Early America, Sex, Marriage, family #14


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Topic: Religions > Atheism
User: ""
Date: 27 Sep 2006 09:18:39 AM
Object: Early America, Sex, Marriage, family #14
PART 14
EARLY AMERICA
SEX, MARRIAGE, CHILDREN, GAYS, LESBIANS, BOYS AS GIRLS, ABORTION,
BREECHING, FAMILY AND OTHER MYTHS
BUNDLING PART 2
While the advice literature about passionlessness applied to a literate,
urban middle class, the controversy over bundling that erupted after 1750
reflected how tensions over female sexual vulnerability affected rural
people from lower and middling families. Among these groups, bundling had
been widespread. The practice rested upon the assumption that courting
couples either refrained from sexual intercourse when they stayed together
overnight, or that they would marry if pregnancy did occur. As premarital
pregnancy and illegitimacy increased and familial controls over young
people declined, some authorities began to attack bundling as a symbol of
immorality. In the 1750s, a few towns had attempted to prohibit it, but
without much success. In the 1770s, a renewed attack came from New England
clergymen who preached that bundling was "unchristian," much to the dismay
of young women and their mothers, who saw nothing wrong with the
practice.'9 For several years, critics and defenders of bundling voiced
their opinions.
The popular debate on bundling offers a glimpse into the changing meaning
of sexuality at a moment when sexual attraction and sexual experience were
gaining in importance within American society. The new view of courtship
appeared in the verses and songs composed by opponents of bundling, who
could not believe that a young couple spending the night in bed together
would be able to resist sexual temptation. "A New Bundling Song," published
in a 1785 almanac, satirized the claims to chastity during bundling:
A bundling couple went to bed,
With all their clothes from foot to head,
That the defence might seem complete,
Each one was wrapped in a sheet.
But 0! this bundling's such a witch,
The man of her did catch the itch,
And so provoked was the wretch,
That she of him a ***** catch'd.
In contrast, traditionalists who argued for the practicality and safety of
bundling waged a counterattack on the morality of nonbundlers:
Cate, Nance and Sue proved just and true,
Tho' bundling did practice;
But Ruth beguil'd and proved with child,
Who bundling did dispise.
Whores will be whores, and on the floor
Where many has been laid,
To set and smoke and ashes poke,
Wont keep awake a maid.
Bastards are not at all times got
In feather beds we know;
The strumpet's oath convinces both
Oft times it is not so."
Two themes recur on both sides of this popular debate. First, the
publication of these verses attests to the fact that premarital sexual
desire had become a subject of public discourse, not in the form of
condemnatory sermons, but rather in relatively lighthearted jesting that
referred to strumpets, whores, and bastards as social, rather than moral,
problems. Second, all observers recognized that young couples could find
ways to satisfy their desires if they chose. In short, the sexual component
of courtship was in clearer public view than in the past. According to
opponents of bundling, an earlier period of innocent courtship had passed,
and more effective controls over premarital sexuality would have to be
found to replace bundling. In fact, the practice of bundling did decline
after the late eighteenth century, except in rural areas of New England and
Pennsylvania, where it persisted well into the nineteenth century."
SOURCE: Intimate Matters A History of Sexuality in America. John D"emilio
and Estelle B. FreedmanPerennial Library Harper and Eow Publishers (1989)
:pp 46-47
***************************************************************
You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Hampton Roads [Virginia] SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
[Its not just Hampton Roads folks who are members, there are members from
all over the US and a couple from overseas as well]
***************************************************************
.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
****************************************************************
USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote
"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"
That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.
It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.
*****************************************************************
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
****************************************************************
.

User: "Roedy Green"

Title: Re: Early America, Sex, Marriage, family #14 28 Sep 2006 05:53:44 PM
On Wed, 27 Sep 2006 05:18:39 -0400,
wrote,
quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :

bundling

I can hardly imagine a better lure for females to get the male to pop
the question.
--
Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green, http://mindprod.com
See links to the Lebanon photos that Google censored at
http://mindprod.com/politics/israel.html
.


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