History Now Premarital Sex

History Now ~ Teen Abstinence

Schools in McLennan County, Texas have been passing out candies with a saying. While these candies relate to affection, they are not your run-of-the-mill “Be Mine” heart-shaped candies. These are emblazoned “SEX IS MINT FOR MARRIAGE” and students are given an empty pledge card along with them. The pledge asks them to promise to not engage is sexual relations until marriage. McLennan schools are not alone. In fact, they are just one of hundreds of school districts around the nation since the early 1990s to adapt “abstinence only” sex education programs. Before that many focused their instruction on the use of various forms of contraceptives, particularly condoms, as a method of not only avoiding teenage pregnancy but the spread of sexually transmitted diseases as well. The “abstinence only” programs gained a powerful ally, when George W. Bush was elected in 2000, after promising $135 million in federal support. Whether or not these programs work is still a matter of debate. Supporters point out that the national average for teen pregnancies went down 17% from 1990 to 1996. Critics point to a 2004 study by researchers at Columbia and Yale that found that 88% of the teenagers who made pledges to remain abstinent until marriage went ahead and had sex anyway.

Regardless of where one stands in this dispute, the central fear is the same: Children having children. Teenagers who have babies are far more likely to live in poverty, not complete their education, put a stain on social resources, and bring their own children down with them. This is nothing new, and neither is the attempt to prevent teenage pregnancy or premarital birth.

While millions of dollars, slogan-stamped mints, or mass public education campaigns were not available in the late eighteenth century, premarital births were still a fear among parents and community leaders. Back then, premarital pregnancies often led to accelerated marriages that probably would have taken place anyway. Nonetheless, families sought whatever measures they could to avoid any social stigma. As a result, a peculiar practice began to develop in the northern colonies states. This practice was known as “bundling.” Noah Webster’s 1828 dictionary defined bundling as one that allowed couples to “sleep on the same bed without undressing” with “the shared understanding that innocent endearments should not be exceeded.” In some cases, a so-called “bundling board would be placed between the two. More often than not, if the parents wanted the young people to behave, they would likely be sewed into the bed or have their garments sewed in a particular manner. You may have seen this in the film, The Patriot. However, bundling would not have likely occurred in the Carolinas in that period. Either way, the practice proved to be a failure. Premarital pregnancies continued and the practice was publicly mocked in well-publicized poems, such as “A New Bundling Song.”