In 1811 an English dictionary of “buckish slang, university wit, and pickpocket eloquence” described bundling as “a 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” (Grose). While the English may have decided that bundling was “abolished,” it is clear from this song and another version of A New Bundling Song, as well as other sources, that the practice continued well into the nineteenth century in America (Doten; H. Stiles).
The definition of “bundling” is a remarkably chaste one for a book otherwise filled with cant and vulgar terms. From the first few lines of the song on this broadside, it is clear that bundling was a lot more than the dictionary definition. Yet a British officer, Thomas Anburey, traveling across Massachusetts on parole after the defeat at Saratoga in 1777, wrote to his wife about the “small log-hut” where he was quartered west of Williamstown: “I was convinced in how innocent a view the Americans look upon that indelicate custom they call bundling: though they have remarkable good feather beds, and are extremely neat and clean.” There were only two beds in the room, and he was given a spot in the sixteen-year-old daughter’s bed. A soldier far from home, he was horrified with the prospect of having to “struggle with the passions of nature.” On his hesitation, the father replied that “you won’t be the first man our Jemima has bundled with” and Jemima added that he would be the “first Britainer” (Anburey 2:25-26).
This term for extramarital bed sharing seems to have emerged in the 1760s and continued to be used well into the nineteenth century (Doten; H. Stiles). As A New Bundling Song suggests, the most frequent use of bundling was among courting young people as a practical necessity. Anburey’s concern about his ability to control his desires is exactly the problem voiced by the many critics of the practice. An explosion of anti-bundling diatribe appeared in the Connecticut Courant in March 1769, occupying the entire front page and a column on the second. The author called himself “Dishabille” and his command of long and extremely complex sentences suggests a clerical education. The following week he produced another equally long and dense essay.
Must I believe that single persons. . . bundle promiscuously without hesitation . . . for however common ’tis for young and giddy paramours, indolent swine and profess’d libertines, to twain or bundle in like manner for different purposes; some to repose, and some to wreck nature; some to make, and some to murder love. . . . Good God! Is debauchery ‘sanctify’d from shame’ by such abandoned profligates & lewdness by common consent, become justifiable and honorable!
He cites a quite sensible objection when he points out that society punished fornicators but
every other effort of reason, philosophy, friendship and authority will be ineffectual, so long as bundling is tolerated and practiced in private families. (March 27, 1769)
Two weeks later, a defender appeared “in vindication of that innocent couple on whom the ‘odd thinking’ Dishabille has poured such prodigious volumes of calumny.”
In regard to Bundling (as he calls it) it seems to be the prevailing opinion of mankind . . . that tho’ it be a practice not absolutely necessary in the delectable scenes of courtship; yet simply considered, it is in its own nature perfectly innocent, and altho in some few instances, it has been misimproved and made subservient to evil purposes, ’tis no more than may be said of every other conveniency in life. (April 10, 1769)[1]
And thus the controversy rolled on. In the early 1780s, several French officers with the troops of the Comte de Rochambeau described the practice. Louis-Alexandre Berthier was impressed with the attitude toward courting among the Connecticut residents he met on the march south to Yorktown in 1781.
People here cannot believe that a man would think of seducing a girl, so the latter are allowed an extraordinary amount of freedom. Their parents often leave them alone with young men. They kiss one another quite casually. . . . When young people fall in love, they inform their parents and from that moment on are constantly together. They even spend half the night in conversation after their parents have gone to bed without taking the slightest advantage of this liberty, which is regarded as a sacred trust, by doing anything wrong. In Connecticut it is even the custom for two lovers to lie down together on a bed for several hours during the day, or more often the evening, during which they talk of their future happiness. (This is called “bundling.”) I have entered several rooms where I have found them thus engaged. . . . (Rice and Brown 245-46)
Bundling was not confined to New England. When Abigail Adams bravely sailed from Boston to join her husband in London, she found the ship’s quarters quite unlike anything she had dealt with before. “She would have refused to believe, before embarking on June 20, 1784, that she would lie herself down at night ‘in common with half a dozen gentlemen,’ with only a curtain between them, having shed as many layers of wool and calico from her frail frame—though thankfully no more, she said—as a Yankee bundler” (Levin 151).
In Royall Tyler’s comedy The Contrast (1787), the stage character named Jonathan, cast as a blundering Yankee rube, is thrust into the company of a sophisticated city servant maid. He tries to impress the girl, singing parts of “Yankee Doodle” and finally kissing her, at which point she slaps him and leaves the room. He comments that “If this is the way with your city ladies, give me the twenty acres of rock, the Bible, the cow, and Tabitha, and a little peaceable bundling” (3.1).
This broadside text simply reflects various aspects of a custom that was probably countenanced because of the strength of the Puritan moral fiber in New England blood. It was printed, lacking the final stanza on the broadside, in Beers’s Almanac for 1793 (26-29).
[1] We are grateful to Susan Cifaldi for bringing these essays to our attention.
