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Love and Marriage: A 20th Century Romance

Steve Humphries

Love and Marriage: A 20th Century Romance: Episode 1: For Better, For Worse

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Factual: Families & Relationships

For Better, For Worse

Episode 1

Episode 1: For Better, For Worse

BBC Four - Love and Marriage: A 20th Century Romance, For Better, For Worse

The strengths and weaknesses of the Victorian marriage ideal.

Series looking at marriage from the 1900s to the present day. This first episode considers the strengths and weaknesses of the Victorian marriage ideal.

This three part series follows the ups and downs of marriage in Britain from the 1900s to the present day using the deeply moving personal stories of couples, and their children, from all walks of life.

This first film looks at the period between the 1900s and the late 1950s, an era when the ideal of romantic love in marriage had to withstand the harsh realities of a world very different to today. Yet many marriages were defined by friendship rather than conflict and strife. Above all else couples wanted to provide a stable and loving home for their children - even those who struggled to bring up large families on the breadline. Despite the tragedy of two world wars, most marriages not only survived - some became even stronger. 

Hetty Bower, now 107 and Britain's oldest peace campaigner, tells the moving story of her love and marriage to husband Reg Agony aunt Denise Robertson is emotional as she recalls how her parents remained passionately in love, despite losing everything in the economic crash of the 1930s. They provided an inspirational role model for her of a successful marriage. But she tells how she had to wait longer than she imagined to find the love of her life, a seafarer from the Shetland Islands. 

Writer Diana Athill, 95, movingly recounts how in an age when divorce was very difficult and dishonourable her parents kept their marriage together despite her mother having an affair which resulted in the birth of an illegitimate sister, the 'family secret'. Diana's own hopes for love and marriage as a young woman were dashed when her fiancé Tony, an RAF pilot, rejected her in favour of another woman.

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Following the ups and downs of marriage in Britain from the 1900s to the present day

Three part series following the ups and downs of marriage in Britain from the 1900s to the present day using the deeply moving stories of couples, and their children, from all walks of life.

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Love and Marriage: A 20th Century Romance

Episode 1: For Better, For Worse

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