:06:47 > 0:06:52You never really spoke about it. It was a completely mysterious world.
0:06:52 > 0:06:56And I think a very, very high proportion of those girls
0:06:56 > 0:07:00who curtsied to the Queen in 1958 would have been virgins.
0:07:00 > 0:07:02A very high proportion.
0:07:03 > 0:07:05During the course of the season,
0:07:05 > 0:07:10most of the young debutantes found an eligible young man to marry,
0:07:10 > 0:07:13but Fiona was the exception to the rule.
0:07:13 > 0:07:21I was one of the very few girls who had actually got a place at university at this point.
0:07:21 > 0:07:24I had got a place at Oxford
0:07:24 > 0:07:29and I didn't want to get into the marriage market too early.
0:07:29 > 0:07:33I was very excited about going to university.
0:07:34 > 0:07:38Fiona met her future husband Ian while studying at Oxford.
0:07:41 > 0:07:45I got married almost immediately after Oxford
0:07:45 > 0:07:50and I married someone in my predictable social circle
0:07:50 > 0:07:53who was at Oxford with me.
0:07:53 > 0:07:57He was from a very similar background to my own.
0:07:58 > 0:08:02He was different because he was very, very intelligent,
0:08:02 > 0:08:06much cleverer than most of the men that I had met during the season.
0:08:07 > 0:08:10And we married when I was only 21.
0:08:13 > 0:08:19In the '60s, there was a new honesty about the problems faced by young, middle-class courting couples
0:08:19 > 0:08:22who were saving up to get married and start a family.
0:08:22 > 0:08:30In 1966, the documentary series Man Alive told the story of Alan and Judith Ketley.
0:08:30 > 0:08:35It's difficult to imagine when you're that age that you're going to buy houses,
0:08:35 > 0:08:37have children, have a career,
0:08:37 > 0:08:40but somewhere in your mind,
0:08:40 > 0:08:45you've got that sort of thinking going on and when you meet somebody like Judith,
0:08:45 > 0:08:49you know that's the sort of person you could develop the foundations to do that.
0:08:49 > 0:08:52I was only happy when I was with him.
0:08:52 > 0:08:56I realised that what I really wanted to do was to be with him
0:08:56 > 0:08:59and very, very quickly I realised that.
0:08:59 > 0:09:04We sat on the settee quite often some nights and I put my arm round Judith.
0:09:04 > 0:09:07I'd think nobody's looking, lean over and give her a kiss.
0:09:07 > 0:09:09He doesn't like that at all.
0:09:10 > 0:09:15Living at home, courtship could be sexually frustrating.
0:09:15 > 0:09:20Alan and Judith found an ingenious way to be alone together, but didn't go all the way.
0:09:20 > 0:09:23Judith had her own transport
0:09:23 > 0:09:26which was our passion wagon,
0:09:26 > 0:09:32a little Mini van that she'd managed to buy, which was pretty impressive.
0:09:32 > 0:09:36It meant she was good financially if she could afford to buy a vehicle.
0:09:36 > 0:09:42I was a teacher at the time and the staff at school, when I arrived with this car, they laughed
0:09:42 > 0:09:46and said, "Judith's got a passion wagon." So this name caught on.
0:09:47 > 0:09:51When Alan won a scholarship to study at Kew for a year,
0:09:51 > 0:09:57being apart was so frustrating for them, they decided to bring forward their engagement.
0:09:59 > 0:10:05I remember saving up because when you're only on £5 or £6 a week, you have to do an awful lot of saving.
0:10:05 > 0:10:10It was a big event because we went down Manchester and bought the ring that Judith wanted.
0:10:10 > 0:10:14My ring has got a ruby in the middle and a diamond at each side
0:10:14 > 0:10:18and Alan always described it as "no smoking in the middle
0:10:18 > 0:10:23"and six months' overtime at each side" because he had to save up for it,
0:10:23 > 0:10:27but it's very, very special and very precious.
0:10:27 > 0:10:32Alan and Judith planned a one-year engagement strictly without sex.
0:10:34 > 0:10:36If you think it's worth fighting for,
0:10:36 > 0:10:40the struggle for virginity is maybe the hardest of a long engagement.
0:10:40 > 0:10:45It may be a self-inflicted hardship, but that doesn't make it any more bearable.
0:10:45 > 0:10:48It gets a bit hard to bear at times.
0:10:48 > 0:10:50Obviously.
0:10:50 > 0:10:52A certain amount of restraint.
0:10:52 > 0:10:55If you're going to believe in white weddings,
0:10:55 > 0:10:58then it's a bit hard waiting, isn't it, sometimes?
0:10:59 > 0:11:02If you got married in a white dress,
0:11:02 > 0:11:07then the white dress stood for the fact that you were still a virgin.
0:11:07 > 0:11:13And that's what I wanted. That's really, really what I wanted.
0:11:13 > 0:11:17Our point of view was that if you were going to enter into marriage,
0:11:17 > 0:11:24sleeping together first didn't really fit in with the idea of a lifelong commitment and marriage.
0:11:24 > 0:11:29Alan and Judith have been happily married for 45 years
0:11:29 > 0:11:32and have two children and four grandchildren.
0:11:35 > 0:11:37The taboo on sex outside of marriage
0:11:37 > 0:11:41was reinforced by the beliefs of the churches,
0:11:41 > 0:11:44all of which remained very influential in the '60s
0:11:44 > 0:11:50and continued to teach that sexual pleasure could only be safely enjoyed in marriage.
0:11:50 > 0:11:55The heroic struggle to control sinful sexual instincts through a life of devotion to God
0:11:55 > 0:12:01was one which attracted some idealistic teenagers into the priesthood, like Richard Holloway.
0:12:02 > 0:12:05I was trained by a monastic community
0:12:05 > 0:12:08and I conceived this grand idea
0:12:08 > 0:12:10that I would give myself away to God
0:12:10 > 0:12:13in a life of poverty, celibacy and obedience.
0:12:14 > 0:12:20I always felt that a real man of God or a priest would not have sex.
0:12:21 > 0:12:26And I had a highly libidinous nature, so I found this a particular struggle.
0:12:26 > 0:12:32I don't recommend hitting puberty in a monastery. It's not the best place to negotiate that.
0:12:32 > 0:12:34Richard gave up his vows of celibacy
0:12:34 > 0:12:38to become a curate in the Glasgow Gorbals
0:12:38 > 0:12:42where he dedicated his young life to bringing Christian compassion
0:12:42 > 0:12:47into one of the most impoverished, yet exuberant communities in Britain.
0:12:47 > 0:12:51Then after a holiday to Manhattan, he met Jean
0:12:51 > 0:12:56and in 1962, invited her back to the Gorbals to join him in his work.
0:12:56 > 0:12:59Whilst working together, they fell in love,
0:12:59 > 0:13:03but Richard was confused and consumed by guilt.
0:13:05 > 0:13:12I suppose I had interiorised very strongly this church notion I had inherited
0:13:12 > 0:13:16that the first-class life was the single, celibate life.
0:13:16 > 0:13:19That's what the real, heroic Christian did.
0:13:20 > 0:13:23And I had fallen in love with Jean
0:13:23 > 0:13:28and I wanted her to be part of my life,
0:13:28 > 0:13:30and yet I was ashamed...
0:13:30 > 0:13:36When we were out together and I had a clerical collar on, I wouldn't hold her hand.
0:13:36 > 0:13:40It took me a wee while to admit even that we were engaged
0:13:40 > 0:13:48because...because of that strange kind of tug back to that particular ethos.
0:13:48 > 0:13:51How she stood it, I don't know.
0:13:51 > 0:13:56Despite this, Richard and Jean decided to get married
0:13:56 > 0:13:59and she returned from New York for the wedding,
0:13:59 > 0:14:05but it was such a big decision, they worried they were doing the right thing.
0:14:05 > 0:14:11I met her at Prestwick Airport and I could see that she was distressed, very distressed.
0:14:11 > 0:14:16And we got up into the flat in 10 Abbotsford Place
0:14:16 > 0:14:21and she burst into tears and said she didn't think she could go ahead with it -
0:14:21 > 0:14:25this cultural shift from Manhattan to Gorbals
0:14:25 > 0:14:29to marry a man she didn't know very well.
0:14:31 > 0:14:33And a bit of me was...
0:14:33 > 0:14:36She says... I can't believe it, but she says, um...
0:14:37 > 0:14:42I said, "Well, I'm not bothered," or something horrible like that.
0:14:46 > 0:14:49And, uh...I said, "OK, so the pressure's off."
0:14:49 > 0:14:53We weren't... We were going to delay it, cancel it
0:14:53 > 0:14:59and I said, "But can you help me find furniture because I'm going to have to move in here,
0:14:59 > 0:15:05"because I'm going to become priest in charge of St Margaret's and St Mungo's?"
0:15:05 > 0:15:09And so we kicked around the second-hand salerooms...
0:15:10 > 0:15:14..in Glasgow and picked up bits and pieces,
0:15:14 > 0:15:18and gradually doing it, she kind of relaxed
0:15:18 > 0:15:21and we kind of fell in love again.
0:15:21 > 0:15:24She decided, "Yeah, let's do it,"
0:15:24 > 0:15:28so we did, we got married on a cold April day.
0:15:30 > 0:15:34We were married by my bishop, whom I loved, Francis Moncrieff.
0:15:35 > 0:15:40We wanted him in the wedding photograph and he said, um...
0:15:40 > 0:15:44"If I come into the photograph, I have to be in the centre."
0:15:46 > 0:15:51So there's our wedding photograph of me and Jeanie
0:15:51 > 0:15:54with the bishop in a mitre in the middle of us,
0:15:54 > 0:15:56looking very austere.
0:16:00 > 0:16:05The '50s and '60s saw a wave of immigration from the Caribbean to Britain,
0:16:05 > 0:16:09adding a mixed race dimension to the dating game.
0:16:09 > 0:16:14Many of these newcomers also had strict codes of conduct on courtship and marriage,
0:16:14 > 0:16:18shaped by their religious beliefs.
0:16:18 > 0:16:22In the '50s, convent girl Ros Howells came from Grenada to London
0:16:22 > 0:16:25to study and it was here she met John.
0:16:26 > 0:16:29I was ice-cool, you know?
0:16:30 > 0:16:34Now, I don't know whether John found that a challenge
0:16:34 > 0:16:37because he was not...
0:16:37 > 0:16:43I just knew we were going out, but we weren't going out, if you know what I mean.
0:16:43 > 0:16:45You know, he would be there
0:16:45 > 0:16:51and he would walk me home or he'd say, "Let's go for a coffee or something."
0:16:51 > 0:16:57And my idea was I was going to be here for a while and go back to Grenada. You know?
0:16:57 > 0:17:01It wasn't something that I was looking for a husband.
0:17:03 > 0:17:06# Oh, won't you come home, Bill Bailey?
0:17:06 > 0:17:09# Come on home She moans... #
0:17:09 > 0:17:13Despite her misgivings, Ros fell in love.
0:17:13 > 0:17:18There was never any doubt, though, she would remain a virgin.
0:17:18 > 0:17:21# I know I done you wrong
0:17:21 > 0:17:24# Yes, indeedy... #
0:17:24 > 0:17:26By the time we had kissed, I was in love.
0:17:26 > 0:17:33I wasn't in lust because I was brought up in the way that I know he wasn't going further than a kiss
0:17:33 > 0:17:35and he probably knew that too.
0:17:36 > 0:17:39But in Britain at this time,
0:17:39 > 0:17:44those who loved across the racial divide were breaking a very powerful taboo.
0:17:44 > 0:17:49If detected, they were likely to face prejudice and hostility.
0:17:49 > 0:17:54And if they planned to get married, they could expect disapproval from both sets of parents,
0:17:54 > 0:17:59so when John proposed, Ros saw disaster ahead.
0:18:02 > 0:18:06I think the first time we had a serious conversation
0:18:06 > 0:18:11was when he said to me, "We're off on Wednesday. Let's go and buy an engagement ring."
0:18:11 > 0:18:16I said, "Are you mad? Are you out of your mind? What will your mother do?"
0:18:16 > 0:18:20"It's nothing to do with anybody but me."
0:18:21 > 0:18:24So he went, we went, we bought the ring.
0:18:24 > 0:18:26One person can't fight this alone.
0:18:26 > 0:18:29Prejudice won't always exist. It can't.
0:18:29 > 0:18:33I shan't live to see the end of it and neither will you.
0:18:33 > 0:18:36- You can't fight it alone.- I can try!
0:18:36 > 0:18:41This kind of deep-seated colour prejudice was an issue explored in feature films of the time,
0:18:41 > 0:18:48yet despite receiving a letter from her father advising her that mixed marriages rarely lasted,
0:18:48 > 0:18:52Ros married her fiance John after a one-year engagement.
0:18:53 > 0:18:57He was much more interested in getting married.
0:18:57 > 0:19:04I think I enjoyed being in love and having an escort and going places wherever we went,
0:19:04 > 0:19:08but I knew that I didn't want to be with anybody else.
0:19:08 > 0:19:11For me, that was the thing.
0:19:11 > 0:19:15Would I like to have breakfast with this man for the rest of my life?
0:19:15 > 0:19:18I knew that was OK, that was what I wanted to do.
0:19:18 > 0:19:23You're worried about what the neighbours will say. Prejudice? You're riddled with it!
0:19:23 > 0:19:27It's all over your face. All you can see is black, black!
0:19:27 > 0:19:29I'm ashamed of you.
0:19:29 > 0:19:34When I think of you and that man sharing the same bed...
0:19:34 > 0:19:36Oh, Mum!
0:19:36 > 0:19:40It's filthy, disgusting. It makes my stomach turn over and...
0:19:40 > 0:19:45An incident happened to me in my early years of being married
0:19:45 > 0:19:49where I came out of the cinema with my husband.
0:19:49 > 0:19:54We'd had a really good evening. It was lovely. We only had a short walk home.
0:19:54 > 0:19:58And suddenly, there was somebody in my space.
0:20:00 > 0:20:05And I realised, I thought at first, you know, we would cross,
0:20:05 > 0:20:09then she came right up to me and said, "You black bitch!"
0:20:09 > 0:20:11And she spat in my face.
0:20:11 > 0:20:14It was all over my coat. It was there.
0:20:14 > 0:20:20And my husband suddenly woke up to the fact that I was by then shouting at her
0:20:20 > 0:20:24and said, "What's happened?" I told him and I said...
0:20:24 > 0:20:26"You know, this woman..."
0:20:26 > 0:20:30And he said, "Leave her alone. She's ignorant. Let her go."
0:20:30 > 0:20:33And I was so angry...
0:20:34 > 0:20:39..with her, and by then, I would be getting angry with him.
0:20:41 > 0:20:46Then in the late '60s came a challenge to every traditional idea of love and marriage -
0:20:46 > 0:20:49the sexual revolution.
0:20:49 > 0:20:55Its main target was the taboo on sex before marriage, its great ally, the Pill.
0:20:55 > 0:21:00Swinging London was the trailblazer of the new permissive culture.
0:21:00 > 0:21:07It attracted young women eager to break with convention and lose their virginity, like Rosie Boycott.
0:21:07 > 0:21:09I desperately wanted to be cool.
0:21:09 > 0:21:12I wanted to be a hip, swinging chick.
0:21:12 > 0:21:15"Chick" was a word that was used a lot.
0:21:15 > 0:21:19At that point, it was perfectly OK to be a chick.
0:21:20 > 0:21:26I wanted to be... All those expressions, where it was at, where it was happening.
0:21:26 > 0:21:32I wanted to be cool, so of course, I pretended that I had done this lots of times before.
0:21:32 > 0:21:35# Let's spend the night together... #
0:21:35 > 0:21:41This sexual permissiveness, however, came at a price, and it suited the men far more than the women.
0:21:41 > 0:21:45It often led to deception, regret and heartbreak.
0:21:45 > 0:21:51The glamorous world of rock stars, photographers and models was not all it seemed.
0:21:51 > 0:21:53Take your hat over a bit.
0:21:53 > 0:21:58On the surface of it, people would say, "This is great for everybody."
0:21:58 > 0:22:00Bit further.
0:22:00 > 0:22:07But actually, what was happening was that women were expected to favour free love all the time
0:22:07 > 0:22:11and if they didn't want it, then they were regarded as straight and square
0:22:11 > 0:22:14and those were the kind of words you used.
0:22:14 > 0:22:18So you would be seen as uncool which was truly a bad thing to do,
0:22:18 > 0:22:21so women had no manoeuvrability.
0:22:21 > 0:22:23No, no. That's good like that.
0:22:23 > 0:22:26Good. Then let your eyes come round to me.
0:22:26 > 0:22:28Keep that hand where it was.
0:22:28 > 0:22:32In many ways, I think women were in an even further bind.
0:22:32 > 0:22:36I'm not saying this was like saying you need to preserve your virginity
0:22:36 > 0:22:40in order to make yourself worth something to the person you marry,
0:22:40 > 0:22:45but it was an exploitation and everyone was trying something out.
0:22:45 > 0:22:52And in a way, for blokes, yes, it was like arriving in a sweet shop and the sweets were free.
0:22:55 > 0:23:00Some of the young women in swinging London started to re-imagine a new role for themselves
0:23:00 > 0:23:02and a new relationship with men.
0:23:02 > 0:23:07It involved a fundamental rethink of what marriage and the family was all about.
0:23:10 > 0:23:16Marriage and the nuclear family will carry on until a woman can survive alone, be paid as much as a man,
0:23:16 > 0:23:20be able to have her children looked after during the day and have a job.
0:23:20 > 0:23:25We'd all come from backgrounds where there was the same kind of story,
0:23:25 > 0:23:29you know, which was the dad doing everything and the mum at home,
0:23:29 > 0:23:35regardless of whether the mum was cleverer than the dad or more capable or whatever,
0:23:35 > 0:23:41but a feeling that our mums had, on the whole, had narrow and frustrating lives.
0:23:41 > 0:23:44And we didn't want those lives.
0:23:45 > 0:23:49# If you want a do-right-all-day... #
0:23:49 > 0:23:55Rosie and her fellow feminists set out to help create a more equal world
0:23:55 > 0:24:01that would liberate women from lives of domestic drudgery, believing this could benefit men too.
0:24:01 > 0:24:05To this end, she co-founded the feminist magazine Spare Rib
0:24:05 > 0:24:08with Marsha Rowe in 1971.
0:24:09 > 0:24:13We wrote the first editorial for the first issue of Spare Rib
0:24:13 > 0:24:17and we said, "This is for men and for women."
0:24:17 > 0:24:23We had this naive but... It's incredibly important to have those optimistic views.
0:24:23 > 0:24:28Or I had it. I don't want to speak for Marsha. I thought, "This is going to be great.
0:24:28 > 0:24:34"I don't know what it's going to be, but everyone's going to embrace this and love having this equality."
0:24:34 > 0:24:37# Now, John Henry, he was a little boy
0:24:37 > 0:24:41# He was sitting on his papa's knee... #
0:24:41 > 0:24:46The late '60s and early '70s also saw the emergence of a counter-culture
0:24:46 > 0:24:51that grew out of the radical student movement in the universities.
0:24:51 > 0:24:55It embraced left-wing politics and workers' rights
0:24:55 > 0:24:58and called for the creation of a more equal society,
0:24:58 > 0:25:05yet ironically, the men were often unaware of their own very unequal attitude to women,
0:25:05 > 0:25:07as Anne Geraghty discovered.
0:25:07 > 0:25:13We went into one pub, it was in Sheffield, and we were told you can't serve women in here.
0:25:13 > 0:25:17"Women can have a drink, but only in the bar next door."
0:25:17 > 0:25:20And actually, they couldn't buy the drinks.
0:25:20 > 0:25:23Only our men could buy the drinks in the bar.
0:25:23 > 0:25:25It was like suddenly...
0:25:25 > 0:25:30We'd just been discussing workers, the revolution and the rights of the workers
0:25:30 > 0:25:37and suddenly, here we were about to walk quietly and sip Babychams in the lounge.
0:25:37 > 0:25:43Suddenly, we looked at each other and we thought, "Hey, hang on a minute, this is a bit weird."
0:25:48 > 0:25:52Suddenly, it was like, "Hey... We're not having this."
0:25:52 > 0:25:56And we started having meetings, just the women.
0:25:56 > 0:25:59# What you want
0:25:59 > 0:26:01# Baby, I got... #
0:26:02 > 0:26:06Out of experiences like these emerged a women's movement
0:26:06 > 0:26:10that soon grew in strength and campaigned for women's rights.
0:26:10 > 0:26:16At the heart of demands for change was a questioning of the power relationship between men and women
0:26:16 > 0:26:19and the rejection of marriage and traditional family life.
0:26:20 > 0:26:25We were discovering new freedoms in many different ways.
0:26:25 > 0:26:29It was like, "Sexual freedom, why not have that?"
0:26:29 > 0:26:33I mean, this was questioning one of the basic assumptions
0:26:33 > 0:26:36in a way that society is organised upon
0:26:36 > 0:26:39which is patriarchy, the rule of the father,
0:26:39 > 0:26:43has to know that that woman is not going to go...
0:26:43 > 0:26:49you know, go off and make love with somebody else because he doesn't know who his children are otherwise,
0:26:49 > 0:26:55so by definition, patriarchy requires women to be sexually controlled.
0:26:56 > 0:27:00And suddenly, we were going to explode that.
0:27:00 > 0:27:03We were not going to go back... The genie was out the bottle.
0:27:03 > 0:27:08We were not going to go back into marriage and the nuclear family
0:27:08 > 0:27:11which did look to many of us like a prison.
0:27:13 > 0:27:16The new consumer society of the affluent '60s
0:27:16 > 0:27:21seemed to have created a glossy material world of egotism and excess
0:27:21 > 0:27:26that was condemned by feminists and political radicals alike.
0:27:26 > 0:27:31Some of these young men and women looked for an alternative way of life
0:27:31 > 0:27:34like Martin Gerrish who, as the eldest son,
0:27:34 > 0:27:38was expecting to have to enter his family's manufacturing business.
0:27:38 > 0:27:40The expectation on me was quite subtle.
0:27:40 > 0:27:44I was the eldest son, I had the same name as my father,
0:27:44 > 0:27:47my grandfather and my great-grandfather.
0:27:47 > 0:27:51The eldest son always had the name William, so my name is William Martin
0:27:51 > 0:27:57and my father's name is William Jack and my grandfather's name is William Ewart Ebenezer,
0:27:57 > 0:27:59so we all have this first name
0:27:59 > 0:28:05which is kind of like the Gerrish kind of stamp for the eldest son.
0:28:06 > 0:28:09To escape this inheritance, Martin got as far away
0:28:09 > 0:28:13from marriage and traditional family life as he could.
0:28:13 > 0:28:16Like many others of his generation, he dropped out
0:28:16 > 0:28:21and set off on the hippie trail to India on a journey of self-discovery.
0:28:21 > 0:28:28He planned to join the Orange People in an ashram set up by Bhagwan in Poona.
0:28:28 > 0:28:33The aim of this experimental community was to bring peace and love to the world
0:28:33 > 0:28:36by finding an alternative to marriage.
0:28:36 > 0:28:40The nuclear family would be a thing of the past.
0:28:40 > 0:28:42Martin couldn't wait to get there.
0:28:42 > 0:28:46We got two buses together, two 25-seater buses,
0:28:46 > 0:28:51and 50 of us got in a bus, two buses,
0:28:51 > 0:28:53and drove overland to India.
0:28:54 > 0:28:57We got to Poona eventually after six months
0:28:57 > 0:29:01and Bhagwan who was there was really creating an amazing experiment.
0:29:01 > 0:29:05He was really saying, you know, "Be yourself."
0:29:05 > 0:29:12"Thou art that" was the word that was across the top of the ashram. "Be whatever you are."
0:29:12 > 0:29:16Live it. Live what you are. And find out from living it
0:29:16 > 0:29:20rather than from some theoretical knowledge. Live it.
0:29:20 > 0:29:25Live your sexuality. Live your emotions. Live your feelings.
0:29:25 > 0:29:30Live your truth. And see where that takes you.
0:29:30 > 0:29:34And I jumped in. I loved it. I loved the ashram.
0:29:34 > 0:29:42I loved what it was about, that we were there collectively really trying to change the world.
0:29:42 > 0:29:45SINGING "Jerusalem"
0:29:47 > 0:29:52The legend of the Swinging Sixties is one of a mass sexual rebellion inspired by the pill
0:29:52 > 0:29:56and the permissive society, but the true picture is very different.
0:29:56 > 0:30:02Britain remained, for the most part, a conservative nation in which lifelong marriage was still
0:30:02 > 0:30:04one of the foundation stones.
0:30:04 > 0:30:10In 1969, there were still only four divorces for every 1,000 married couples.
0:30:10 > 0:30:16Nevertheless, there was a restlessness and a spirit of change, especially among women.
0:30:18 > 0:30:25I was getting a little restless with the role of the executive wife
0:30:25 > 0:30:31and I was incredibly bored with the whole social ritual that I was still involved with
0:30:31 > 0:30:36because my husband was very much part of an Essex county set.
0:30:38 > 0:30:45Then, one evening, as everyone started to let themselves go, came the defining moment of Fiona's life.
0:30:45 > 0:30:53I do remember my moment of revelation, of thinking I just cannot go through with this life.
0:30:53 > 0:30:57It actually happened at a dreadful, dreadful hunt ball.
0:30:59 > 0:31:03Fiona had begun a career as a journalist for the Guardian
0:31:03 > 0:31:09and the huge gulf between life as a county set wife and an independent journalist was a bridge too far.
0:31:09 > 0:31:15The whole ambience of the Guardian unsettled me, really.
0:31:15 > 0:31:19The sort of work that I was doing, the sort of people I was meeting.
0:31:21 > 0:31:24Within two years, Fiona had her own Guardian column,
0:31:24 > 0:31:31writing about all the big changes in Sixties Britain in politics, the arts, fashion and design.
0:31:31 > 0:31:36I went to interview a young designer called David Mellor.
0:31:36 > 0:31:41He was one of the Swinging Sixties' coming figures.
0:31:41 > 0:31:47He was based in Sheffield. He was a silversmith, a metal worker.
0:31:50 > 0:31:55David Mellor was one of a group of young, working-class designers who broke with convention.
0:31:55 > 0:32:02In his workshop in Sheffield, his iconic cutlery designs were emblematic of Sixties innovation.
0:32:02 > 0:32:05For Fiona, it was love at first sight.
0:32:05 > 0:32:10I shocked a lot of my family, a lot of my friends
0:32:10 > 0:32:15because I think that the whole class thing was very mystifying to them.
0:32:15 > 0:32:19Why would I give up such a suitable marriage?
0:32:19 > 0:32:22Everyone thought this was a perfect marriage for me.
0:32:22 > 0:32:27But dissolving a seemingly-perfect marriage in the mid-Sixties wasn't easy.
0:32:27 > 0:32:32The law demanded irrefutable proof of adultery. Someone had to be guilty.
0:32:32 > 0:32:37Everything hinged on evidence of a matrimonial offence
0:32:37 > 0:32:41and, to get it, private detectives stalked the land.
0:32:41 > 0:32:45I remember we were visited by an inspector
0:32:45 > 0:32:51who wanted to make absolutely, em, sure that we were living together,
0:32:51 > 0:32:57which meant that he poked around in the bedroom and found that my clothes were in the wardrobe.
0:32:59 > 0:33:03It wasn't such an alarming thing as you might think.
0:33:03 > 0:33:09He was quite a sweet, bumbling, old man and because I was a journalist,
0:33:09 > 0:33:12I actually was really interested in his story.
0:33:12 > 0:33:18We sat down and had a cup of tea afterwards and he told me about his road in life
0:33:18 > 0:33:21and his extraordinary career of snooping about in people's bedrooms.
0:33:23 > 0:33:26Fiona married David in 1966.
0:33:26 > 0:33:31She felt liberated by the creative freedom she could enjoy in her new marriage
0:33:31 > 0:33:38and developed her career as a successful writer, alongside bringing up their two children.
0:33:38 > 0:33:40It was a very exciting time
0:33:40 > 0:33:46and I felt really glad that the children could have a sort of different upbringing
0:33:46 > 0:33:50because my upbringing had been so closed.
0:33:51 > 0:33:55Sending our children to comprehensive schools,
0:33:55 > 0:33:59they were mixing with children from all backgrounds and nationalities
0:33:59 > 0:34:05and I thought that this was a much, much better kind of basis
0:34:05 > 0:34:10for living a proper, fulfilled life.
0:34:11 > 0:34:14# How sweet it is... #
0:34:14 > 0:34:19In the Sixties, Maureen Flanagan's career as a fashion model took off,
0:34:19 > 0:34:23but she was married to a traditional and very possessive working-class husband.
0:34:23 > 0:34:29The pride he'd once felt at marrying the prettiest girl in the neighbourhood and a virgin bride
0:34:29 > 0:34:32was turning to resentment.
0:34:32 > 0:34:36I started appearing in newspapers. Swimming costumes, bikinis,
0:34:36 > 0:34:41lots of leg work because I always got the leg work on any job. I just had those legs.
0:34:41 > 0:34:48Whereas a lot of girls I was going on auditions with just went home to their boyfriends or their mum,
0:34:48 > 0:34:52I was going home to a man who was coming in at six o'clock
0:34:52 > 0:34:57from having worked very hard on an asphalt gang. It is very hard.
0:34:57 > 0:35:01He wanted a bath, but he was Irish and he wanted a dinner.
0:35:01 > 0:35:05- #- How sweet it is to be loved by you...- #
0:35:05 > 0:35:09And that's when the rows really started.
0:35:09 > 0:35:16He'd want to see the pictures, ask me about the photographer, how many people were in the room.
0:35:16 > 0:35:21Sometimes you'd get home at eight o'clock, nine o'clock. Oh! And then the rages.
0:35:21 > 0:35:28And with me being a bit feisty, I'd say, "Why didn't you ring the studio and find out?"
0:35:28 > 0:35:32"You can't be going out of here at nine o'clock and back at nine!"
0:35:32 > 0:35:39And I got a few clumps. Never, ever, in the ten years I was married to him, never touched my face.
0:35:39 > 0:35:42Never punched me in the face or anywhere it would show.
0:35:42 > 0:35:48You'd argue together and I'd turn round and walk away and got punched in the back of the head.
0:35:48 > 0:35:52- #- How sweet it is to be loved by you...- #
0:35:52 > 0:35:57Then, of course, I was asked to do some what I call glamour shots. Sexy shots.
0:35:57 > 0:36:02They were topless shots, but you were holding your arms across you, or a side-on shot.
0:36:02 > 0:36:07And then I was asked to do some topless shots for The Sun.
0:36:08 > 0:36:14I got strangled, I got thrown into this bedroom, he broke a mirror throwing me against the wall.
0:36:15 > 0:36:21I fled the marital home with these strangulation marks around my neck
0:36:21 > 0:36:27and I think I'd a bruise on the side of my face here. He hadn't hit me there. I knocked against something.
0:36:27 > 0:36:32Anyway, I fled to my friend, another model friend, in Knightsbridge.
0:36:32 > 0:36:36Maureen's escape from her husband was her first step to freedom.
0:36:36 > 0:36:42The 1969 Divorce Reform Act made it easier to get out of an unhappy marriage.
0:36:42 > 0:36:48No longer did partners have to prove the other was at fault. A period of separation was sufficient grounds.
0:36:48 > 0:36:51At last I felt wonderfully free
0:36:51 > 0:36:56and I felt as though I was in charge of me, other than being somebody's wife,
0:36:56 > 0:37:02somebody that I had to be home for, somebody I had to peel the potatoes and make dinner for.
0:37:02 > 0:37:07I just was me and I was in charge of my destiny.
0:37:07 > 0:37:10And I intended it to be good.
0:37:11 > 0:37:15Five years after her divorce, Maureen fell in love with Terry,
0:37:15 > 0:37:19a successful businessman and a free spirit.
0:37:19 > 0:37:25He encouraged her to continue her career and made her feel as sexy as she looked.
0:37:25 > 0:37:28It was carefree. All inhibitions flew out of the window.
0:37:28 > 0:37:33I knew what I looked like. I knew I was pretty and he'd fancy me,
0:37:33 > 0:37:39but I never thought I was sexy. I could never be sexual. I'd never done anything sexual.
0:37:39 > 0:37:45In my ten years of marriage, I'd gone to bed and there wasn't any foreplay.
0:37:45 > 0:37:49It's kisses, cuddles, touching of boobs and then sex.
0:37:49 > 0:37:52So I'd never had to maybe dress up
0:37:52 > 0:37:57and look beautiful. I'd never had to put a pair of stockings on.
0:37:57 > 0:38:01I'd only done it for a photo shoot, never for my husband
0:38:01 > 0:38:06because I didn't feel sexy. He never made me feel sexy.
0:38:06 > 0:38:10I'd never had an orgasm. Never had an orgasm in ten years.
0:38:10 > 0:38:17I know I didn't because at that time, when I had that orgasm, I thought, "Jesus! What is this?!"
0:38:17 > 0:38:20- #- Now that I have found you...- #
0:38:20 > 0:38:25After the birth of their son in 1976, Maureen and Terry married.
0:38:25 > 0:38:29Maureen's modelling career has continued to this day.
0:38:34 > 0:38:40Richard Holloway's marriage was also tested. His passionate campaign as a priest in the Glasgow Gorbals
0:38:40 > 0:38:45to fight poverty and improve housing put a huge strain on his young family.
0:38:45 > 0:38:50But in the end it made his marriage stronger.
0:38:50 > 0:38:54It hasn't been easy trying to be a kind of...
0:38:54 > 0:38:58a person who is there mainly for others,
0:38:58 > 0:39:03but, you know, we kind of soldiered through it all,
0:39:04 > 0:39:10and, of course, bringing children into those circumstances is quite a privilege, too.
0:39:10 > 0:39:13It's the opposite of a cloistered nuclear family.
0:39:13 > 0:39:18You're sharing your home, your relationship's with everyone
0:39:18 > 0:39:22because in a sense you're kind of married to a parish as well.
0:39:22 > 0:39:28So it brings riches as well as challenges and difficulties.
0:39:30 > 0:39:36The church was very apprehensive about the more liberal and permissive atmosphere of the '60s,
0:39:36 > 0:39:40especially the marriage and divorce law reforms.
0:39:40 > 0:39:46So it continued to enforce the marriage vow, "'Til death us do part," in a literal way to mean
0:39:46 > 0:39:50a couple who divorced could never remarry again in church.
0:39:50 > 0:39:56As marriage breakdown increased, this was a rule that caused some great distress.
0:39:56 > 0:40:00I didn't abide by that particular rule.
0:40:00 > 0:40:05It always struck me as a bit odd that it was the only human failure
0:40:05 > 0:40:10that the Christian church was particularly intransigent about.
0:40:10 > 0:40:16It didn't offer any recourse to people who'd made that promise
0:40:16 > 0:40:21and it had failed. Most people mess up. Most mess-ups get forgiven.
0:40:21 > 0:40:26Divorce couldn't get forgiven because of this absolute vow.
0:40:28 > 0:40:33Richard secretly defied church law to marry divorcees.
0:40:33 > 0:40:39I'm not a natural rule keeper, so it might have been a mistake getting into a job
0:40:39 > 0:40:44in which the rules were supposed to have been dictated by God.
0:40:44 > 0:40:50But I didn't agonise very much about it. It just seemed that when these people came - not floods of them,
0:40:50 > 0:40:55but a significant trickle - it was the same when I married gay people.
0:40:56 > 0:41:00I did my first gay marriage in 1972 and again it was...
0:41:00 > 0:41:05It seemed to me that when people came to you, humbly and searchingly,
0:41:05 > 0:41:11and just somehow wanted some... grace in their lives,
0:41:11 > 0:41:16some blessing on trying to make a relationship work,
0:41:16 > 0:41:20and relationships are difficult enough, to say no...
0:41:20 > 0:41:25Richard still remembers the first gay couple he married.
0:41:27 > 0:41:33After Evensong one Sunday, the three of us stood in the little Lady Chapel at Old St Paul's
0:41:33 > 0:41:39and I read the Prayer Book wedding service over them and they took the promises.
0:41:39 > 0:41:44That was a very quiet, intimate little ceremony. It had no status, legally.
0:41:44 > 0:41:47Didn't sign any certificates,
0:41:47 > 0:41:53and the church would say it had no status theologically or religiously either.
0:41:53 > 0:41:56It had status in their eyes.
0:41:56 > 0:41:58They came to me again
0:41:58 > 0:42:02and they said, "We've been together now 25 years.
0:42:02 > 0:42:09"Will you come as Bishop of Edinburgh and celebrate our..." I don't know what jubilee that is.
0:42:10 > 0:42:12And so I did.
0:42:12 > 0:42:17And I went and celebrated a high mass as Bishop of Edinburgh
0:42:17 > 0:42:24and the church was full of gay men celebrating this 20-year-old gay marriage.
0:42:24 > 0:42:27They were together until the end.
0:42:27 > 0:42:29Wilt thou have this woman...
0:42:29 > 0:42:35In the Sixties, the taboo on mixed race marriage seemed to be breaking down
0:42:35 > 0:42:39as the size of the immigrant population increased.
0:42:39 > 0:42:41..comfort her, honour and keep her...
0:42:41 > 0:42:47Nevertheless, many underlying tensions hardened and the Sixties are also seen as the decade
0:42:47 > 0:42:51when anti-immigration sentiment peaked in Britain.
0:42:51 > 0:42:52I will.
0:42:55 > 0:43:01The racist attitudes which were present when Ros and John Howells married came more to the fore
0:43:01 > 0:43:04as their daughters were growing up.
0:43:04 > 0:43:09It was a potentially explosive issue that Ros and John viewed very differently
0:43:09 > 0:43:13as they revealed in documentaries at the time.
0:43:13 > 0:43:20They've got to know that the problem exists and be prepared to deal with it.
0:43:20 > 0:43:22I can't accept John's, "It exists."
0:43:22 > 0:43:27I think that it's unfair on the children. We chose this life.
0:43:27 > 0:43:31We wanted to get married to each other. We can't plead ignorance.
0:43:31 > 0:43:38We knew. Well, I knew very definitely that my children would have problems.
0:43:38 > 0:43:42In those days, it was seen more as a prejudice.
0:43:42 > 0:43:46People were prejudiced. It hadn't got the big word - racism,
0:43:46 > 0:43:50which was the power plus the prejudice.
0:43:50 > 0:43:52And he just ignored it.
0:43:52 > 0:43:55Totally ignored it.
0:43:55 > 0:44:01If I thought of it at all, I thought she'd be somewhere between these two
0:44:01 > 0:44:06and it should be quite a nice colour! And that's all I thought.
0:44:06 > 0:44:09As it happens, I was wrong.
0:44:09 > 0:44:14I used to try and nag him into doing it. I'd say, "Did you...?"
0:44:14 > 0:44:18And he'd say, "Oh, God. You're on that subject again?"
0:44:18 > 0:44:24Because he was so comfortable with my family, with his family.
0:44:24 > 0:44:29If you came here and you saw a black man,
0:44:29 > 0:44:33or a woman or a family, if you don't like it, you can go.
0:44:33 > 0:44:39Same with black people if they didn't like the white people here. They could go.
0:44:39 > 0:44:41We had that sort of home.
0:44:41 > 0:44:45# Lean on me When you're not strong... #
0:44:45 > 0:44:52Ros was determined to get involved in campaigns that were being organised to fight racism,
0:44:52 > 0:44:56but this disrupted her family life in many ways.
0:44:56 > 0:45:00My daughter used to say, when she had to have badges on things,
0:45:00 > 0:45:02"My dad will do it, Mum."
0:45:02 > 0:45:06They didn't trust me to have a needle
0:45:06 > 0:45:12and when I'm in the house I wanted to pretend that I was that sort of person.
0:45:12 > 0:45:16You know, you come to your mum to do things with.
0:45:16 > 0:45:21So I'd start making the cake with them and then the phone will ring
0:45:21 > 0:45:25and then I'd be gone. You know, so he would have to do it.
0:45:25 > 0:45:30I think he had a lot to put up with, but he accepted that's how I was.
0:45:32 > 0:45:38Ros knew her involvement as a campaigner against racism would provoke suspicion and hostility
0:45:38 > 0:45:42and also cause tension with her husband.
0:45:42 > 0:45:47The more I got into being involved with race,
0:45:47 > 0:45:50there was a distance.
0:45:52 > 0:45:58We didn't grow out of each other, but our paths took us in different directions.
0:45:58 > 0:46:00# Lean on me... #
0:46:00 > 0:46:06Ros's ceaseless work promoting greater racial equality led to her becoming a prominent figure
0:46:06 > 0:46:12in local and then national politics and she was made a life peer in 1999.
0:46:12 > 0:46:16But her marriage to John never faltered.
0:46:16 > 0:46:20John was not somebody who would deliberately want to hurt anyone.
0:46:24 > 0:46:28So, if you like, I would say in spite of me he was a very nice man.
0:46:28 > 0:46:30While I was out there
0:46:30 > 0:46:33telling...priests,
0:46:33 > 0:46:37policemen, how they should behave,
0:46:40 > 0:46:46he didn't. You know. But he was the rock that was there. I knew he would be there.
0:46:50 > 0:46:58In the early Seventies, many young people challenged old taboos and experimented with new identities.
0:46:58 > 0:47:04This was reflected in a flourishing disco culture, where self-expression was everything.
0:47:04 > 0:47:07# Oh, you pretty things
0:47:07 > 0:47:11# Don't you know you're driving your mamas... #
0:47:11 > 0:47:18It was in a disco in Leeds that a chance encounter turned Anne Geraghty's world upside down.
0:47:18 > 0:47:25There was a guy dancing on the dance floor and he was really dancing
0:47:25 > 0:47:29in a completely different way from how I'd seen dancing.
0:47:29 > 0:47:33The DJ, who was this big, black, dead cool DJ,
0:47:33 > 0:47:37came out and these two began this incredible dance.
0:47:37 > 0:47:43The floor cleared, we all watched and I've never seen two people dance like it.
0:47:43 > 0:47:48# Oh, you pretty things Don't you know... #
0:47:48 > 0:47:54One of the people that was standing on the side was Anne. We'd never met.
0:47:54 > 0:47:58But she saw me doing this outrageous dance with this guy.
0:48:01 > 0:48:06And at the end of it, she saw that I was a sannyasin.
0:48:06 > 0:48:08I was in orange with this mala.
0:48:08 > 0:48:13And I met her that night, the first night I ever met her.
0:48:14 > 0:48:21Martin had returned from India a sannyasin, one of Bhagwan's growing community of disciples in Britain.
0:48:21 > 0:48:24They all dressed in the colour of the sunrise,
0:48:24 > 0:48:28were given a new name and wore a picture or mala of their guru.
0:48:28 > 0:48:33Meeting Martin convinced Anne, a feminist activist,
0:48:33 > 0:48:37that she wanted to be a disciple, too.
0:48:38 > 0:48:41I dyed my clothes orange
0:48:41 > 0:48:45and I put on my mala with the picture of Bhagwan.
0:48:45 > 0:48:49And I happened to go into the feminist bookshop in Leeds,
0:48:49 > 0:48:52which was run by my friends, my sisters.
0:48:52 > 0:48:57And I walked in and they came out from behind the till and faced me
0:48:57 > 0:49:03and they said, "Anne, you are not welcome in here with that man around your neck."
0:49:03 > 0:49:10And I tried to explain that this was a journey, I was going beyond the mind, going to follow my energy.
0:49:10 > 0:49:13And as I spoke I began to realise
0:49:13 > 0:49:19that I had gone, I had drifted further away from my old life than I had planned.
0:49:21 > 0:49:28Bhagwan taught that enlightenment was achieved by casting aside social and sexual inhibitions,
0:49:28 > 0:49:35something that Anne and Martin explored during an encounter group session they attended in Wales.
0:49:38 > 0:49:44We put a mattress outside and we slept out under the stars in Wales.
0:49:44 > 0:49:48And I remember that night when I slept with her
0:49:48 > 0:49:50that I just felt like I'd come home.
0:49:50 > 0:49:55There was this deep sense in me that something... I felt met.
0:49:55 > 0:49:57At a very, very deep level.
0:49:57 > 0:50:04That nobody else that I had been with or seen touched me in that way.
0:50:04 > 0:50:08Somehow I felt with him, Sujen, as he was then,
0:50:08 > 0:50:11that I was meeting someone
0:50:11 > 0:50:13who was...
0:50:14 > 0:50:20..running as blindly, but as totally into life as me.
0:50:20 > 0:50:22I felt a match.
0:50:22 > 0:50:25I could feel a profound meeting,
0:50:25 > 0:50:29which...hadn't happened before.
0:50:32 > 0:50:38The Orange People were one of a number of groups that explored their repressed sexual desires.
0:50:40 > 0:50:44Bhagwan encouraged his sannyasin to experiment with free love
0:50:44 > 0:50:50as a way to break down bourgeois structures of marriage and family life.
0:50:50 > 0:50:54It was an experiment that attracted much ridicule.
0:50:54 > 0:50:59Yet the disciples believed they were involved in a very different mission, to create a better world
0:50:59 > 0:51:03free from sexual jealousy and possessiveness.
0:51:03 > 0:51:07For Martin and Anne, seen here in a discussion group,
0:51:07 > 0:51:13the quest for enlightenment was a difficult and often painful undertaking.
0:51:13 > 0:51:15'I couldn't be
0:51:15 > 0:51:21'this...easy-going, free person that we were trying to be.'
0:51:22 > 0:51:26That English middle-class boy was still in there!
0:51:26 > 0:51:31Anne somehow let go in a way that I couldn't quite.
0:51:31 > 0:51:32And...
0:51:32 > 0:51:37And the great god of jealousy reared its head,
0:51:37 > 0:51:40which was, for me, very, very hard. Very hard.
0:51:40 > 0:51:43It just hit me in the core of me
0:51:43 > 0:51:48that I couldn't... I felt so dark and bad.
0:51:48 > 0:51:55I could not let her go and just be. It was torture for me, basically. It really was agony.
0:52:03 > 0:52:08And I'd go off into the night and just howl and scream
0:52:08 > 0:52:13and sort of...you know, be...enraged
0:52:13 > 0:52:17that this beautiful woman that I loved was somehow able
0:52:17 > 0:52:22to just go and have a good time with someone else. I had terrible dark moods.
0:52:25 > 0:52:30One minute I was like flowing in the energy flow, practically enlightened,
0:52:32 > 0:52:37next minute in the pits because Sujen was going off with somebody
0:52:37 > 0:52:43and I was eaten up with jealousy and possessiveness. But I knew I had to work on this.
0:52:43 > 0:52:46I was too attached, I was too possessive.
0:52:47 > 0:52:52The Orange People's quest ended in disappointment and failure
0:52:52 > 0:52:57and so, too, did Anne and Martin's relationship. They drifted apart
0:52:57 > 0:53:01and then split up after leaving Bhagwan's community.
0:53:01 > 0:53:04In breaking down the structures of the nuclear family
0:53:04 > 0:53:10and in questioning everything about intimate relationships,
0:53:10 > 0:53:16we were... At the time of the doing of these experimental ways of living,
0:53:16 > 0:53:23you can't tell in advance what is going against something very profound that is real
0:53:23 > 0:53:29and what is just old conditioning that needs to be broken down.
0:53:29 > 0:53:32Then, 11 years after they first met,
0:53:32 > 0:53:35Anne and Martin met again by chance on a London bus.
0:53:35 > 0:53:39This time they decided to do it differently.
0:53:39 > 0:53:44I felt like we needed to get married. It was almost like I needed to go into the ring.
0:53:44 > 0:53:47This is what marriage was for me.
0:53:47 > 0:53:53It was like going into a ring and there was no way out. I was not going to get out of that ring again.
0:53:53 > 0:54:00I was not going to be with any other woman. I knew this was the woman I had to go on this journey with
0:54:00 > 0:54:05and that marriage was a statement to myself and to her
0:54:05 > 0:54:11and to the world that this was the woman that... I'm going to be with.
0:54:11 > 0:54:15Martin and I realised this is it. It's here. We have to deal with it.
0:54:15 > 0:54:17It's up to us.
0:54:17 > 0:54:23And so marriage became, for us, a recognition of that,
0:54:23 > 0:54:29that here it's up to us here to find what love is.
0:54:29 > 0:54:32Love is not something over there to be found.
0:54:32 > 0:54:37It's something that it's our responsibility to create here.
0:54:40 > 0:54:45When Rosie Boycott met American journalist John Steinbeck Junior in London,
0:54:45 > 0:54:49he represented everything she rejected as a feminist.
0:54:49 > 0:54:54He was a macho man on a motorbike, dangerous, hard-drinking and a womaniser,
0:54:54 > 0:54:56yet she fell madly in love with him.
0:54:56 > 0:54:59I felt a very fraudulent feminist.
0:54:59 > 0:55:05It was very complicated, actually, for me because suddenly this was more important.
0:55:05 > 0:55:10That was quite frightening and I was prepared to do anything,
0:55:10 > 0:55:14go anywhere, say anything, follow anything.
0:55:14 > 0:55:17And it totally sideswiped me.
0:55:17 > 0:55:21I would, at moments, pull back and think, "Hang on a minute.
0:55:21 > 0:55:27"You've just spent quite a lot of your life trying to say that this is not what should happen."
0:55:27 > 0:55:33You know, one should not be beholden to a bloke like this, but actually I was.
0:55:34 > 0:55:37What Rosie's head and heart told her were very different.
0:55:37 > 0:55:43Contradictions played out against a national debate about love, sex and marriage.
0:55:43 > 0:55:51The question of relationships, sexual openness versus sexual possessiveness,
0:55:51 > 0:55:55just never got resolved. I know when I met John
0:55:55 > 0:56:01and I was very independent and cocky and buzzing around and having a very good time,
0:56:01 > 0:56:06that he liked my independence, my independence from him,
0:56:06 > 0:56:09that I wasn't a kind of doormat woman.
0:56:09 > 0:56:14And we certainly experimented with...
0:56:14 > 0:56:18I know once or twice there were one more person in the bed
0:56:18 > 0:56:23and he slept with other people and I used to just bite my lip
0:56:23 > 0:56:29because at that point I was kind of confident enough, I think, about how much he liked me,
0:56:29 > 0:56:31but it was hideous and I hated it.
0:56:31 > 0:56:37As the relationship started to nosedive, he having affairs,
0:56:37 > 0:56:41I found it absolutely, totally painful.
0:56:41 > 0:56:48I tried on one occasion having an affair myself, but it didn't help at all.
0:56:48 > 0:56:52Actually, all one's feminist credentials were useless
0:56:52 > 0:56:57against that level of unhappiness and misery about that.
0:56:57 > 0:57:01I did think perhaps marriage would be an answer
0:57:01 > 0:57:05and that, yeah, there was a wonderful little voice
0:57:05 > 0:57:12or loud voice in my head saying, "This might really sort it out. Once you're married, it'll be OK."
0:57:12 > 0:57:15Rosie and John Steinbeck Junior never did marry.
0:57:15 > 0:57:19The Seventies feminist icon became a successful magazine editor
0:57:19 > 0:57:25and the first woman in Britain to edit a national broadsheet. She is now happily married.
0:57:25 > 0:57:32'It was like a social earthquake. And even though the earthquake itself didn't carry on,'
0:57:32 > 0:57:39you think how far things have travelled from then. It was a brilliant moment to be young.
0:57:39 > 0:57:41Absolutely brilliant.
0:57:41 > 0:57:46Even though it had lots of pain and lots of heartbreak and lots of chaos,
0:57:46 > 0:57:50it was unbelievably exciting. I wouldn't trade it for a day.
0:57:52 > 0:57:56The effects of the sexual revolution, the empowerment of women
0:57:56 > 0:58:00and the growth of a global consumer society were only fully realised
0:58:00 > 0:58:06in the last decades of the 20th century. The divorce rate would increase dramatically,
0:58:06 > 0:58:10yet the institution of marriage would survive.
0:58:10 > 0:58:12And for many it got stronger.
0:58:12 > 0:58:19What would it take to create a happy marriage and a loving family in the 1980s and '90s?
0:58:22 > 0:58:26MUSIC: "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?"
0:58:41 > 0:58:43Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd