Bundling

Bundling (from English bundle = bundle) is a custom that was widespread in the northeastern United States until the 19th century. He allowed an unmarried young couple to spend the night in the same bed without physical contact.

According to contradicting statements, the custom came from the British Isles or from Holland. A bachelor interested in an unmarried woman could, with the consent of the parents, spend a night with the person being sought in order to speak to her. However, extramarital body contact or even sexual intercourse was frowned upon in the conservative-Protestant North American colonial era. In order to prevent such impulses, either a board, the bundling board , was placed between the two fully clothed lovers, or they were kept by their parents as if they were in a sleeping bagsewn into the bedding and "released" the next morning. However, these precautions were not always sufficient to curb the lust for the flesh, as shown by several court judgments from the 19th century, which dealt with extramarital pregnancies as a result of bundling nights. As early as 1809, Washington Irving joked in his Humorous History of the City of New York about the consequences of this Yankee custom in Connecticut:

“I credit the unprecedented proliferation of the Yankee tribe to this patent custom; for it is a fact vouched for by court records and parish registers that wherever the custom of the bundling has been widespread, an astonishing number of brats are brought to the state annually without the blessing of law or church. It is astonishing that the learned Malthus overlooked this extraordinary circumstance in his treatise on the population. "

The custom was widespread in Puritan New England into the early 19th century, but persisted even longer in rural areas. In conservative groups of the Amish is Bundling still alive.

A reference to the custom can be found in the Hollywood film The Patriot , set at the time of the American Revolutionary War .

See also

• Kilting , rendezvous , windows

literature

• Dana Doten: The Art of Bundling: Being an Inquiry into the Nature & Origins of the Curious but Universal Folkcustom. The Countryman Press and Farrar & Rinehart, 1938.
• SM Lutnick: The Harassed History of Bundling . In: The School Review 70: 2, 1962, pp. 233-239.
• Henry Reed Stiles: Bundling: Its Origin, Progress, and Decline in America . Knickerbocker, Albany 1871.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Columbia encyclopedia ( Memento of the original from January 9, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ^ Gert Raeithel: History of North American Culture . Frankfurt am Main 2001, Volume 1, p. 82.
3. ^ Folk-Lore Of The Pennsylvania Germans In: Journal of American Folk-Lore 1.2, 1888.
4. ↑ To this sagacious custom, therefore, do I chiefly attribute the unparalleled increase of the yanokie or yankee tribe; 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 unto the state, without the license of the law, or the benefit of clergy ; and it is truly astonishing that the learned Malthus, in his treatise on population, has entirely overlooked this singular fact. After: Washington Irving: A History of New York. Edited by Elizabth L. Bradey. Penguin, London and New York 2008. pp. 121/122.
5. ↑ Night Life of the Pennsylvania Dutch ( Memento of the original from October 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.