{"id":750,"date":"2017-06-06T10:52:28","date_gmt":"2017-06-06T10:52:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/teachingwiththemes.com\/?p=750"},"modified":"2019-12-01T21:37:18","modified_gmt":"2019-12-01T21:37:18","slug":"eighteenth-century-date-bundling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teachingwiththemes.com\/index.php\/2017\/06\/06\/eighteenth-century-date-bundling\/","title":{"rendered":"An Eighteenth Century \u201cDate\u201d- Bundling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Did bundling, as pictured in the movie The Patriot<\/em> (2000) really happen in colonial America?\u00a0 Yes! \u00a0Examining historical relationship etiquette can provide students with insight into their own behavior.<\/p>\n

In 1811, an English dictionary described \u201cbundling\u201d as<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201ca man and woman sleeping in the same bed, he with his small clothes, and she with her petticoats on; an expedient practised in America on a scarcity of beds, where, on such an occasion, husbands and parents frequently permitted travellers to bundle with their wives and daughters. This custom is now abolished.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

But, as historian Jack Larkin noted, if bundling during courtship was supposed to prevent sexual contact and pre-marital pregnancy, it often failed. Young Americans courted unchaperoned at dances, singing schools, sleighing and quilting parties and often paired off and spent time alone. \u00a0In the late 1700s, pregnancy before marriage was frequent.\u00a0 The number of pregnant brides had been rising in America since the late 1600s and peaked in the decades during and after the Revolution. In the 1780s and 1790s, nearly one-third of rural New England brides were pregnant.<\/p>\n

The lyrics of \u201cA New Bundling Song\u201d (published in Boston between 1810-1814) noted \u201csometimes say when she lies down, She can\u2019t be cumbered with a gown.”<\/em>\u00a0Men and women that bundled were supposed to wear clothes and be wrapped in sheets and be \u201cchaste\u201d but this did not always happen.<\/p>\n

\"ExploringClassroom Resources<\/h6>\n

Many of our modern ideas about the sexual strictness of \u201cthe past\u201d reflect the new, stricter morality that developed in the 1800s. Ask students to examine modern relationship etiquette and compare and contrast it to the past using primary sources.<\/p>\n

For more about courtship and dating and primary sources for the classroom \u2013 See Chapter 3 \u2013 Manners and Etiquette \u2013 in Exploring Vacation and Etiquette Themes in Social Studies<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

For more about bundling:<\/h6>\n