Simon Szreter and Kate Fisher have written a qualitative study of married sexuality in mid-twentieth-century England; their main source is a database of oral interviews with eighty-eight married individuals (and one inadvertently included unmarried woman) born between 1905 and 1924. Fifty of the married interviewees were from the Blackburn region and thirty-eight from Hertfordshire, allowing a contrast between northern and southern England. The class makeup reflected the regional differences; Blackburn interviewees had thirty-eight working-class and twelve middle-class respondents, while Hertfordshire had twenty-two in the middle class and sixteen from the working class. By comparing and contrasting regional, class, and sex differences, the authors can draw broad conclusions about marriage, family, and sexual relations over several decades.

Analyzing sexual beliefs and behaviors through oral history revises a number of traditional interpretations. For instance, the authors contend that historians who chart the changes in sexual knowledge by reading sex manuals miss many nuances. Although knowledge about sex was limited, especially for working-class women, the latter prized their innocence as a sign of respectability rather than resenting it. In contrast, men, although often equally inexperienced, were expected to know how to proceed on the wedding night and saw the culture of silence as a challenge to be overcome. Middle-class couples stressed bridal virginity as well, but many better-off women attained theoretical knowledge before the wedding night. As a result, middle-class couples had the language to discuss how far they would go and so engaged in various activities short of intercourse without compromising the women's reputations. Working-class couples, however, rarely discussed the matter and at times got “carried away” with emotion. The authors, then, conclude that values did not differ much by class, despite the higher illegitimacy and premarital pregnancy rate of workers.

One of the great strengths of the book is that the authors embed the study of sexual behavior within the marital relationship. Both women and men dismissed “grand passions” as fantasies more suited to young girls than adults, but this did not mean they rejected happiness in marriage. They simply wanted a “workable” love on which to build their lives, one that included traditional gender divisions (men as providers and women as homemakers). Marriages succeeded, according to the interviewees, because the partners both cared for each other and shared common interests, and these beliefs influenced their views on sex. Most notably, Szreter and Fisher make clear that many of the respondents considered the stress on technique and orgasm as missing the most important and pleasurable parts of sexuality. Many men and women regarded these concerns as selfish; sexual acts should be about showing one's love for one's partner, not gymnastic escapades. The older generation pitied young people who know far more about sex; they insisted that learning about sex together was part of the growth of intimacy in their married lives. In fact, the secrecy and privacy of sex was part of the fun. This was not to say that couples experienced no tensions over roles or responsibilities. Some clearly did, and the authors discuss the dysfunctional marriages they discovered. All the same, few relationships failed because of poor sexual technique alone.

The book offers insights into sexual attraction and birth control as well. The stress on bodily beauty in both sexes was more about cleanliness and “smartness” than about size or shape because one was born with one's shape, but clothing, complexion, or cleanliness reflected character. (The stress on cleanliness, though, showed another class division, as poorer couples lacked indoor bathrooms and privacy. They, then, had a more difficult time staying attractive.) Interestingly, 58 percent of the interviewees used some form of birth control during their marriages, usually a combination of methods, such as withdrawal and abstinence. Working-class couples expected men to take charge of birth control, and both men and women disliked artificial methods as too calculated and clumsy. Middle-class couples were more willing to try barrier methods, largely because husbands and wives discussed the issue openly. Both sexes wanted to limit births and also to be sensitive to each other's needs—men tried not to be too demanding, and women tried not to refuse sex too often. Some couples suffered long periods of tension and unhappiness over this issue, but many came to a satisfactory compromise. Thus, the evidence from oral history stresses more cooperation than conflict between spouses over birth control.

Szreter and Fisher's work offers a number of fascinating revisions to standard histories of sexuality in the early twentieth century. Like Hera Cook, the authors argue that any sexual liberation after World War I was highly limited, but they also insist that this did not necessarily mean that the experience of sex was unpleasant or rote. On the contrary, even without a name for their body parts or for their experiences, many couples had satisfactory sex lives. In particular, women's sexuality may have been blighted by ignorance and poor husbandly techniques, but most of the women respondents did not represent their experiences in those terms. Instead, they were proud to be ignorant of sexual matters before marriage and content to demonstrate their love for their husbands by having regular sexual relations afterward. In short, the crucial part of sex was the emotional intimacy, something possible for both sexes and all classes. These conclusions demonstrate that historians need to study what people actually did, as well as what experts say they did, to get a well-rounded story of British sexuality.

The authors do an excellent job of analyzing and parsing out the nuances of these couples’ personal lives. Because so much more historiography has dealt with women, they do stress women's issues more often than men’s, but both sexes get attention. Szreter and Fisher are skilled oral-history interviewers, and their work should encourage more projects in the same vein, ones that can supplement cultural-history approaches. The book is mostly well written, with the exception that the authors appear to be addicted to the word “however,” which appears two and three times a page in some sections. Also, the excerpts from the interviews are largely unedited, leading to a great many repetitions and “ums” and “ers” throughout the long quotes. But these criticisms are minor. This work is a valuable addition to historians’ knowledge about sex, marriage, and family between 1918 and 1963, pointing to the continued relevance and usefulness of social history.