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Bundling, Banns, & Bonds: Love & Marriage in Early America Billie Stone Fogarty, M.Ed.

4509 N. Classen Blvd, Ste 103 [email protected] Oklahoma City, OK 73118 405-203-1274

When searching for the fragments of our ancestor’s lives, we often encounter terms that are unfamiliar or words whose meaning has changed so much that it renders our findings to be mysterious. The terms of courtship are not usually discovered in official documents, but may be found in private letters, stories, or buried in the court records of civil or criminal proceedings. We can be stymied by terms such as “Gretna Green” or “Fleet marriage” or “shotgun wedding”. Or perhaps we run into phrases related to ethnic practices like ”broomstick wedding”, “jumping the broom”, “handfasting” or “left-hand marriage”. This paper attempts to unravel some of those terms and customs.

Banns - From a word meaning "proclamation," marriage banns are the public announcement in a church of an impending marriage between two specified persons. It was used in the Church of England, Roman Catholic, Quaker and other denominations. The purpose is to prevent marriages that are invalid for reasons, such as, a pre-existing marriage that has not been dissolved or annulled, lack of consent, or the couple's being related within the prohibited degrees of kinship.

Marriage Bond - A money guarantee that has its roots in colonial regulations. Because of the scarcity of ministers, the colony would require all persons wishing to be married by license to go to the county clerk. A bond was given with security that there was no lawful cause to prevent the marriage. It also affirmed that the groom would not change his mind. No money actually changed hands at the time the bond was issued. The bondsman, or surety, was often a brother or uncle to the bride, not necessarily a parent.

Bundling or Tarrying - The practice of wrapping one person in a bed accompanied by another as a part of courting behavior. The tradition is thought to have originated either in the Netherlands or in the British Isles and later became common in Colonial America, especially in Pennsylvania Dutch Country. When used for courtship, the aim was to allow intimacy without sexual intercourse.

© 2014 Billie Stone Fogarty all rights reserved “Bundling, Banns, & Bonds” Page 1 of 3 Traditionally, participants were adolescents, with a boy staying at the residence of a girl. They were given separate blankets by the girl's parents and expected to talk to one another through the night. The practice was limited to the winter and sometimes the use of a bundling board, placed between the boy and girl, ensured that no sexual conduct would take place. More often, this rule was merely implicit, and was not always honored.

Dower - A provision accorded by law to a wife for her support in the event that she should survive her husband.

Dowry - The money, goods or estate that a wife brought to her husband at marriage.

Fleet marriage – Refers to a marriage outside the strict guidelines established in England by the “Marriage Act of 1696” which required banns and a special license. The inns and pubs around Fleet prison became a popular place to get married. By the 1740’s, more than half of all London marriages were “Fleet marriges”.

Gretna Green – The first Scottish town across the border where elopers fled to escape the restrictive marriage laws in England, Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act of 1753, which required parental permission unless both parties were over 21. The age of consent in Scotland was 14 for boys and 12 for girls.

Handfasting – Sometimes refered to a betrothal and sometimes to a trial marriage for a year and a day.

Left-handed marriage – Also called a morganatic marriage it is a marriage between people of unequal social rank, which prevents the passage of the husband's titles and privileges to the wife and any children born of the marriage. It is known as a left-handed marriage because in the wedding ceremony the groom holds his bride's right hand with his left hand instead of his right.

Grass widow - A woman who is divorced or separated from her husband, a woman whose husband is temporarily absent, an abandoned mistress, or the mother of a child born out of wedlock.

Broomstick wedding and jumping the broom – Usually associated with ethnic weddings, including Welsh, African American, and Romani Gypsy. May refer to a non-traditional marriage or elopement.

You may find these online sources useful to further your knowledge: (All URLs working as of November 22, 2014)

A History of the American Wedding http://www.randomhistory.com/1-50/009wedding.html

About Courtship in Colonial America by Jeanne Baird http://www.ehow.com/about_4896318_courtship-colonial-america.html

About Colonial Marriage Customs by Deb Powers http://www.ehow.com/print/about_4568812_colonial-marriage-customs.html Courtship in Early America by University of Houston College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences http://www.class.uh.edu/gl/uscourt.htm

Women Under English Common Law in America by Jennifer Shaw http://shawgenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/03/women-under-english-common-law-in.html

Wedding in Colonial America by J. M. Hochstetler http://colonialquills.blogspot.com/2011/05/wedding-in-colonial-america.html

Courtship in New England, 1760 [Andrew Burnaby, Travels through the Niddle Settlements in North America in the Years 1759 and 1760, originally published 1775] http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/bundling.htm

Dutch Courtship and Marriage Customs in New Amsterdam by Donna Speer Ristenbatt http:/www.ristenbatt.com/genealogy

Sex Lives of the Puritans by Peter Muise http://newenglandfolklore.blogspot.com/2011/05/sex-lives-of-puritans-part-1-courting.html

Courtship, Sex, and the Single Colonist by Andrew G. Gardner http://www.history.org/Foundation/journal/Holiday07/court.cfm

Colonial Courtship http://www.hillcrestweb.com/USHist/A3A03DBD.pdf

Reference Books

Ehrenreich, Barbara and Deirdre English. For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts’ Advice to Women, New York: Random House, Inc., 1978.

Lerner, Gerda. The Woman in American History, Menlo Park, CA: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers, Inc. 1971.

Schlissel, Lillian. Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey, New York: Schocken Books, Inc., 1982.

Sklar, Kathryn Kish and Thomas Dublin, editors. Women and Power in American History, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1991.

Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750, New York: Random House, Inc, 1980.

Warning: This webinar will discuss topics that may be inappropriate for youngsters.