Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America

by Henry Reed Stiles

"From the time of Jack Cade," says he, "to Lord George Gordon, and down to the present day, neither your grave or gay authorities on the subject of bundling and tarrying are worthy of criticism. There is a littleness in noticing, in the London Quarterly Review, a work which heretofore has been distinguished for its taste, chasteness and celebrity, the observation of travelers who, if men of truth, could only mean to mention customs (if they were customs) of the most vulgar and ignorant, which at any rate are now as little known as are the operation of the blue laws of Connecticut, or part of the penal code enacted to keep in slavery and subjection the sister kingdom.[26]

"Englishmen, examine your own cottages, particularly in the north, and on the borders, and extend your view to the western extremity of your island. Pray, what term will you give to that promiscuous bundling of the father, mother, children, sons and daughters-in-law, cousins, and inmates who call to tarry, and not unfrequently stretch themselves in one common bed of straw on the hovel's floor?[27]

"Nay, even, in some parts of your empire, the hogs and the cows join the group, and form a most audible respiration from their noses, getting vent through the hole in the roof intended for a chimney, or spreading throughout the clay built edifice with odorific sweetness, though perhaps not so fragrant and refreshing as was the precious oil poured on the venerable head of Aaron, which Sternhold and Hopkins tell us filled the room with pleasure. In the early settlement of this country there might have been houses in the route of the inquisitive and insidious European travelers, unprovided with a spare bed on which he might stretch his limbs; but, now, should Mr. Canning[28] himself visit us, he need not fear being bundled—he need not travel far in any part of the United States without enjoying the luxury of a soft couch and clean sheets, where he can ruminate on the injustice he attempts on our national character."

Badinage, ridicule and misrepresentation aside, however, there can be no reasonable doubt that bundling did prevail to a very great extent in the New England colonies from a very early date. It is equally evident that it was originally confined almost entirely to the lower classes of the community, or to those whose limited means compelled them to economize strictly in their expenditure of firewood and candlelight. Many, perhaps the majority, of the dwellings of the early settlers, consisted of but one room, in which the whole family lived and slept. Yet their innocent and generous hospitality forbade that the stranger, or the friend whom night overtook on their threshold, should be turned shelterless and couchless away, so long as they could offer him even half of a bed. As an example of this we may cite the case of Lieut. Anbury, a British officer, who served in America during the Revolutionary War, and whose letters preserve many sprightly and interesting pictures of the manners and customs of that period. In a letter dated at Cambridge, New England, November 20, 1777, he thus speaks:

"The night before we came to this town [Williamstown, Mass.], being quartered at a small log hut, I was convinced in how innocent a view the Americans look upon that indelicate custom they call bundling. Though they have remarkable good feather beds, and are extremely neat and clean, still I preferred my hard mattress, as being accustomed to it; this evening, however, owing to the badness of the roads, and the weakness of my mare, my servant had not arrived with my baggage at the time for retiring to rest. There being only two beds in the house, I inquired which I was to sleep in, when the old woman replied, 'Mr. Ensign,' here I should observe to you, that the New England people are very inquisitive as to the rank you have in the army; 'Mr. Ensign,' says she, 'our Jonathan and I will sleep in this, and our Jemima and you shall sleep in that.' I was much astonished at such a proposal, and offered to sit up all night, when Jonathan immediately replied, 'Oh, la! Mr. Ensign, you wont be the first man our Jemima has bundled with, will it Jemima?' when little Jemima, who, by the bye, was a very pretty, black-eyed girl, of about sixteen or seventeen, archly replied, 'No, father, not by many, but it will be with the first Britainer' (the name they give to Englishmen). In this dilemma what could I do? The smiling invitation of pretty Jemima—the eye, the lip, the—Lord ha' mercy, where am I going to? But wherever I may be going now, I did not go to bundle with her—in the same room with her father and mother, my kind host and hostess too! I thought of that—I thought of more besides—to struggle with the passions of nature; to clasp Jemima in my arms—to—do what? you'll ask—why, to do—nothing! for if amid all these temptations, the lovely Jemima had melted into kindness, she had been an outcast from the world—treated with contempt, abused by violence, and left perhaps to perish! No, Jemima; I could have endured all this to have been blest with you, but it was too vast a sacrifice, when you was to be the victim! Suppose how great the test of virtue must be, or how cold the American constitution, when this unaccountable custom is in hospitable repute, and perpetual practice."[29]

Again, in a subsequent letter, the Lieutenant, after describing a New England sleighing frolic, says: "In England this would be esteemed extremely imprudent, and attended with dangerous consequences; but, after what I have related respecting bundling, I need not say, in how innocent a view this is looked upon. Apropos, as to that custom, along the sea coast, by a continual intercourse among Europeans, it is in some measure abolished; but they still retain one something similar, which is termed tarrying. When a young man is enamored of a woman, and wishes to marry her, he proposes the affair to her parents (without whose consent no marriage, in this colony, can take place); if they have no objections, he is allowed to tarry with her one night, in order to make his court. At the usual time the old couple retire to bed, leaving the young ones to settle matters as they can, who having sat up as long as they think proper, get into bed together also, but without putting off their under garments; to prevent scandal. If the parties agree, it is all very well, the banns are published, and they married without delay; if not, they part, and possibly never see each other again, unless, which is an accident that seldom happens, the forsaken fair proves pregnant, in which case the man, unless he absconds, is obliged to marry her, on pain of excommunication."[30]

The word tarry, in the sense of to stop or to stay, was more used by our ancestors than by the present generation; yet we think that Lieut. Anbury was mistaken in his idea that the tarrying was but for a single night. It is true that marriages were early, and probably the courtships were short, but we all know enough of New England sparking to know that a single night was cutting it rather short; and yet it is easy to see how Anbury should get his erroneous idea. True, if the lover was so unlucky as to get his final dismissal the first night, there was an end of the matter, and well might they fail to meet again; but, in that case, it is not likely that the favors of which he could boast would be such as to seriously affect the reputation of the girl with whom he tarried. The fact that in the custom of tarrying, the parties also bundled, does not authorize the synonymous use of the two words, which have nothing in common. For, doubtless many young men tarried with their sweethearts, who did not bundle with them.

Again, when, on a sabbath night, the faithful swain arrived, having, perhaps, walked ten or more weary miles, to enjoy the company of his favorite lass, in the few brief hours which would elapse before the morning light should call him again to his homeward walk and his week of toil, was it not the dictate of humanity as well as of economy, which prompted the old folks to allow the approved and accepted suitor of their daughter to pursue his wooing under the downy coverlid of a good feather bed (oftentimes, too, in the very same room in which they themselves slept), rather than to have them sit up and burn out uselessly firewood and candles, to say nothing of the risk of catching their death a' cold? Indeed, was not the sanction of bundling in such cases a tacit admission, on the part of the parents, of their perfect confidence in the young folks, which necessarily acted upon the latter as, at once, a strong restraint from wrong, and a strong incentive to right doing? The influence of early religious training, the powerful control which the church had obtained upon the social and domestic life of the people, and the superstitious aspect which, in those days, the gospel was made to wear, must also be taken into the account. And, moreover, is it not probable that the universality of the custom, which certainly cleared it from anything like odium or reproach, would naturally tend to preclude, in a degree, any improper ideas in the minds of those who practiced it? Such, then, we consider the status of the custom in the earlier history of the colonies, and among the first generation of settlers.

"But," if the reader will allow us to quote from a previous work, "the emigration from a civilized to a new country,[31] is necessarily a step backward into barbarism. The second generation did not fill the place of the fathers. Reared amid the trials and dangers of a new settlement, they were in a great measure deprived of the advantages, both social and educational, which their parents had enjoyed. Nearly all of the former could write, which cannot be said of their children. Neither did the latter possess that depth of religious feeling, or earnest practical piety which distinguished the first comers. Religion was to them less a matter of the heart than of social privilege, and in the half way covenant controversy we behold the gradual letting down of bars between a pure church and a grasping world.

"The third generation followed in the footsteps of their predecessors. Then came war; and young New England brought from the long Canadian campaigns, stores of loose camp vices, and recklessness, which soon flooded the land with immorality and infidelity. The church was neglected, drunkenness fearfully increased, and social life was sadly corrupted."[32]