BUNDLING.
[FromThe Yankeeof August 13, 1828, published at Portland, Maine, and edited by John Neal.]
By Rochefoucault, in accounting for the populousness of Massachusetts, the New Englanders are charged with bundling.
By Chastelleux, whose book I am not able to refer to now, the charge is repeated, and by half a score of other honest, good natured people, who have made books about the New World.
But, if you enquire into the business, you are pretty sure to be told, inquire where you may, that bundling is not knownthere, but somewhere further back in the woods, or furtherdown east. Nay, while in every part of the United States the multitude speak of bundling as the habit of their neighbors, either east, west, north, or south, where the witches of the country werelocatedabout a century ago by the grandfathers of thisgeneration, I, myself, though I have taken trouble enough to learn the truth, have never yet been able to meet with a case of bundling—of bundling proper, I should say—in the United States, nor with but one trustworthy individual who had ever met with so much as one case, and he had met withbutone, for which he would give his word. These things are trifles; but when they are told in books that are read and trusted to throughout Europe; such books, too, as that of the Marquis de Chastelleux, or that of De Rouchefoucault, it becomes a matter of serious inquiry. The truth must be told, whatever it is, for the truth cannot be so bad, whatever it may be, as the untruth which is now repeated of us.
The travels of Chastelleux are translated by an Englishman who had been a long while in this country. The book was undoubtedly written with great care, by a very honest, able man, who had very good opportunities of knowing the truth; and is now set off by another very honest, able man, who was, if anything, rather partial to America—enough to make one wary of trusting the report of any traveler who does not say in so many words, after establishing a character for himself—I saw this; I heard this; I take nobody's word for what I now say, etc., etc. Itwould be easy to enumerate a multitude of other stories which are now believed in, about the people of the United States, not only by the people of Europe, and of Great Britain particularly, but by the people of the United States themselves. But a dry catalogue of such things would be of little use.
[Here he refers to the charge reported of New Englanders, that that theyeat pork and molasses—pork and molassesTOGETHER, which is here denied as a ridiculous story. H. R. S.]
They bundle in Wales; bundling there is a serious matter. A lady—a Welsh woman whose word is truth itself—assured me not long ago, that in her country they do not think a bit the worse, of a girl for anticipating her duties, in other words, for being a mother before she has been a wife; they have discovered, perhaps, that cause and effect may be convertible terms; that in such a serious matter, none but a fool would buy a pig in the poke, and that, after all, maternity may lead to marriage there, as marriage leads to maternity here. And why not? for after the establishment of the lying-in hospitals of Russia, the unmarried who borechildren to the statewere proud of the duty, and were looked upon, we are told, with great favor by the public. She added,also, that she was once at a party made up of sixteen or eighteen females, and females of good characters, all but one or two of whom were mothers, or had been so, before they were married. By Chastelleux and his English translator it would appear to have been very much the same in America about the years 1780-1-2. It is not so now. To have had a child before marriage would now be fatal to a woman here, whatever might be her condition or beauty; fatal in every shape. No man would have courage to marry her; no woman of character would associate with her. Ask the first individual you meet, above the age of twelve or thirteen here, and you may have the name and history of every poor girl in the neighborhood who has been so unlucky as to have a child of her own without leave, perhaps, within a period of six or eight years in a populous neighborhood of twenty or thirty miles about. A widow with half a score of children, forty years ago, if we may believe Dr. Franklin, was an object for the fortune hunters of America. It is not so now. The demand for widows, and for every sort of ready made family is beginning to be over.
That which is called bundling here, though bad enough, is not a twentieth part so bad. Hereit is only a mode of courtship. The parties instead of sitting up together, go to bed together; but go to bed with their clothes on. This would appear to be a perilous fashion; but I have been assured by the individual above, that he had proof to the contrary; for in the particular case alluded to, the only case I ever heard of on good authority, although he was invited by the parents of a pretty girl who stood near him, to bundle with her, and although hedidbundle with her, he had every reason to believe, that if he had been very free, or more free than he might have been at a country frolick after they had invited him to escort her, to sit up with her, to dance with her, he would have been treated as a traitor by all parties. He had a fair opportunity of knowing the truth, and he spoke of the matter as if he would prefer the etiquette of sitting up to the etiquette of going to bed with a girl who had been so brought up. He complained of her as a prude. The following communication appears, however, to be one that may be depended on:[40]
"MR. NEAL—If you wish to know the truth about bundling, I think your correspondent V. could tell you all about it—it seems by his confession that he has practiced it on a large scale. I never heard of the thing till about three years ago; an acquaintance of mine had gone to spend the summer with an aunt, who lived somewhere near Sandy river.[41]The following is a copy of one of her letters while there:
"'I should have written sooner, so don't think me unkind, for I have been waiting for something to write about. You requested me to give you a faithful description of the country, the manners and customs of the inhabitants, etc. I have not been here quite three months, but I have been everywhere, seen everything, and got acquainted with everybody. I shall certainly inform you of everything I have seen or heard that is worth relating.
"'You remember how you told me, before I left home, that I was so well looking that if Iwent so far back in the country I should be very much admired and flattered, and have as many lovers as I could wish for. I find it all true. The people here are remarkably kind and attentive to me; they seem to think that I must be something more than common because I have always lived so near Portland.
"'But I must tell you that since I have been here I have had a beau. You must know that the young men,in particular, are very attentive to me. Well, among these isonewho is considered the finest young man in the place, and well he may be—he owns a good farm, which has a large barn upon it, and a neat two story house, all finished. These are the fruits of his own industry; besides he is remarkably good looking, is very large but well-proportioned, and has a good share of what I call real manly beauty. Soon after my arrival here I was introduced to this man—no, notintroducedneither, for they never think of such a thing here. They all know me of course, because I am astranger. Some days, three, four, or half a dozen, call to see me, whom I never before saw or heard of; they come and speak to me as if I were an old acquaintance, and I converse with them as freely as if I had always known them from childhood.In this kind of a way I got acquainted with my beau, thatwas;he was very attentive to me from our first meeting. If we happened to be going anywhere in company he was sure to offer me his arm—no, I am wrong again, he never offered me his arm in his life. If you go to walk with a young man here, instead of offering you his arm as the young men do up our way, he either takes your hand in his, or passes one arm around your waist; and this he does with such a provoking, careless honesty, that you cannot for your life be offended with him. Well, I had walked with my Jonathan several times in this kind of style. I confess there was something in him I could not but like—he does not lack for wit, and has a good share of common sense; his language is never studied—he always seems to speak from the heart. So when he asked what sort of a companion he would make, I very candidly answered, that I thought he would make a very agreeable one. "I think just so of you," said he, "and it shall not be my fault," he continued, "if we are not companions for life." "We shall surely make a bargain," said he, after sitting silent a few moments, "so we'llbundleto-night." "Bundlewhat?" I asked. "Wewill bundle together," said he; "you surely knowwhat I mean." I know that our farmers bundlewheat,cornstalksandhay;do you mean that you want me to help you bundle any of these?" inquired I. "I mean that I want you to stay with me to-night! It is the custom in this place, when a man stays with a girl, if it is warm weather, for them to throw themselves on the bed, outside the bed clothes; if the weather is cold, they crawl under the clothes, then if they have anything tosay, they say it—when they get tired of talking they go to sleep; this is what we call bundling—now what do you call it in your part of the world?" "We have no such works," answered I; "not amongst respectable people, nor do I think that any people would, that either thought themselves respectable, or wished to be thought so."
"'Don't be too severe upon us, Miss ——, I have always observed that those whomake believeso much modesty, have in reality but little. I always act as I feel, and speak as I think. I wish you to do the same, but have none of your make-believes with me—you smile—you begin to think you have been a little too scrupulous—you have no objection to bundlingnow, have you?" "Indeed I have." "I am not to be trifled with; so, if you refuse, I have done withyou forever." "Then be done as quick as you please, for I'll not bundle with you nor with any other man." "Then farewell, proud girl," said he. "Farewell, honest man," said I, and off he went sure enough.
"'I have since made inquiries aboutbundling, and find that it isreallythe custom here, and that they think no more harm of it, than we do our way of a young couple sitting up together. I have known an instance, since I have been here, of a girl's taking her sweetheart to a neighbor's house and asking for a bed or two to lodge in, or rather tobundlein. They had company at her father's, so that their beds were occupied; she thought no harm of it. She and her family are respectable.
"'Grandmother says bundling was a very common thing in our part of the country, in old times; that most of the first settlers lived in log houses, which seldom had more than one room with a fire place; in this room the old people slept, so if one of their girls had a sweetheart in the winter she must either sit with him in the room where her father and mother slept, or take him into her sleeping room. She would choose the latter for the sake of being alone with him; but sometimes when the cold was very severe,rather than freeze to death, they would crawl under the bed-clothes; and this, after a while, became a habit, a custom, or a fashion. The man that I am going to send this by, is just ready to start, so I cannot stop to write more now. In my next I'll give you a more particular account of the people here. Adieu.'
"Mr. Editor, you may be sure that what is related in the foregoing letter is the truth. I know that there is considerableotherinformation in it, mixed up withthatabout which you wished to be informed, but I could not very well separate it."
So after all that has been said of the practice of bundling in our country, by foreign writers, travelers, and reviewers—after all the reproach that has been heaped upon us, now that we are able to get at the plain truth, it appears to be, though certainly a bad practice, not half so bad as the junketing and sitting up courtships that are known elsewhere. Nay, more. Though in the present state of society it is a practice that should be utterly discountenanced everywhere, still it would seem to have grown up out of the peculiar circumstances of our first settlers; to be confinednowto remote and small districts (for I haveheard of only three instances, after all my inquiry); and to be rapidly going out of practice. Yet more; there can be no bad intentions, there can be no evil consequences, where respectable and modest women are not ashamed to acknowledge that they bundle. I am anxious to know the truth for the purpose of correcting both themisrepresentationsthat are abroad, and thepracticesthat prevail here. Bundling, however, is known in other countries, where they have less excuse, and in Wales where they donotbundle, as I have said before, it is no reproach for a woman to have had a child before marriage. It was so in Russia after Catharine established her lying-in hospitals.
In the next number ofThe Yankee(August 20th) there is the following editorial paragraph:
BUNDLING.
There is a great outcry just now about the paper on bundling which was in the lastYankee. Now this very outcry proves the want of the very paper alluded to. The article is about bundling; and people who imagine bundling to be what it is not, a highly improper and unchastefamiliarity, are offended with it; but the very purpose of that paper is to show that bundling is not what it is believed to be, that it is neither so common nor so bad, not a fiftieth part so bad as people have imagined.
That the customs of courtship in many parts of the United Kingdom at the present day, are precisely what they were in some parts of New England, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, fifty years ago, is evident from the revelations of theRoyal Commission on the Marriage Laws, in the year 1868. Dr. Strahan, a physician and surgeon, who for nearly forty years has practiced in the Scottish county of Stirling, testifies before the commission, that his attention was first drawn to the subject in consequence of observing the very great extent of immorality among the working classes, not only as evidenced by the large number of illegitimate children, but also by the still larger number of marriages after the woman was with child; and the number of children born within eight months of wedlock. He found, to his astonishment, that among the working classes(i.e., the agricultural laborers), nine out of ten women, when married, either had had illegitimate children, or were pregnant at the time of marriage. "I have," he says, "a large midwifery practice, and I very rarely attend a woman with her first child, where the child is not born within a few months of wedlock, or else she has had an illegitimate child before." He believes it is very common for women to allow themselves to be seduced in the hope of being married. They go on until they areenceinte, and then, if the young man is at all a decent fellow, the friends interfere and the marriage is hurried on. The sketch which Dr. Strahan supplies of Scotch courtships, explains all this part of his observation. Young men and women meet together at night, and the ordinary time is the middle of the night, when every one else is in bed. "It is universal," says Dr. Strahan to the commission, "among the working classes, to have this manner of courtship of which I speak; there is no other courtship, in any other form; the fathers and mothers will not allow their daughters to meet a young man in the day-time; the young man never visits the family, but the parents quite allow this; they have done it themselves before, and there is no objection to it. The young man comes, makesa noise at the window; the young woman goes out, they go to some outhouse; or perhaps the young man is admitted to the young woman's bedroom after all are in bed, and there is an hour or two of what is called courtship, but which would more properly be called flirtation, because it is not necessary that there should be any engagement to marry in these cases."
Lord Lyveden inquired: "Do these meetings take place at particular periods, such as harvest time, or is it over the whole of the year?"
Answer: "The whole of the year; very commonly the young man visits the young woman once a week."
Lord Chelmsford said: "In England that would be calledkeeping company. It is a very extraordinary way of keeping company when the parents allow their daughter to go out with the young man at midnight, or the young man to come into her bedroom."
Answer: "Yes; the parents know no other way of doing it. I have reasoned with the parents often when attending a case of illegitimate birth, pointing out to the parents how it is they have been led on, but they cannot imagine any other way of doing it; their daughters must have husbands, and there is no other way of courting."
Mr. Justice O'Hagan asking—"Does it prevail generally in Scotland?" was answered—"Universally among the agricultural laborers."
In reply to an inquiry by Mr. Dunlop, whether these young men lived under any kind of supervision and knowledge of their masters, or whether they could go out and in as they pleased, Dr. Strahan stated that "plowmen, for instance, very often live inbothies, or in the farm house; they get out after all are in bed, out of the window; or, if they live in a bothie, without any trouble. They go to the neighboring farm-house, they knock at the window, the girl comes to the window, and, if she know the young man—or, after a little parley, if she does not know him—she either comes out and goes with him to an outhouse, or he comes into her bedroom. You must remember that they have no other means of intercourse."
"That is the point you press so much?"
"Yes; a young woman cannot see either a sweetheart or an acquaintance in any other way. I believe if it was not for fear of being out at night, the girls would visit one another in the same way; they have no other means of visiting; the customs of the country are such that ayoung man could not be seen going in day-light to visit his sweetheart."
Mr. Justice O'Hagan: "If the father knew that the young man was coming into the house, and knew that he was with his daughter, would he not interfere?"
"He would lie comfortably in his bed, knowing that his daughter was in an out-house or barn with a young man, for perhaps two hours; shutting his eyes to it in the same way that a person in the higher ranks would shut his eyes to his daughter going out for a walk with a young man."
Dr. Strahan said also: "When you come to the middle class a young man would not marry a girl that had had a child to another man; and very probably he would not marry a girl that had had a child to himself; but in the lower classes it is not so; it is almost universal to marry a woman that has had a child, or that is with child to himself; but it is very frequent to marry a woman that has had a child to another man; the only objection is the burden of the child; the burden of the child might be an obstacle, but the disgrace would be none."
"Is it supposed," asked a commissioner, "that the woman, by marrying this other man, wipes off her disgrace with the former?"
"Yes; but it is so common that the disgrace is not so much as to prevent the young man marrying her."
The attorney-general: "It is hardly within our inquiry, but still it is interesting to know; can you tell me whether, in these cases, where the woman marries a man who is not the father of her child, any confusion, as to the parent of the previously born child, arises? Are they apt in law, to pass as the children of the subsequent husband?"
"No, I do not think so."
"The distinction is always kept up?"
"The distinction is always kept up; very often the illegitimate child goes by his own father's name, even among the other children; and I do not think there is apt to be any confusion of that kind."
Still, it seems that, in severely Calvinistic Scotia, the church does not wholly wink at this state of things. The sinning couple, after marriage, have to go through a certain whitewashing at church before they are admitted to what are called church privileges. They have to go before a kirk session, consisting of the minister and perhaps half a dozen elders, when they areadmonished. If the parties are married, they appear but once; if not married, generally three times. They tender themselves for rebuke without invitation, as without it the child cannot be baptized, or admission given to the sacrament. They apply to the minister in private, and confess their fault, and he causes them to be summoned before the church session.
African tribes, courtship among,
42
America, English misrepresentation of,
62
.
America, bundling in,
44
inherits bundling from Holland,45.
bundling not peculiar to,13.
bundling universal in 1750,106.
Ballads against bundling,
81
,
100
.
in favor of bundling,88,93.
Brychan, a cloth,
23
.
Bundling, antiquity of,
14
.
Bundling, abuse of, in New England,
75
.
ballads on,81,88,93,100.
ceased with eighteenth century,106,
confined to the lower classes,107.
Bundling, described by Lt. Anbury in 1777,
66
.
definition of,13.
decision of N. Y. Supreme Court on,111.
effect of,75.
in America,44.
in British isles,14,22.
in Cape Cod,110.
in Holland,35.
Bundling in Maine about 1828,
117
.
in New England States,48.
in Wales,23,115.
introduced in America from Holland,45.
mentioned by Rev. Sam'l Peters,51.
mentioned by Washington Irving,49.
mentioned by Dr. A. Burnaby, 1759,58.
mentioned by Sir Walter Scott,20.
not peculiar to America,13.
Bundling originating in poverty in Scotland and Ireland,
23
.
origin of,14.
originally confined to the lower classes in America,65.
practiced in Pennsylvania till late years,109.
preached against,54.
recollections of by old persons,106.
Bundling regarded as a serious evil,
106
.
sanctioned by parents,69.
sermon against,77.
two forms of,13.
universal now in lower classes of Scotland,130.
universal in America in 1750,106.
-up, in Wales,42.
Cape Cod, bundling practiced there in 1827,
110
.
Central Asia, courtship in,
42
.
Confession in public necessary for baptism of children,
76
.
Courtship, customs of, in Great Britain,
127
.
Courtship among Welsh peasantry,
29
.
in Central Asia,42.
in the 14th century,37.
among N. A. Indians,40.
in Switzerland,38.
Cuckold, no word in Gaelic for,
21
.
Customs of courtship, different in the cantons of Switzerland,
39
.
Dayaks of Borneo, courtship of,
42
.
Dorfen, in Switzerland,
39
.
Empress Cartismandua,
21
.
Julia,20.
Epilogue on bundling at Westminster school, 1815,
61
.
Free-bench,
22
.
French war, demoralizing influence of,
74
.
Germans, respect of, for women,
21
.
Gordon, Sir Robert,
19
.
Sir Adam,19.
Great Britain, bundling common at the present day in,
126
.
Great Britain, immorality of lower classes in,