Thinking Like an Early American Historian
. . . about college students having sex. Got your attention? It’s not what you think. My attention was called on Facebook to a piece on the NYT site: “At Tufts, an Attempt to Prohibit Sex When a Roommate Is in the Room.” Kids having sex in public naturally did not turn the incisive historical minds on FB to our own college experiences — speaking for myself, we ate a lots of pizza, drank a lot of beer, and studied a lot, without nearly as many opportunities to test our sexual ethics as they seem to have at Tufts these days. Instead, we early American historians thought of bundling, the scandalous youth sexual practice of colonial New England.
For civilians who happen on this post, bundling was a courtship custom where unmarried young men and women slept together, bundled up in blankets on a bed. Lest it seem too sexy, a board was put in-between the two and the girl could be encased in a stout bag to protect her the virtue. Mom and Dad (and presumably others) often stayed in the room, just like a Tufts roommate.
From a decent-seeming scholarly article on bundling that happens to be available online:
Bundling is probably the best known courtship practice of colonial America, even though very little research on the topic has ever been published. It appears to contradict the otherwise sexually strict mores of the Puritans. It meant that a courting couple would be in bed together, but with their clothes on. With fuel at a premium, it was often difficult to keep a house warm in the evenings. Since this is when a man would be visiting his betrothed in her home, they would bundle in her bed together in order to keep warm. A board might be placed in the middle to keep them separate, or the young lady could be put in a bundling bag or duffel-like chastity bag. The best protection against sin were the parents, who were usually in the same room with them. It may not have been good enough, however, as records indicate that up to one-third of couples engaged in premarital relations in spite of the public penalties, such as being fined and whipped, that often resulted (Ingoldsby 1995).
[Read the rest here.]
Ah yes, bundling! An accurate description, although I haven’t actually read any first-person accounts of the board in the middle–which a folk singer (Archie Fisher or Garnet Rogers) a few years ago called “a sexual speed bump.” Some authors felt that the custom died in the mid-18th century not so much because of the adoption of sofas but because of improvements in home heating — for the couple would no longer have the excuse of needing to stay warm, and apparently it did happen more in the winter — but of course the rise of sentimentalism and privacy were probably the important cause. Find more in Godbeer’s recent book on _The Sexual Revolution in Early America_, or go to the source that many turn of the century New England historians cited (so they didn’t have to get into the details): Henry Reed Stiles, _Bundling: Its Origin, Progress, and Decline in America_ (1869).
Comment by Daniel Mandell — October 1, 2009 @ 11:25 am
All I know is, Parliament had to pass a series of laws in the 1760s and 1770s to combat colonial snuggling, and they even established a Board of Customs Commissioners. You can read all about it in John W. Tyler’s _Snugglers and Patriots_.
Comment by Benjamin Carp — October 3, 2009 @ 5:03 pm
No wonder the colonists revolted! ‘Tis an Englishman’s right to snuggle.
Comment by Daniel Mandell — October 3, 2009 @ 9:00 pm
Perhaps Tufts could consider issuing those “stout bags” Jeff referred to above to students who will be living in the dorms. I think that, in the increasingly commercialized world of higher education, a school might do well to market itself as being bundling-friendly.
Comment by Mr. Sidetable — October 7, 2009 @ 4:00 pm
I’m not so sure there was ever a board involved. Peters, of course, was a loyalist eager to find things to criticize in Connecticut, which had thrown him out. (He also created the term ‘blue laws.’) While working on Liberty’s Daughters I found at least one girl’s diary with a matter-of-fact entry about an older sister having an overnight male guest. Let’s remember that the notion of ‘marriage’ was somewhat fungible at the time; that’s one reason why there were so many NE prosecutions for premarital pregnancies. I concluded in Founding Mothers & Fathers that what the authorities regarded as ‘premarital,’ the couples involved regarded as marriage.
Comment by Mary Beth Norton — October 15, 2009 @ 10:24 am
I have heard about the bundles before and thought it to be a false sense of security for the parents, almost like plausible deniability. well, i am no historian, but if a board were involed it was deffinately the fathers idea so he would not have to run all the way to the shed if the bundle were somehow removed.
Comment by cory panak — October 19, 2009 @ 9:54 pm
[...] little lesson in bundling, plus a book-length treatment from [...]
Pingback by Love Me Did: A History of Courtship | BackStory With The American History Guys — February 1, 2010 @ 1:51 pm
[...] little lesson in bundling, plus a book-length treatment from [...]
Pingback by “Love Me Did”: Further Reading | BackStory with the American History Guys — February 3, 2011 @ 12:25 pm
In addition, certified teachers attended courses and passed state exams to obtain their teaching certificates.
Comment by rüyada görmek — August 2, 2011 @ 8:42 am
If you approach the topic of homeschooling, you have the two sides. Sure, there are many advantages, but if you forget the drawbacks in view, you can set your doomed to failure.
Comment by dini videolar — August 2, 2011 @ 8:43 am