I am currently reading Without a Map, a memoir by Meredith Hall. Written in 2007, this is her story of becoming pregnant during her junior year in high school. (Though she doesn’t describe it as such, we might now recognize this as date rape, since she was a sixteen year old virgin seduced by a college man looking to score.)
The year was 1965 and what followed the discovery of her pregnancy was shaming and shunning by everyone she knew – her friends, her family, her church and any total stranger who might hear the story. In her whole world, there was not one person who stood beside her. Her father and his wife provided a roof over her head, barely, but never a word of love or understanding. Not even a question as to how this might have happened, which in itself would have shown a certain amount of caring.
The effect the shunning had on the young girl, the lack of empathy for the loss of her child, society’s need to mete out a lifetime of punishment for one moment of indescretion is told bravely in this bestselling memoir.
This is a powerful book you would do well to seek out.