There was significant stigma around unmarried motherhood in the mid-twentieth century. However, having a child
out of wedlock was not always looked upon so poorly; it is only as
social, moral, and economic attitudes changed that women who found
themselves unmarried and pregnant became stigmatized. To understand how
the mid-1960s came to become the peak period for adoption in the UK (as
well as other countries), and the stigma that drove this apex of
adoption, we must first understand a bit of the history affecting
attitudes towards illegitimacy.
