Law changes
Gradually, deaf people’s protests against the marriage law proved fruitful. In 1944, the marriage ban was restricted to marriages between people who had hereditary deafness even though the amendment did not specify how the non-hereditary nature of deafness should be demonstrated. Discussion on the matter continued in the Kuuromykkäin Lehti magazine. In the 1960s, criticism against Finland’s marriage law became stronger and it was now regarded as an embarrassment. Internationally, it was also a rarity. Some deaf people were still taken aback when they had to present a doctor’s certificate to be able to marry.
A study conducted around that time showed that only 4% of the children born to deaf parents were deaf so inherited deafness could no longer be used as a justification for the law. It was only in 1969 that all marriages between deaf people were permitted. According to a survey carried out in 1972, more than half of the over thousand respondents to the study were married.