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Despite the best efforts of the clergy, European travelers during
the second half of the eighteenth century often commented on the widespread custom
of “bundling” in the northern and middle colonies among the rural and “lower
people”. Andrew Burnaby, a young Englishman who toured Massachusetts in 1759,
wrote about the custom, “At their usual time the old couple retire to bed,
leaving the young ones to settle matters as they can, who, after having sat up
as long as they think proper, get into bed together also, but without pulling
off their undergarments, in order to prevent scandal.”
Johann Schoepf, who toured the region in 1783, assured his
readers that “the young woman’s good name is in no ways impaired.” Visits took
place neither “by stealth” nor only after the young couple was “actually
betrothed”: “on the contrary, the parents are advised, and these meetings
happen when the pair is enamored and merely wish to know each other better.”
European visitors were amazed by
the openness with which young men and women spent the night together. “I have
entered several bedchambers,” wrote Alexander Berthier, “where I have found
bundling couples, who are not disturbed and continue to give each other all the
honest tokens of their love.” The degree
of intimacy enjoyed during these nocturnal meetings must have varied from one
couple to the next. Although couples
were supposed to keep their clothes on and to abstain from sex, the record
indicates a significant number of early babies among the firstborn children of these
couples after marriage. Often a couple was forced to confess their sin publicly
in church before their baby could be baptized.
A brief look at love, sex, and marriage in colonial America and the early republic.
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