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| Awkward Puritan from Studio C |
In the general sense, it was more or less an arranged marriage with someone you were introduced to when you were kids. They let you play together, get to know each other, then sprung it on you that you should start courting each other. Men were expected to bring in land and women were expected to provide a dowry. A dowry is an inheritance of heirlooms, money, or furniture. Letter writing was in style during this time, so letters were commonly exchanged, too.
What is a Puritan?
Puritan culture itself was in the colonies, so a hard life to live. 17th and 18th century is the time we are focusing on. Death, illness, and natives were around. The "new" world was a rough place to be. Puritans began 16th century believing that the Church of England was too similar to Roman Catholic church practices. They didn't want the fancy ceremonies that were not written in the bible. Don't go thinking Puritans and pilgrims are the same, though. Puritans did not call the Church of England the false church. To make a long story short, they fragmented into Quakers, Baptists, and Antinomians. Their beliefs balanced helping others and self-discipline.
Self-discipline was a value they believed in, along with hard work. They liked life to be simple in their church, and not overly ceremonial, with no politics to muck things up. They accepted all, being humble in their lifestyles. If challenged, they believed God opposed them. Unfortunately, they persecuted more radical people (including "witches") when they did not fit. They drove radicals out. Also, any arts you enjoy and any pleasure activities were considered sinful, including sex. Joy and laughter were considered symptoms of sin. They wanted to be pure and a people apart from others. They believed in Calvinistic thought (basically, we are sinful and need religion in government). All writing was for religion or self-examination. These were fire and brimstone preachers, to put it simply.
Courtship Itself
First of all, survival was more important than love in this time. Finding a husband/wife involved first finding a person who survived the winter. You have little ones, they help you work hard, and then you die. This process repeats itself with each child if they survive the harsh elements.
Another thing about Puritan culture is patriarchy. Women are property of their fathers, then their husbands. "The laws of coverture" said women could own no property when married. Forget dating. It wasn't a thing that people did in this time period. Men arranged marriage and tried to marry wealth and property together.
As settlements got bigger the above traditions became less so, and young people of the time were disobeying the rules because there was more space to do shady things without getting caught. Nothing new under the sun. Sex was happening on the sly, to put it simply. Some Puritans married because of pregnancy. It wasn't too upsetting that pregnancy happened, that is unless you didn't marry the father of the child. 30 to 40 percent were pregnant at their wedding, historians estimate (known because of wedding certificates and birth records combined).
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| The practice of putting a board in the middle of the bed was common for courtship. |
Given that strange men were coming into settlements and couldn't be trusted to stay put and raise the child, parents did something called bundling (and no, I don't mean bundling auto and home insurance). If you wanted to snuggle up with so-and-so you suggest it to your strict parents. Your parents arrange for you to sleep beside her for one night, as long as you promise to keep your pants/panties on and stay on your side of the board. In some cases, bundling bags were sewn onto the bed. If the girl was pregnant soon after you could easily conclude the father of the child in one guess, making it impossible to avoid marriage. A man was held responsible every time that way. Also, a girl couldn't point to a boy in court and force a marriage, because here there were witnesses.
Crazy as this sounds, one handshake and you could be legally common-law married. No exaggeration. No authority or license needed, just shake hands, called Handfasting or Spousing. Unfortunately, this made it easy to marry someone anywhere and "get some" before jumping a ship to another country. Some men got caught and dragged back into their marriage by angry father-in-laws, but I'd bet that some men successfully left women destitute with this law.
As promised, here are the links to the Studio C sketches involving the Awkward Puritan Roommate:
Sources:
Pictures:
The WikiHow
The Encyclopedia
Phil Cooke
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