[553] Shirley, loc. cit., 308. This is true of Connecticut for the entire provincial period: Acts and Laws (New Haven, 1769), 7, but apparently not of Massachusetts under the second charter. In New Hampshire under the Canfield Code, 1682, the betrothed woman is still treated as married, but whipping is dispensed with: New Hamp. Prov. Papers, I, 444, 445. But by the act of 1701 she is punished for fornication as a single woman: ibid., III, 224.
[554] Shirley, loc. cit., 308.
[555] The whole of this curious law may prove instructive. It is enacted "That any person or persons that shall Comit Carnall Copulation before or without lawfull contract shalbee punished by whiping or els pay ten pounds fine apeece and bee Imprisoned during the pleasure of the Court soe it bee not aboue three daies but if they bee or wilbee married [i. e., a "delayed" marriage voluntarily solemnized or else marriage prescribed as a penalty] the one to the other; then but ten pounds both and Imprisoned as aforsaid; and by a lawfull Contract the Court vnderstands the mutuall consent of parents or guardians if there bee any to bee had; and a sollemne promise of marriage in due time to each other before two competent witnesses [this being the regulation of pre-contract already mentioned in the text]; and if any person or persons shall Comitt carnall Coppulation after contract and before Marriage they shall pay each fifty shillings and bee both Imprisoned," etc.—Plym. Col. Rec., XI, 172, 95, 46. Originally the punishment for fornication was left in the discretion of the magistrates: ibid., 12.
[556] Cf. Shirley, loc. cit., 308, 309.
[557] Stiles, Bundling in its Origin, Progress, and Decline (Albany, 1871), 13, 14. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, thus explains the practice: "A man and a woman lying on the same bed with their clothes on; an expedient practiced in America on a scarcity of beds, when, on such occasions, husbands and parents frequently permitted travelers to bundle with their wives and daughters." This applies, of course, only to the first named and less interesting form of the custom. In almost the same words as those used by Stiles, Masson, Journeys in Belochistan, Afghanistan, etc., III, 287, describes the bundling of lovers among the Afghans: see Adams, Some Phases of Sexual Immorality, 31, note. In general on this custom consult Earle, Customs and Fashions, 62-64; Weeden, Ecc. and Soc. Hist. of N. E., II, 739, 864.
[558] Irving, Knickerbocker's Hist. of New York (Philadelphia, 1871), Book III, chaps. vii, viii, 217-28; cf. Stiles, Bundling, 45 ff.; Adams, Some Phases of Sexual Immorality, 31.
[559] Queesting (a seeking, similar to English "quest") seems to have existed until last century on the islands of Vlie, Wieringen, and perhaps elsewhere in Holland. "At night the lover has access to his mistress after she is in bed; and, upon an 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 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."—Stiles, op. cit., 35, 36, citing Carr, The Stranger in Ireland (1807).
[560] Adams, Some Phases of Sexual Immorality, 33. Mr. Adams, however, while pointing out the "singular and to me unaccountable, fact" that traces of bundling, found so widely in the New England colonies, have not yet been discovered in England, thinks that it "could hardly have found its way as a custom" from Holland or the other countries named; and he mentions, by way of supporting his conclusion, its great prevalence in Cape Cod where, according to Palfrey, until about 1825, "there was a purer strain of English blood to be found ... than could be found in any county of England." But wherever the Dutch settled the custom of bundling was tenacious, lasting in Pennsylvania at least until 1845: Earle, Customs and Fashions, 63: and in New York at least until 1804: Stiles, op. cit., 111.
[561] Stiles, op. cit., 14-35, who cites various authorities for Wales, especially Pratt, Gleaning through Wales, Holland, and Westphalia (3d ed., London, 1797), I, 105-7; and Bingley, North Wales (London, 1804), II, 282. Cf. also Adams, op. cit., 32; and Brand, Popular Antiquities, II, 98.
[562] Bundling probably has its origin in the "proof-nights" which formerly were widely prevalent among the Teutonic peoples of Europe: see Fischer, Ueber die Probenächte, 12 ff., 24 ff., 32-36.