School of Humans.
I hope this hasn't happened to you, but one day you might find yourself thrown back in time. Yes, I've been reading Outland or whatever. But let's say you're thrown back in time and you land in colonial America sometime between sixteen fifty and seventeen seventy six. Sixteen fifty because that's about half a century after the colonizers founded Jamestown, so there are more settlements around, and seventeen seventy six, you know, because some stuff happened if you recall.
And so in this episode, I have.
Outlined some very important information for your time traveling self, specifically a guide on how you might get some hanky panky and the colonial American past. Sure information on farming and forging might be more helpful for your survival, but don't we need a little love to get through the day. So this episode is about how one might court and do some rolling in the hay back in the day. Cue the theme song. This is American filth. I'm Gabby Watts.
Every week I tell you a filthy story from American history. This week's episode the Puritan Guide to get in some First of all, we got to dispel some myths about the past. As we've all seen on the most historically rigorous podcast American filth throughout time, no matter what legislation existed, no matter what religious or social control was going on, people.
Have always been getting their free gone.
And the Puritans they actually liked it when people had sex, not in like a fetish sort of way. They just liked it, you know, because remember they were in colonial America.
They're creating a new society.
Ergo, they wanted babies, and specifically sparkling white ones. And in case you didn't know, the way that you make a baby is usually through fornication. In fact, in colonial society, that was the only way to have one, if you can believe it, they didn't have IVF back then. Back then IVF stood for ivoraciously fornicate. That being said, yes, they wanted their Puritan white babies, but the Puritan overlords
also wanted people to make those babies inside marriage. But unfortunately for them, premarital sex was quite common in colonial America. How do we know, Well, there were a huge number of births that happened a few months after couples got married, not nine months or more. We're talking like a month or two. And that wasn't because the Lord gave puretons a shorter gestation period. Oh no, it was because the Puritans, just like us, were fucking before marriage. Truly, the figures
are astounding. By the mid eighteenth century, between thirty to forty percent of brides getting hitched in New England were pregnant, and then, of course there are also plenty of bastards also. Premarital sex wasn't the only crazy stuff people were doing back then. Some couples even lived together without getting married.
Ugh, and that's not all.
In sixteen ninety five, this clergyman named John Miller was traveling through New York and was utterly scandalized by what he saw.
This is what he said.
There are many couples living together without ever being married in any manner of way, many of whom, after they have lived some years so quarrel and thereupon separating, take unto themselves, either in New York or some other province new companions. How can such expect that God should bless them together while they live in open contempt of His holy ordinance?
They honestly didn't use.
Periods back then. This quote was so confusing, but you know. Basically, what he's saying is that when he was traveling through New York, he observed couples who had lived together without being married, and then those couples broke up, and then they found other people to couple with, literally insane serial monogamy.
We don't do that.
We just do one monogamy, not a bowl of serial monogamy. Oh no, we're just.
Doing one oat monogamy.
And John Miller was scandalized even more because on his adventure he also discovered that a lot of marriages were only happening because the lasses were prego. He said, those in who ernest do intend to be married together are in so much haste that commonly enjoyment precedes the marriage, to which they seldom come till a great belly puts it so forward that they must either submit to that or to shame and disgrace, which they avoid by marriage.
He's like, they're just getting married because they're pregnant.
They put the belly forth. Ah.
And then it gets even crazier for John Miller because another huge issue that he observed was that people were getting married in very unofficial ways instead of by clergy or the state, just a Rando would do it, and then because they didn't have official marriage contracts, people would be marrying and divorcing just willy nilly from all these godless things he saw. Miller declared this conclusion about the region. The scandal in Ea that flows from hints is very great.
And sure, none of this bodes well for mister Miller, but for us it's great because if you're a horny time traveler going back to this period, don't fear Puritan pussy is near, or don't be afraid colonial cocks are ready to trade. So first things first in this Puritan guide to sex. First, obviously you need to find a sexual companion, and the best way to do that is to go to a dance. Dancing, as the Puritans would tell you, is very scandalous and very sexual. Purreton writer
Philip Stubbs thought dancing was very cringe and sinful. This is what he said. Dancing, as it is used, or rather abused, is an introduction to horedum, a preparative to wantonness in all kinds of ludint For what's smooching and slabbering one of another? What filthy groping and unclean handling? Is not practice everywhere in these dancings. Honestly, this is a good point for mister Stubbs, whose name, by the
way is short for mister stubby Penis. Whenever I dance, I'd be slaughtering all over the boys, and you will be slabbering as well, Time Traveler, because how they danced back in the.
Day was truly freaky.
Sometimes in rural areas, the settlers would dance the real which featured fast and energetic movements basically one step away from fornication.
But that wasn't nearly as bad.
As the jig, oh God, where sometimes you would bounce up and down. If a pear to minister saw that, they would perish on the spot. But let's say you time traveler. You're thrown back in time as a young lass, and through the power of time travel and magic and whatever we're doing, you have also somehow been dumped into a wealthier family where your dad is like a magistrate or something, and you're.
The eldest daughter.
So you're at the dance, maybe doing the jig, and you meet a farmer's sexy ass son. Let's call him Thomas Smith Thomas, and your name.
Is Sarah Bradford Hall. Why not?
But Thomas Smith, Thomas, his breeches are tight and his teeth sparkle as brightly as the newly minted shillings, mostly because he's lost several and.
Has fake ones.
And when your eyes meet for the first time whilst you're doing the jig, you're like, Wow, I want to slobber all over that guy.
I love how his spittle glimmers in the light. And so what would you do.
Next to get it on with a farmer's son. What would you have to do to get his worker in your barn? Well, you could get married. But the problem is that in the early seventeen hundreds a lot of colonial settlements didn't have their own clergy or minister. You'd have to wait until one of them traveled to your town. But you want tom As Smith Tom to squeeze in your utters faster than that.
So what you could do instead, which.
Was slightly common at the time, is you could do a hand fasting ceremony. This is what mister stubby Dick was referring to when he was talking about these marriages that weren't quite marriages. Hand Fasting is a tradition that started in medieval Europe, it was a form of betrothal or a temporary marriage, where a couple would clasp hands and commit to each other for a year and a day, and then after that they could either formalize their relationship
into a permanent marriage or go their separate ways. It's kind of like signing a lease with your boyfriend. This has to work out for at least a year, and then we'll see where it's going. Anyway, hand fasting made its way over to colonial America and there wasn't really
the whole year in a day thing anymore. But sometimes this is how people declared their union full stop, because then it was more socially acceptable to live with someone and start your life together slaughtering and then a lot of these couples never actually finalize their marriage with a minister. So let's say you're super horny for Thomas Smith Thomas that you want to jump the gun or leap the musket, as they said back then. You want to get serious
with this guy, you want to jump his bones. You don't want to wait on a minister, and also you don't want to get your parents involved, because your fancy magistrate father would not approve because Thomas Smith. Thomas's family is poor back then. Oftentimes the gal's dad would pay a dowry for her, and the dad doesn't want to give money to a spendthrift or to someone who wouldn't use it to pay for your comfort. Instead, they're using it for piggies and their slop. You don't want that,
but you're Sarah Bradford Hall. You're young, you're dumb, you're hot. You've known Thomas Smith Thomas for two weeks. Both of your loins are bursting. You want to get your freak on, but make this relationship semi official for propriety's sake, So you decide to have the hand fasting ceremony. It's a simple ritual where you hold hands and make vows in front of a witness, and often in colonial America, this ceremony was performed by a blacksmith. Literally, they'd clasp hands over the anvil.
Which would signify the strength of their relationship. Wow love metaphors.
You and Thomas Smith Thomas make your vows over the anvil, and instead of a ring, he gives you half a broken silver sixpence.
He keeps the other high You keep yours.
And this signifies the union yay money, and now that you're hand fasted, well, it should be slightly more socially acceptable for you to start slobbering on each other. So that's one way to do it. That's one way to start humping Thomas Smith Thomas.
But suppose the blacksmith is a.
Friend of your dad's and you don't want your magistrate father breaking up the whole thing. So what you and Thomas Smith Thomas do instead is you have a hand fasting ceremony in private. But you, Sarah Bradford Hall, aren't an idiot. You know that you need witnesses because even though you think you love Thomas Smith Thomas.
He might be a fuck boy of your He might be.
Doing this hand fasting ceremony to get under your skirts one time and then dump your ass, leaving you alone and possibly pregnant. So what young women did back then was to make sure this private ceremony had witnesses. Specifically, you, Sarah Bradford Hall, got two of your friends to hide behind a piece of furniture that's in the same room where you're hand fasting, so that they would overhear the vows. And then if Thomas Smith Thomas did dump you after
you did some Puritan penetration. You would have some witnesses that you could summon in court being like, hey, the reason I'm pregnant is because of this motherfucker, and then they would be like, yes, this motherfucker. That's why it's just so important to have female friends, so that you have someone to witness your secret and not so legal marriage to a farmer's son and ensure that if you got pregnant by said son, he would have to take
responsibility for it. That's why I keep my galpals around. And here's something that's kind of curious. At the time, if a girl got pregnant, often the courts would trust her account. They'd be like, oh, that guy impregnated you, I believe you. But throughout the eighteenth century post Revolution, that trust declined and more and more courts were like, huh, you actually need more proof than just your word that this.
Guy got you pregnant.
So, yeah, you could say that in early colonial America they were definitely in a more hashtag believe women era. Of course, we have to take that with an enormous grain of salt because of the whole Salem witch trials thing and other various stuff that they accuse women of. Anyway, if you can believe it, the Church didn't like hand fasting. They're like, this is too loose, it's too pagan, it's too uncertain. It's not in front of God, it's in
front of an anvil. And as we went through the eighteenth century, hand fasting mostly fell out of favor and most developed colonial areas because marriage had become a legal institution and the Church had firmly asserted its control over the process. The Puritans were like, we're not going to be left out. We get to say what it means
to be married. But in more remote areas where they still didn't have a minister or clergy, hand fasting continued and it became a symbol of the early frontier spirit. It was practical, flexible, and grounded in mutual consent.
So, okay, okay.
In this guide so far, we've established that one way to have more socially acceptable sex in the colonial era was to hand fast. Just do a little hand fasting, then you can do a little banging. But let's say that Thomas Smith Thomas actually came from.
A richer farmer family, that your magistrate judge fought approves of.
So you and Thomas Smith Thomas don't have to sneak around. What might happen instead is that your dad and your mom might invite Thomas Smith Thomas over and let him sleep in your bed. I know, crazy, We'll be right back after these soothing advertisements. Another bizarre thing that was going on during the colonial American period was this thing called bundling.
And no, it's not bundling your.
Clothes together to hide the edibles in your carry on luggage on the plane from Detroit to Atlanta.
Was that specific?
It doesn't matter, don't tell the cops. Bundling, or as it was also known, bed courting, was when a dude went over to a lady's house and they spent the night together in the same bed, under the supervision of the parents.
Like they weren't in the room, but they were around. And I know this.
Sounds absolutely cuckoo bananas. How could this be allowed in Puritan colonial America. Well, it was justified by the Bible, of course. In the Bible there's nowhere that it says bundling. But some people think that this one story was used to justify it.
The tale of Ruth.
And bo As in the story, Ruth lies at Boaz's feet, says, signal her interest in marriage, a gesture that was intimate but not sexually suggestive. And that's what bundling was all about, being close but not sexual.
It was practiced so these two.
Young people could get to know each other in an intimate way, not sexually though, just chatting or whatever, because I'm sure two young people in their horned up prime spending the night in the same bed would never result in anything beyond talk. Of course, many Puritans did not approve of this, Like one bishop said about bundling that it's the smartest thing Satan's done since he put the
snake in the garden. Notable Puritan minister Jonathan Edwards chastise young people for the practice of bundling, and he even used his daughter's untimely death to criticize them. In seventeen forty six, he said this, my daughter died a week ago. She has died in order that you might stop fondling women's breasts, that you might stop bundling. Yes, that is exactly why she died of tuberculosis. I'm sure, so that
you would stop fondling breasts and bundling. Just know if I die soon, that is exactly the reason I died as well. But all this seems a bit dramatic. Okay, but that you time traveling Sarah Bradford Hall, who comes from a wealthy magistrate family. By the way, I don't know why I did this whole time traveling thing. It's a bit much now that I'm still doing it. But we're getting back to it.
Okay.
Let's say that your family doesn't really care about this bundling issue. They're like, it's fine, it's cool, it's convenient. Your dad actually sees it as protecting you, because much like hiding your gal pals while hand fasting, bundling young couples also offered protection for daughters. It's basically like, hey, you're the only dude that she's been in a bed with.
If she gets pregnant, it's your fault. It's kind of like how you have some cool parents in high school who are like, it's okay to drink, just make sure you do it in the house. It also made sense to have a spend the night party because often people lived really far apart.
From each other.
Maybe bundling was the only way for you and Thomas Smith Thomas to actually court and get to know each other. You're not going to casually see him out and about. He's busy doing farm stuff and he can't just come over for an hour because he lives several hours away. So your parents invite Thomas Smith Thomas over and let's get ready to bundle. So obviously your parents invited him over on a Saturday because he doesn't have to work
the farm on Sunday. On Sunday, the vegetables stopped growing and the field stopped needing tending as they are also resting like the lord.
So he arrives. You all eat a meal.
Your dad probably asks a lot of weird questions.
You hate it. But then the sun goes down and you.
And Thomas Smith Thomas and your parents head to the bedroom. You usually sleep in here with your other sisters, but they have been banished to your brother's rooms for this fine occasion. Also, at the time, a lot of houses didn't have living rooms, and so often bedrooms were also the places where you gathered to hang out with your family. But you and Thomas Smith Thomas get into the bed okay, and you keep your clothes on and your parents have
two options for the bundling. One they might bust out the bundling board. This was a slab of wood that was the length of the bed, about a foot or so high, and they slide that between you and Thomas Smith Thomas, and wow, there's no way you're getting past that boundary. Another option that was used was a bundling sack. Here there are two options. One is a sack that was big enough to fit both you and Thomas Smith Thomas, but it was sewn down the middle long ways so you couldn't touch again, no.
Way for them to get out of that sack full proof.
But if your parents didn't have their hands on that type of sack, what they might instead do is have two smaller sacks that you just put on over your clothes and tie at the waist. Now, that is an impossible obstacle for both of you. No way you'll be able to get through that barrier. Who needs a chassis belt when you have a burlap sack? Am I right, burlap sacks. That's actually my favorite type of birth control. Honey, don't worry about a condom.
I got a burlap sack.
But anyway, once one of these obstacles is in place, your parents leave you and Thomas Smith Thomas alone, where no touching of breasts or slabbering will occur. The goal of this, in your parents' view, was that you and Thomas Smith Thomas are going to get to know each other in a private, yet chaste setting. But you're a time traveling modern woman in a puritan's horny teenage body. You might loosen your tongue in more ways than one.
And indeed, it was known amongst the people of colonial America that bund wasn't as chaste as your parents wanted it to be. Like, here's a song from the time about bundling. I don't know what the tune is, but let's just make it up. I'm just going to talk over this music. Even though this music does not represent the period at all. That's fine. So maidens say, if through the nation bundling should quite go out of fashion, Courtchip would lose its sweets and.
They could have no fun till wedding day. This sucks. I'm sorry.
A bundling couple went to bed with all the clothes from foot to head that the defense might seem complete.
Each one was wrapped in a sheet. But oh, this bundling, such a witch. The man of her.
Did catch the itch, and so provoked was the cat that she of him. A bastard catched ladies, don't you hate it when you catch a bastard? Ugh, it's so contagious. But we really did learn something here that they were also using sheets, not just burlap sacks to separate.
The youths in the bed.
So really it's just like whatever you had on hand, a sack, a sheet, a portrait of your grandma.
Whatever.
Now that's what I call music negative one hundred. Let's get the TikTokers to do a dance to that one. You guys can probably tell them a bit manic right now. But see Sarah Bradford Hall, You wouldn't really catch a bastard in this scenario because Thomas, miss Thomas, is in the bed, so your dad knows who impregnated you, and so your dad will just make him marry you and everything will be fine.
Everyone wins, Huzzah, yay bundling.
But by the late eighteenth century, a society began to modernize, urbanize, etc. Bundling came under fire. Some viewed it as old fashioned or morally dangerous. People were growing more uncomfortable with the practice, especially as Americans became more influenced by Enlightenment with stricter ideas about courtship, and then by the nineteenth century, as there are more roads and transportation, which made long stays at a potential spouse's home less necessary, it.
Kind of just faded away a bit.
There's also all these new ideas about privacy, propriety.
And romance bundling.
They're just like, we don't need that anymore, and it's gross and kind of stupid and honestly pretty creepy. But I know you guys are really concerned about bundling. You're like, it's such a great thing. Why can't we do it? Still, don't worry. Some amish people still do it. And it might have been these amish people that I saw dairy queen one time in Kentucky. It was at this dairy queen where they only played Christian rock music and they
were all wearing white bonnets. Maybe they bundle, I don't know. But anyway, back to you, Sarah Bradford Hall, the time traveling person I made up, who is also you listener, Let's say, on your bundled night, with Thomas Smith. Thomas, you shimmied out of your sack and rummaged around in his or you circumvented the bundling board and then circum comed all over this son of a farmer, and finally you got to have some of that sweet, sweet Puritan
hanky panky. But once you finally achieved the goal of the hanky panky, well turns out that was the key to transport you back to modern times where someday soon all of us swimmen will be back in bonnets, sewn into sacks and yelled at by Puritan ministers.
America.
Anyway, every week we learn a lesson on American Filth, and I think the lesson we learned today is that women, we don't need to have birth control pills. We don't need that weird stick implant. We don't even need an IUD. What we need is a frickin' burlap sack. And one day, when American Filth makes more money, that will be our merchandise. One birth control sack. Coming ride up anyway, talking to you guys next time. American Filth is a production of
School of Humans and iHeart Podcast. This episode was written and sound designed and produced and all that.
Good stuff by me, Gabby Watts.
Our executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Elsie Croley, and Brandon Barr. Please follow along with the on Instagram at American filth Pod, and please also like, subscribe, leave some stars, give a review of the show, and again, always tell your enemies about it. Always tell your friends about it. Always tell your strange relatives about it, so that we have more listeners and can keep doing the show and really just
having fun with America. All right, guys, have a wonderful weekend, our day, or week or life.
Really.
Xoxo, Gossip Girl, School of Humans