Was permissive legislation in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s a response to social change or did it create it?
In 1959, six years before becoming Labour’s Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins said that ‘the state should not impinge excessively on peoples private lives and personal morality’. Permissiveness is routed in this idea of a new relationship between society and the individual, representing ‘striking changes in public and private morals’. According to Andrews, social change began in 1956 with a ‘class initiative’, caused by rapidly growing affluence. The affluence of the 1950s is proven by the proportion of homeowners in England and Wales rising from 31% to 44% between 1951-60, representing vast economic growth. Many politicians, particularly those on the Left, believed that ‘the affluent society was directly responsible for the permissive society’. Rising affluence occurred amid the re-emergence of Conservative values in the post-World War Two period, with Brown claiming that ‘the 1950s were about perfecting Victorian values’. The conservatism of the 1950s gave the 1960s a cause for rebellion, creating the unique conditions for permissive legislation to be passed. This paper will focus on acts passed between 1967-1970, including the Abortion, NHS (Family Planning) and the Sexual Offences Acts of 1967, the Divorce Reform Acts (1969), and in 1970 the Matrimonial Property Act. These permissive acts symbolised the breakdown of Victorian and Christian morals, particularly surrounding the family, thus causing social change.
Politicians from the era debated how far social change was caused by legislation, with Left-wing politicians questioning how permissive the legislation really was. Marwick claims that ‘it is a mistake to concentrate on politics and changes of government’ as social movements ‘continued largely irrespective of the political complexions of government’. Donnelly, in contrast, suggested that certain aspects of social change were ‘handed down from above rather than taken from below’. These conflicting opinions dominate the historiography. This paper proposes that rapid social change had occurred since the mid-1950s, and the legislation of the 1960s served to reinforce many existing changes, and occasionally went beyond this to encourage further social change throughout the 1970s.
Historians discuss how important ‘permissiveness’ was to British politics throughout the period. While for the Labour Party ‘permissive issues were rarely highlighted in the election material’, the Conservatives believed ‘that the moral fibre of this country is the concern of the politician’. Wills is correct in stating that permissiveness ‘did not spring from thin air: it was underlain by a profound change in beliefs about the overall structure of society and about its relationship to the individual’. However, the permissive legislation could not have been passed earlier because ‘governments were in no hurry to reform the laws concerning personal morality before the late 1950s, whether out of conviction, inertia, a prioritisation of economic issues or deference to perceived popular sentiment’. In order to evaluate the true extent of permissiveness, this paper will examine the political and historical discourse surrounding the relaxation of censorship, the collapse of traditional family values, and the pressure of new youth culture on the government.
The trial and subsequent publication of Lady Chatterley’s Lover in 1960, and the passing of the Sexual Offences Act in 1967 are two of the most controversial examples of the permissiveness being ‘handed down from above’. Here permissive legislation went beyond contemporary social change, stretching public attitudes towards morality to the absolute limit. The Obscene Publications Act (1959) stated that ‘the opinion of experts as to the literary, artistic, scientific or other merits of an article may be admitted in any proceedings under this Act’, thus opening up the possibility of publishing previously banned texts. The trial of Lady Chatterley’s Lover was the first attempt to use the new legislation to allow publication of the unexpurgated novel. Historians agree that the trial framed the break down of moral codes concerning the family and sexuality. Hennessy cites Marwick’s claim that the trial is ‘the most celebrated and illuminating show trial of this critical time of change’. In the trial, the defence claimed that ‘this book is not obscene. It would not tend to deprave or corrupt anyone’; it went onto praise Lawrence as ‘the greatest novelist since Hardy’. Directly addressing the Obscene Publications Act by discussing the tendency of the novel to ‘deprave and corrupt’ its readers enabled Penguin Books to successfully defend the right to publish the novel in its unexpurgated form.
The unexpurgated publication of Lady Chatterley’s Lover ‘legitimiz[ed] the changes in behaviour and encourag[ed] further development towards freedom and permissiveness’. According to Brown, it represented a ‘crumbling’ of the ‘institutional structures of cultural traditionalism’. The novel endorsed an extra-marital relationship, with the desire for sex being placed before the need to support marriage. The impact of this trial went far beyond the expectations of Penguin Books, with two million copies being sold within one year, due to the mass publicity attracted by the ‘symbolic’ five-day trial. The subsequent relaxation of censorship across all media and literature reached its pinnacle on 18th November 1969 with the first topless model appearing in a national newspaper. The subsequent introduction of Murdoch’s page three girl in 1970 symbolises the climax of permissiveness at the end of the decade.
The trial of Lady Chatterley’s Lover addressed the ‘distinction between pornography and literature’, explaining that pornography in certain magazines and books is ‘filth for filth’s sake…they have got no message, they have got no inspiration; they have got no thought’. This demonstrates that the trial had undesirable implications, resulting in censorship being relaxed throughout all areas of media. Aldgate emphasises this impact, arguing that ‘nowhere was there more evidence of release and change, it appears, than in the realms of censorship’.
However, the publication of this novel was not necessarily as permissive as historians such as Hennessy and Aldgate have suggested. Donnelly and Marwick both evaluate their own arguments, with Marwick suggesting that ‘people’s attitudes are changing, thus the interpretation of censorship must change’. Implying the successful publication of Lady Chatterley’s Lover was a response to changing public opinion. Having been written by Lawrence in 1928, the novel addressed issues of morality that had existed in society for three decades. Donnelly highlights that relaxation of censorship actually provoked a backlash, with the government clamping down on advertising and permissiveness in the media. In 1970 three directors of the International Times were charged and convicted of conspiracy to corrupt public morals, reinforcing that the state ‘reserved the right to issue reminders that some boundaries remained’, and hence could undermine permissive legislation.
The passing of the Sexual Offences Act in 1967 brought permissive attitudes towards the family and sexuality into the law. The act was based on the findings of the 1957 Wolfenden Report, and addressed issues of homosexuality and prostitution. It stated that ‘a homosexual act in private shall not be an offence provided that the parties consent thereto and have attained the age of twenty-one years’. This separation between private and public spheres allowed moral conduct to slide in the privacy of one’s home. It went far beyond public attitudes in its approach to homosexuality. Only 12% of people questioned by Gorer in 1969 were ‘tolerant’ towards homosexuality, while 24% of people felt ‘revulsion’ towards it. The passing of this Act spurred the founding of the Gay Liberation Front in October 1970. The movement insisted that further change was needed to recognise the validity of homosexuality as a sexual orientation, thus demonstrating how permissive legislation induced more social change.
The Gay Liberation Front criticised the Act for being condescending, viewing homosexuals as ‘unfortunates who suffered from a psychological malfunction, deserving pity and treatment rather than imprisonment’. The act was exclusive, not allowing homosexuality in the armed forces, homosexual acts including more than two people, or with a man below the age of consent. This exclusivity, coupled with the extensive distinction between public and private, led to a police clampdown on homosexuality. Between 1967 and 1976 ‘the number of prosecutions of males for indecency trebled and the number of convictions quadrupled’. This demonstrates the backlash against permissive legislation throughout the 1970s, and undermines the argument that legislation created social change.
The Sexual Offences Act (1967) was largely a response to social changes that had existed since the 1950s. Thompson believes the Macmillan Conservative government (1957-61) implemented the legislative beginning of permissive change. The findings of the Wolfenden Committee Report on Homosexuality and Prostitution (1957) provides evidence of this, stating that ‘we are not charged to enter into matters of private moral conduct except in so far as they directly affect the public good’. It considered the ‘extent to which homosexual behaviour and female prostitution should come under the condemnation of the criminal law’. Despite concluding that certain homosexual acts should be decriminalised, the ‘morality of same-sex relationships’ remained a huge issue in society, ‘so deeply did emotions and instincts run not just within the late Fifties Conservative Party but through society generally. Another decade had to pass before legislation could be carried’. The report attracted attention, selling 15,000 copies within three months of its publication. This demonstrates public interest in the morality and legislation surrounding sexual activities in the 1950s, even if discourse was not supportive of the liberalisation of these laws at that time. Therefore, the permissive legislation passed in 1967 did not suddenly create social change, these changes had been occurring since the late-1950s.
The report concluded that ‘we do not believe it to be a function of the law to attempt to cover all fields of sexual behaviour’ as ‘law ought to follow behind public opinion’. This shows similarities with Mill’s On Liberty, published a century earlier, expressing that the power of the law should not be used to govern an individuals own good. Therefore, ideas about individual sovereignty and the government’s right to legislate personal decisions had been changing since the 19th century. Henceforth, the permissive legislation of the 1960s occurred due to the changing relationship between the individual and the state over a long period of time.
Permissive legislation frequently served merely to support existing social changes. The Abortion Act (1967) and the Divorce Reform Act (1969) symbolised the breakdown of Victorian family values. The emerging disaffection with religion in the 1960s enabled these laws to be passed. Brown argues that ‘traditional values of family, home and piety were suddenly back on the agenda between the end of the war and 1960’, with 1.9 million people taking part in the 1954 religious crusade in London. The reappearance of conservative values after the war inevitably caused a backlash that began in the 1950s and gained momentum throughout the 1960s. Collins supports Brown’s connection between religion and permissiveness, stating that ‘permissiveness was inseparable from a process of secularisation that replaced the Christian “morality of conformity” with a new “morality of freedom”’. This was proven through the passing of the Abortion Act despite a national campaign in opposition led by the Catholic Church. The Act passed responsibility for policing abortion from the courts to doctors, and for the first time took into account social needs. Growing use of contraception outside of marriage due to the NHS Act (1967) had a drastic impact on public opinion, with 66% of people believing pre-marital sex was wrong in 1963, compared to just 10% strongly disapproving of it by the early 1970s.
The liberalising of divorce laws in 1969, allowing divorce on the grounds of ‘irretrievable breakdown’ in marriage reinforced the disappearance of family values. The Matrimonial Property Act (1970) was implemented due to increasing numbers of divorces. It allowed the courts to vary divorced couples’ shares of property justifiably. Feminist movements came to the forefront throughout the 1970s, claiming that women’s rights in divorce were not supported by this act.
Moreover, divorce legislation was less permissive than it seemed, and actually sought to support marriages by asking couples to prove that the marriage was no longer sustainable and live apart for two years before granting divorce. Therefore, although symbolising a move away from Christian morals, government legislation was not intended to fully support social change.
The disintegration of family values and Christian morals came from other areas of government, not just through legislation. Throughout the 1960s ideas of extra-marital relationships had occupied social discourse, not only with the trial of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, but also with the ‘Profumo Affair’ (1963). Keeler published her book, Nothing But… enclosing full details of the affair in 1983, demonstrating relaxation of censorship and public acceptance of the breakdown of marriages. This affair epitomised the problems with the government of the 1960s, creating distrust and disaffection towards politics.
The disaffection with politics was most evident among the new ‘youth culture’ of the 1960s. There was a huge backlash amongst the youth in the 1960s and 1970s. The 1950s has been interpreted as ‘a decade of submission to family values and duty, of boys being good and girls being nice’. Thompson claims that young people ‘showed little enthusiasm for the new permissive agenda’ in the early 1960s. However, they had an extraordinary influence on government legislation throughout this era.
Wills analyses the changing youth culture from a grass roots perspective, highlighting the origins of social change. The youth culture occupied government interest in 1960, with the Albemarle Report commissioned to explore the youth ‘problem’ and suggest more conservative ways to occupy their free time. With young people collectively spending £850 million on personal leisure per annum in the 1960s, their needs could not be ignored. The influence of new youth behaviour was conveyed through the Labour Party’s “Youth Commission” in 1959, specifically introduced to help determine the future of the Labour Party and its permissive policies. Ellis uses ‘youth culture as a prism through which to observe the Labour Party’s shifting social, political, and ideological frameworks in opposition between 1951 and 1964’. With Labour’s support among young voters falling from 45% in the 1950 election to 36% in 1959, it was forced to study young people’s needs. The “Youth Commission” recommended fundamental changes such as raising school-leaving age to sixteen, reducing the voting age to eighteen, offering financial assistance to young married couples and providing more sex education. They showed little interest in political or international affairs, as they had never experienced unemployment or deprivation of the interwar years. The Labour Party responded to this with permissive legislation, however it ‘was divided over, and uncertain about the relationship between socialism, consumerism and “commercialism”’. The Labour and Conservative Parties disagreed over how to respond to social change. There is much evidence illustrating that the Labour party was no more committed to permissive reform than that Conservative Party was, as Thompson points out, ‘to argue that Labour encouraged the emergence of the permissive society is to ignore disputes within the Party’. The Conservative Party was more consistent in its support of permissiveness, discussing it every year from 1965-1970.
This paper has paid little attention to social changes of the 1970s. While changes that began in the 1960s continued throughout the 1970s, there were no permissive legislative reforms. As Green cites in his collection of interviews, ‘it was Andy Warhol who said the sixties were too full, just like the seventies were too empty’. The seventies have been branded as ‘strike-happy’, but historians have given little time to look at new forms of permissiveness that appeared. This implies that legislation created permissiveness. However the argument that ‘the liberalisation of the law was only one facet of permissiveness’ is far more convincing. Social and cultural movements ‘continued largely irrespective of the political complexions of government’. It is the people who introduced and carried through the permissive social changes during this era, without changing public morals and behaviour the legislation passed by the government would have been largely irrelevant.

Bibliography

Secondary sources:
Aldgate, A., Censorship and the Permissive Society: British Cinema and Theatre, 1955-1965, (Oxford, 1995)
Andrews, G., New Left, New Right and Beyond: Taking the Sixties Seriously, (Houndmills, 1999)
Brown, C., The Death of Christian Britain, (Abingdon, 2001)
Collins, M., The Permissive Society and its Enemies: Sixties British Culture, (London, 2007)
Donnelly, M., Sixties Britain, (Harlow, 2005)
Ellis, C., ‘The Younger Generation: The Labour Party and the 1959 Youth Commission’, Journal of British Studies 41 (2002), pp.199-231
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Primary sources:
Abortion Act, 1967, http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1967/87/contents

Albemarle Report (1960) The Youth Service in England and Wales (Accessed 6/12/13) http://www.infed.org/archives/albemarle_report/albemarle_youth_service.htm (Accessed 6/12/13)

Family Law Reform Act, 1969 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1969/46 (Accessed 6/12/13)

Matrimonial Property Act, 1970, http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1970/45/contents (Accessed 6/12/13)

‘Obscene Publications Act, 1959 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Eliz2/7-8/66/introduction (Accessed 6/12/13)

Report of the Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution’, September 1957, Cmnd. 247. (Otherwise known as the Wolfenden Report)

Sexual Offences Act, 1967 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1967/60/contents/enacted (Accessed 6/12/13)

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