Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America Part 5

APPENDIX II.

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 the _Royal 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 cla.s.ses, 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 cla.s.ses (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 are _enceinte_, 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 cla.s.ses, 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, makes a 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 called _keeping 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 in _bothies_, 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 a young 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.ses 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 pa.s.s 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 are _admonished_. 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.

INDEX.

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 cla.s.ses, 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 cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.ses 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.