The Reverend Samuel Peters's view is that, over a century and a half, New England couples have bundled in bed 'with ten times more chastity than sitting on a sofa'. Indeed, Mr Peters takes a very dubious view of sofas. He says that about 1756 Boston and New York 'resolving to be more polite than their ancestors forbade their daughters bundling ... and
introduced a sofa to render courtship more palatable and Turkish'. Perhaps it was the influence of the sofa, perhaps 'an uncommon excess of feu d'esprit', but the changeover, Peters hints, led to a notable increase in 'natural consequences'. He tells a carious story of a clergyman from one of the polite towns who went into the country (as many did) to preach against bundling. No sooner had he emerged from church than he was surrounded by indignant women asking, 'Sir, do you think our daughters are naughty because we allow bundling?' He replied: 'You lead yourselves into temptation, by it.' Asked whether he had first-hand knowledge, 'the Levite began to lift his eyes and consider his situation', then admitted that he had not. '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 preacher took refuge behind a Latin phrase, but an old matron 'with a face like a Roman heroine' capped it with one of her own. Beaten on two fronts, the Levite undertook to preach no more against bundling, and on being forgiven, went his way.
For his part, the Reverend Samuel Peters cannot conceive why it should be thought incredible for a young man and a young woman innocently and virtuously to he down together in a bed with a great part of their clothes on. Had I daughters now I would venture to let them bundle on 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? In Europe, he notes, 'it is thought not safe or scarcely decent to permit a young man or maid to be together in private, anywhere ... in Spain, Portugal and Italy jealousy reigns; in France, England and Holland, suspicion; in the West and East Indies, lust.. ..' His considered view is that the New World ought to start societies for the promotion of chastity in the old.
A doubtful account of bundling is to be found in Diedrich Knickerbocker's History of New York (c. 1809) by Washington Irving. The author refers to bundling as a 'superstitious rite observed by the young people of both sexes with which they usually terminated their festivities and which was kept up with religious strictness by the more bigoted part of the community. He recognizes that bundling began as courtship, a sagacious form of courtship which 'commenced where ours usually finishes', and as a result of which this 'cunning and ingenious people' obtained better matrimonial bargains; that is, there was less chance of buying a pig in a poke. To the practice of bundling Knickerbocker recklessly attributes the unparalleled increase in the Yankee race: For it is a certain fact, well authenticated by court records and parish registers, that wherever the practice of bundling prevailed there was an amazing number of sturdy brats annually born into the state without the Licence of law or the benefit of clergy . . . they grew up a longsided, raw-boned hardy race of whoreson whalers, wood-cutters, fishermen and pedlars, and strapping corn-fed wenches who by their united efforts tended marvellously towards peopling those notable tracts of country called Nantucket, Piscatawnay and Cape Cod. There seem to have been many devices for minimizing temptation between bundlers. One was a low board, fitted into slots, dividing the bed into two, but in ho way hindering contact of hands or lips. A bolster served a similar purpose. Some prudent mothers tied their daughters' ankles together, or encased the lower parts of their bodies in a tight garment, or made them wear a profusion of petticoats. It was always open to an apprehensive maiden to provide auxiliary defences of her own, either by sewing up her garments at suitable places or laying in an armoury of pins. In real emergencies, a scream would always bring immediate aid. But there is no reason to suppose that it was the girl who was always on the defensive.
Sometimes the pair were fussed over, and tucked in, by their parents. The degree of freedom from supervision allowed them may have depended, in some instances, on the eagerness of the parents to see their daughter married. Traditionally, a candle in the girl's window was the signal that the suitor (or indeed any suitor) would be hospitably received. It might be set there by the girl herself, or even by her parents.
Obviously bundling was liable to be abused, but in many instances its friendly intimacies (more restrained than those of modern 'petting') may have helped virtuous couples to a fuller knowledge of each other's idiosyncrasies, and broken down excessive modesty. One thing seems clear: that the standard of behaviour deteriorated as the age became more sophisticated.
The heyday of bundling seems to have been in the twenty years or so before the War of Independence. The practice died out slowly as a result of mockery and urban influences, coupled with the improvement in conditions and the building of bigger houses-with parlours. Pulpit condemnations and acts of judicature seem to have had little effect in bringing about its end. And still less effect, it may be supposed, was produced by anti-bundling ballads, one of which concluded:
Down deep in hell there let them dwell
And bundle on that bed,
Then turn and roll without control
Till all their lusts are fed |