Text size:

Bundling: Getting to Know Thee

By Katti Gray | Staff Writer

Part of the courtship ritual for colonial teens looking to wed was the practice of ``bundling,'' lying in bed together partially or fully clothed with a board between them.

Sex was not the intent. The practice was a way of testing the waters, so to speak.

Indeed, parents arranged for their offspring of marriageable age -- from early to late teens -- to participate in the practice, which dates back to at least the 1620s.

``People lived in farms that were separated by great distances,'' said Kathleen Kane, director of education for the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities. ``So when somebody visited, specifically if they stayed overnight, bundling was the idea sometimes of putting a board between people who would sleep together -- a man visiting someone's daughter that he was courting. It was a little bizarre but that was the basic idea and it was all under parental supervision. Despite all the Puritanical stuff, this was their reality.''

Some scholars have said bundling offered privacy and warmth, especially in crowded houses. After the Revolution bundling would arouse the ire of critics and find less acceptance.