Nordic sexual morality debate

Connected to this was the contemporary view on prostitution, which was sanctioned as a "necessary evil" because of this double standard, since men were expected to have sexual experience prior to marriage, in parallel to the fact that extramarital sex was socially banned for unmarried women.

The debate was divided into two sides: The moderate side, of which Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson was the most known representative, wished to solve this double standard by demanding that men also be virgins on their wedding night, just as women were.

[1] He believed that free love did not allow for the development of positive traits such as self-restraint and a focus on virtue.

Getting Married by August Strindberg and the legal court case that surrounded it was one of the perhaps most known incidents during the debate.

Other well-known works in the debate are Henrik Ibsen's play A Doll's House (Et Dukkehjem), the novel Money (Pengar) by Viktoria Benedictsson, and the novel Pyrhussegrar by Stella Kleve.