Sex and marriage, over the years, has been a contentious issue. A Channel 4 programme has looked at this in Britain in the last century. ANDRE ERASMUS recounts some of its mysteries and myths ...

FROM being so unaware they wore thick pyjamas and played the mouth organ in bed on their honeymoon, to married life with a gay person and women seeing sex as a duty which had to be stoically endured, marriage has not always being a fulfilment over the years.

This secret history of love and marriage has been highlighted in Channel 4's series which started on February 12.

Called Married Love and made by award-winning film maker Steve Humphries, the series tells the hidden history of sex and marriage in 20th century Britain.

Married love was once a euphemism for sex, a subject surrounded by ignorance, guilt and fear.

As a result, the intimate details of the sex lives of married couples were kept secret, a taboo subject for conversation.

Here they are revealed in intimate detail through the candid accounts of men and women, some who married before the Second World War.

Their stories were combined with rare archive film to pull back the curtains and reveal the untold story of what went on in the nation's bedrooms.

The series kicked off with the secret history of sexless marriages in 20th century Britain. It revealed many couples went weeks, months, years or even for ever without sex.

Among those was Marie Stopes, the woman whose best-selling love guide of the 20s and 30s, Married Love, started a sexual revolution. It aimed to strengthen marriage by advising husbands how to be better lovers. She wrote the book in 1918,despite being a virgin and later had an unconsummated marriage.

Marriage in the early 20th century was, largely, a story of sexual ignorance and abstinence.

During the first half of the century, many newly weds were virgins, especially the young women.

Some were kept so ignorant of the facts of life and were so shackled by prudish convention, they never attempted to consummate their marriages.

This happened to Emily Galbraith, aged 106, now one of the oldest women in Scotland.

"I married Dougal in 1930 but there was no physical contact, we had separate beds straightaway. We led separate lives. My passions were flying and driving cars."

Among those with sexless marriages were gays and lesbians, who had often hoped marriage would cure them of their homosexuality.

Once couples had mastered the basics of sex, their sex lives often blossomed. But often only until their first baby was born.

Mothers wanted to avoid the drudgery of constant childbearing and with no reliable contraception available, many used long periods of sexual abstention to avoid having large families.

But the 60s seemed to have swept away the old puritanical attitudes forever.

The pill liberated couples from the fear of unwanted pregnancy and good sex was deemed to be one of life's greatest pleasures. But very soon, some of the children of the 60s changed their minds.

With the arrival of AIDS in the 1980s, all sex even in marriage seemed potentially dangerous and life threatening.

Other topics covered by the series included the female orgasm and the myths surrounding it including that having one could lead to being pregnant.

In the 50s the first British sex surveys showed sexual ignorance and dissatisfaction among young couples remained widespread. Couples with sexual problems could now go to the new marriage guidance service.

In the 50s and 60s, sex advice for married couples emphasised the importance of making love regularly to satisfy the powerful male sex drive. A woman who didn't enjoy sex risked being seen as frigid.

Among the demands of the women's movement in the 1970s, was the right to sexual pleasure.

But the male sex drive had to be considered, too.

The final programme showed in the early decades of the century, men were viewed as predatory beasts with a rampant sex instinct which had to be constantly kept under control.

Marriage was believed to be vital in taming the male sex drive and young men were warned not to indulge in pre-marital sex.

For public schoolboys, sex before marriage was ungentlemanly conduct. However, sex in marriage was all about the needs of the man.

Sexual violence grew out of this power relationship. Incidents were triggered by a wife's refusal to give sex on demand. However, because rape in marriage was not legally recognised, very few cases were reported.

From the 60s onwards, men faced a new challenge to their sexual power. Women were becoming more sexually assertive. The new breed of married man looked upon sex very differently to his father's generation.