Notwithstanding the modesty of the females is such that it would be accounted the greatest rudeness for a gentleman to speak, before a lady, of a garter, knee, or leg, yet it is thought but a piece of civility to ask her to bundle—a custom as old as the first settlement in 1634. It is certainly innocent, virtuous, and prudent, or the puritans would not have permitted it to prevail among their offspring, for whom, in general, they would suffer crucifixion. Children brought up with the chastest ideas, with so much religion as to believe that the omniscient God sees them in the dark, and that angels guard them when absent from their parents, will not—nay, cannot—act a wicked thing. People who are influenced more by lust than a serious faith in God, who is too pure to behold iniquity with approbation, ought never to bundle. If any man, thus a stranger to the love of virtue, of God, and the christian religion, should bundle with a young lady in New-England, and behave himself unseemly towards her, he must first melt her into passion, and expel heaven, death, and hell, from her mind, or he will undergo the chastisement of negroes turned mad; if he escapes with life, it will be owing to the parents flying from their beds to protect him.
The Indians, who had this method of courtship when
the English arrived among them in 1634, are the most chaste set of people in the world.
Concubinage and fornication are vices none of them are addicted to, except such as forsake the laws of Hobbomockow and turn christians. The savages have taken many female prisoners, carried them back three hundred miles into their country, and kept them several years, and yet not a single instance of their violating the laws of chastity has ever been known. This cannot be said of the French, or of the English, whenever Indian or other women have fallen into their hands. I am no advocate for temptation, yet must say that bundling has prevailed 160 years in New-England, and, I verily believe, with ten times more chastity than the sitting on a sofa. About the year 1756, Boston, Salem, Newport, and New York, resolving to be more polite than their ancestors, forbade their daughters bundling on the bed with any young man whatever, and introduced a sofa, to render courtship more palatable and Turkish. Whatever it was owing to, whether to the sofa or any uncommon excess of the feu d’esprit, there went abroad a report that the raffinage produced more natural consequences than all the bundling among the boors with their rurales pendantes through every village in New-England besides.
In 1766, a clergyman from one of the polite towns went into the country and preached against the unchristian custom of young men and maidens lying together upon the same bed. He was no sooner out of the Church, than attacked by a shoal of good old women, with, “Sir, do you think we and our daughters are naughty because we allow bundling?” “You lead
yourselves into temptation by it.” They all replied at once, “Sir, have you been told thus, or has experience taught you?” The Levite began to lift his eyes and to consider his situation, and, bowing, said, “I have been told so.” The ladies, una voce, bawled out, “Your informants, sir, we conclude, are those city ladies who prefer a sofa to a bed. We advise you to alter your sermon by substituting the word sofa for bundling, and, on your return home, preach to them: for experience has told us that city-folks send more children into the country without father and mother to own them, than are born among us; therefore, you see, a sofa is more dangerous than a bed.” The poor priest, seemingly convinced of his blunder, exclaimed, “Nec vitia nostra, nec remedia pati possumus,” hoping hereby to get rid of his guests; but an old matron pulled off her spectacles, and, looking the priest in the face like a Roman heroine, said, “Noli putare me hæc auribus tuis dares.” Others cried out to the priest to explain his Latin. “The English,” he said, “is this: Woe to me that I sojourn in Meseck, and dwell in the tents of Kedar!” One pertly replied, “Gladii decussati sunt gemina presbytericalvis.” The priest confessed his error, begged pardon, and promised never more to preach against bundling, or to think amiss of the custom; the ladies generously forgave him, and went away.
It may seem very strange to find this custom of bundling in bed attended with so much innocence in New-England, while in Europe it is thought not safe, or scarcely decent, to permit a young man or maid to be together in private anywhere. But, in this quarter of the Old World, the viciousness of the one and the simplicity
of the other are the result merely of education and habit. It seems to be a part of heroism, among the polished nations of it, to sacrifice the virtuous fair one whenever an opportunity offers, and thence it is concluded that the same principles actuate those of the New World. It is egregiously absurd to judge of all countries by one. In Spain, Portugal, and Italy, jealousy reigns; in France, England, and Holland, suspicion; in the West and East-Indies, lust; in New-England, superstition. These four blind deities govern Jews, Turks, christians, infidels, and heathen. Superstition is the most amiable. She sees no vice with approbation, but persecution, and self-preservation is the cause of her seeing that. My insular readers will, I hope, believe me, when I tell them that I have seen in the West-Indies naked boys and girls, some fifteen or sixteen years of age, waiting at table and at tea, even when twenty or thirty virtuous English ladies were in the room; who were under no more embarrassment at such an awful sight in the eyes of English people who have not travelled abroad, than they would have been at the sight of so many servants in livery. Shall we censure the ladies of the West-Indies as vicious above their sex on account of this local custom? By no means; for long experience has taught the world that the West-Indian white ladies are virtuous prudes. Where superstition reigns, fanaticism will be minister of state; and the people, under the taxation of zeal, will shun what is commonly called vice with ten times more care than the polite and civilized christians who know what is right and what is wrong from reason and revelation. Happy would it be for the world, if reason and revelation were suffered to
control the minds and passions of the great and wise men of the world, as superstition does that of the simple and less polished! When America shall elect societies for the promotion of chastity in Europe, in return for the establishment of European arts in American capitals, then Europe will discover that there is more christian philosophy in American bundling than can be found in the customs of nations more polite.
I should not have said so much about bundling had not a learned divine (Dr. Burnaby) of the English Church published his Travels through some parts of America, wherein this remarkable custom is represented in an unfavourable light, and as prevailing among the lower class of people. The truth is, the custom prevails among all classes, to the great honour of the country, its religion, and ladies. The virtuous may be tempted; but the tempter is despised. Why it should be thought incredible for a young man and young woman innocently and virtuously to lie down together in a bed with a great part of their clothes on, I cannot conceive. Human passions may be alike in every region; but religion, diversified as it is, operates differently in different countries. Upon the whole, had I daughters now, I would venture to let them bundle upon the bed, or even on the sofa, after a proper education, sooner than adopt the Spanish mode of forcing young people to prattle only before the lady’s mother the chit-chat of artless lovers. Could the four quarters of the world produce a more chaste, exemplary, and beautiful company of wives and daughters than are in Connecticut, I should not have remaining one favourable sentiment for the province. But the soil, the rivers, the