But it is for others, like my friend Dr. Green, both by education and professional experience more versed in these subjects than I, to say whether a period of sexual immorality should not be looked for as the natural concomitant and sequence of such a condition of moral and religious excitement as prevailed in New England between 1725 and 1745. I merely now call attention to the fact that in Braintree the Hancock pastorate began in 1726 and ended in 1743, and that it was during the Hancock pastorate, also the period of “the Great Awakening,” that public confessions of fornication were most frequently made in the Braintree church; further, and finally, it was during the years which immediately followed that the great “tide of immorality” which the clergy of the day so much deplored, “rolled over the land.”
But it still remains to consider whether the entries referred to in the church records must be taken as conclusive evidence that a peculiarly lax condition of affairs as respects the sexual relation did really prevail in New England during the last century. This does not necessarily follow; and, for reasons I shall presently give, I venture to doubt it. In the first place it is to be remembered that the language used in those days does not carry the same meaning that similar language would carry if used now. For instance, when Jonathan Edwards talks of the youth of Northampton being given to “Night-walking ... and leud practices,” he does not at all mean what we should mean by using the same expression; and the young woman who was one of the greatest “company keepers” in the whole town, was probably nothing worse than a lively village girl much addicted to walking with her young admirers after public lecture on the Sabbath afternoons,—“a disorder,” by the way, which Jonathan Edwards says he made “a thorough reformation of ... which has continued ever since.”[17]
So far the relations then prevailing between the young of the two sexes may have been, and probably were, innocent enough, and nothing more needs be said of them; but coming now to the facts revealed in the church records, I venture to doubt the correctness of the inference as to general laxity which would naturally be drawn from them. The situation as respects sexual morality which prevailed in New England during the eighteenth century seems to me to have been peculiar rather than bad. In other words, though there was much incontinence, that incontinence was not promiscuous; and this statement brings me at once to the necessary consideration of another recognized and well-established custom in the more ordinary and less refined New England life of the last century, which has been considered beneath what is known as the dignity of history to notice, and to which, accordingly, no reference is made by Palfrey or Barry, or, so far as I know, by any of the standard authorities: and yet, unless I am greatly mistaken, it is to this carefully ignored usage or custom that we must look for an explanation of the greater part of the confessions recorded in the annals of the churches. I refer, of course, to the practice known as “bundling.”
I do not propose here to go into a description of “bundling,”[18] or to attempt to trace its origin or the extent to which it prevailed in New England during the last century. All this has been sufficiently done in the little volume on the subject prepared by Dr. H. R. Stiles, and published some twenty years ago. For my present purpose it is only necessary for me to say that the practice of “bundling” has long been one of the standing taunts or common-place indictments against New England, and has been supposed to indicate almost the lowest conceivable state of sexual immorality;[19] but, on the other hand, it may safely be asserted that “bundling” was, as a custom, neither so vicious nor so immoral as is usually supposed; nor did it originate in, nor was it peculiar to, New England. It was a practice growing out of the social and industrial conditions of a primitive people, of simple, coarse manners and small means. Two young persons proposed to marry. They and their families were poor; they lived far apart from each other; they were at work early and late all the week. Under these circumstances Saturday evening and Sunday were the recognized time for meeting. The young man came to the house of the girl after Saturday’s sun-down, and they could see each other until Sunday afternoon, when he had to go back to his own home and work. The houses were small, and every nook in them occupied; and in order that the man might not be turned out of doors, or the two be compelled to sit up all night at a great waste of lights and fuel, and that they might at the same time be in each other’s company, they were “bundled” up together on a bed, in which they lay side by side and partially clothed. It goes without saying that, however it originated, such a custom, if recognized and continued, must degenerate into something coarse and immoral. The inevitable would follow. The only good and redeeming feature about it was the utter absence of concealment and secrecy. All was open and recognized. The very “bundling” was done by the hands of mother and sisters.
As I have said, this custom neither originated in nor was it peculiar to New England, though in New England, as elsewhere, it did lead to the same natural results. And I find conclusive evidence of this statement in all its several parts in the following extract from a book published as late as 1804, descriptive of customs, etc., then prevailing in North Wales. For the extract I am indebted to Dr. Stiles:—
“Saturday or Sunday nights are the principal time when this courtship takes place; and on these nights the men sometimes walk from a distance of ten miles or more to visit their favorite damsels. This strange custom seems to have originated in the scarcity of fuel and in the unpleasantness of sitting together in the colder part of the year without a fire. Much has been said of the innocence with which these meetings are conducted; but it is a very common thing for the consequence of the interview to make its appearance in the world within two or three months after the marriage ceremony has taken place.”
And again, referring to the same practice as it prevailed in Holland, another of the authorities quoted by Dr. Stiles, relating his observations also during the present century, speaks of a—
“courtship similar to bundling, carried on in ... Holland, under the name of queesting. At night the lover has access to his mistress after she is in bed; and upon application to be admitted upon the bed, which is of course granted, he raises the quilt or rug, and in this state queests, or enjoys a harmless chit-chat with her, and then retires. This custom meets with the perfect sanction of the most circumspect parents, and the freedom is seldom abused. The author traces its origin to the parsimony of the people, whose economy considers fire and candles as superfluous luxuries in the long winter evenings.”
The most singular, and to me unaccountable, fact connected with the custom of “bundling” is that, though it unquestionably prevailed—and prevailed long, generally and from an early period—in New England, no trace has been reported of it in any localities of England itself, the mother country. There are well-authenticated records of its prevalence in parts at least of Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Holland; but it could hardly have found its way as a custom from any of those countries to New England. I well remember hearing the late Dr. John G. Palfrey remark—and the remark will, I think, very probably be found in some note to the text of his History of New England—that down to the beginning of the present century, or about the year 1825, there was a purer strain of English blood to be found in the inhabitants of Cape Cod than could be found in any county of England. The original settlers of that region were exclusively English, and for the first two centuries after the settlement there was absolutely no foreign admixture. Yet nowhere in New England does the custom of “bundling” seem to have prevailed more generally than on Cape Cod; and according to Dr. Stiles (p. 111) it was on Cape Cod that the practice held out longest against the advance of more refined manners. It is tolerably safe to say that in a time of constantly developing civilization such a custom would originate nowhere. It is obviously a development from something of a coarser and more promiscuous nature which preceded it,—some social condition such as has been often described in books relating to the more destitute portions of Ireland or the crowded districts in English cities, where, in the language of Tennyson,—
“The poor are hovell’d and hustled together, each sex, like swine.”