| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"" |
| Date: |
27 Sep 2006 10:53:45 AM |
| Object: |
Early America, Sex, Marriage, family #16 |
PART 16
EARLY AMERICA
SEX, MARRIAGE, CHILDREN, GAYS, LESBIANS, BOYS AS GIRLS, ABORTION,
BREECHING, FAMILY AND OTHER MYTHS
IN 1625, the English adventurer Thomas Morton established a plantation in
the New England colony of Plymouth that soon proved to be the antithesis of
the Pilgrim vision of life in the New World. Most migrants to early New
England sought to create godly communities built upon the centrality of the
family, a well-ordered and stable "little commonwealth." In contrast, the
men and women who joined Thomas Morton at "Merry Mount" engaged in "profane
and dissolute living," including sexual relations outside of marriage. In
addition, while most European settlers expressed shock at the sexual habits
of the native tribes and tried to convert them to what they believed to be
a superior Christian morality, Morton and his followers welcomed Indians to
Merry Mount and openly had sexual relations with them. In a further affront
to Pilgrim values, Morton revived the pagan May Day festivities, complete
with the erotically charged maypole. Merry Mount proved so threatening to
the Pilgrims' vision of social order that in 1628 they deported Morton back
to England. When he later returned to Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Puritan
authorities there imprisoned him under such severe conditions—he was kept
in irons, without adequate food and clothing, for a year—that Morton died
soon after his release.' Libertinism, paganism, and sexual relations with
the Indians clearly had no place within the Puritan scheme, based as it was
upon reestablishing the Christian family in the wilderness. /gas
Thomas Morton was a mere thorn in the side of Pilgrim and Puritan leaders,
but during the seventeenth century, these English colonists faced more
serious challenges to their goal of creating stable family life and
implementing the values of marital, reproductive sexuality. First, the
varied sexual practices of the native peoples of North America, which both
fascinated and disturbed the settlers, offered possible alternatives to
European traditions. Second, and more challenging, demographic conditions
in the New World strongly affected family life. Climate and settlement
patterns facilitated the reestablishment of a family-centered sexual life
in New England but delayed it in the Chesapeake colonies of Maryland and
Virginia. Only after several generations did social conditions in these two
regions converge to the point that one may speak of a reproductive sexual
system throughout the colonies. Thus, to understand the sexual values
colonists brought with them and the obstacles to adopting them, it is
important to begin this history by exploring the European, and especially
English, influence on America, the native American cultures that confronted
European migrants, and the regional variations that shaped diverse sexual
systems in the seventeenth century.
SOURCE: Intimate Matters A History of Sexuality in America. John D"emilio
and Estelle B. FreedmanPerennial Library Harper and Eow Publishers (1989)
pp 3 - 4
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
IN 1650, young Samuel Terry of Springfield, Massachusetts distressed his
neighbors when, during the Sabbath sermon, he stood outside the
meetinghouse "chafing his yard to provoak lust." Several lashes on the back
may have dissuaded him from masturbating in public again, but in 1661
Samuel Terry endured another punishment for sexual misconduct. Now married,
his bride of five months gave birth to their first child, clear evidence
that the pair had indulged in premarital intercourse. A four-pound fine was
not the last Terry would pay for defying the moral standards of his
community. In 1673 the court fined Terry and eight other men who had
performed an "immodest and beastly" play. Despite this history of sexual
offenses, however, a sinner like Samuel Terry could command respect among
his peers. Terry not only served as a town constable, but, in addition, the
court entrusted him with the custody of another man's infant son.' In
short, as long as he accepted punishment for his transgressions, Samuel
Terry remained a citizen in good standing.
The case of Samuel Terry allows us to refine the stereotype of the American
colonists as prudish, ascetic, and antisexual. This view has enjoyed so
much popularity in modern America that the term puritanical has come to
mean sexually repressive. Not all colonists were Puritans, those
nonconforming, largely middle-class English men and women who attempted to
establish a community of saints in seventeenth-century New England. Members
of the Anglican and Quaker churches, and migrants from the Netherlands,
Germany, and northern Ireland settled in the southern and middle colonies,
especially during the eighteenth century. Even among the Puritans and their
Yankee descendants, sexuality exhibited more complexity than modern
assumptions about their repressiveness suggest.
SOURCE: Intimate Matters A History of Sexuality in America. John D"emilio
and Estelle B. FreedmanPerennial Library Harper and Eow Publishers (1989)
:pp 15 - 16
***************************************************************
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
****************************************************************
.
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| User: "Roedy Green" |
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| Title: Re: Early America, Sex, Marriage, family #16 |
27 Sep 2006 01:35:26 PM |
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On Wed, 27 Sep 2006 06:53:45 -0400, wrote,
quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :
In contrast, the
men and women who joined Thomas Morton at "Merry Mount" engaged in "profane
and dissolute living," including sexual relations outside of m
The Oneida Community in New York (the silver ware people) were
according to Havelock Ellis in the Encyclopedia Of Sex written around
the turn of the century into sex outside marriage and a form of sex
where the males would avoid orgasm.
Consider how odd the sex practices were of the Mormons. America was a
big country, and there was no big brother government to regularize sex
practices, and there was no Geraldo to break the "scandals".
--
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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