https://bit.ly/346zKyN https://bit.ly/3HiNDrU https://bit.ly/3JuCHt1 https://bit.ly/3z68Mme https://bit.ly/3pCkfXN https://bit.ly/3EHBWJr https://bit.ly/3pDQOog https://bit.ly/3FCHMNJ https://bit.ly/3zayGFG https://bit.ly/3pAheaa https://bit.ly/32GH6bt https://bit.ly/3qxGg9f https://bit.ly/317dsvy And let's not forget the good old New England custom of 'bundling' whereby it was customary for a unmarried couple to spend the night together before marriage, to see if they suited. Although the idea was that they were supposed to remain chaste, about a third became pregnant, and by 1782, bundling was so casually regarded that it was 'but a courtesy' for a visitor to ask the young lady of the house if she cared to retire with him. (All the above information comes from 'Made in America' by Bill Bryson, an absolutely riveting book.) Not all that puritanical, those Puritans. by Louise C on 2004 Nov 12 - 16:06 | reply to this comment The Puritans Took Charlie's Head Those early immigrants to America were largely non-puritans in that they realized that it was impossible to reform the Church of England - a church that present day Englishmen have largely abandoned. The true Puritans stayed at home and dealt with Charles I and, for a while, ran things. Even on the original Mayflower voyage, not all passengers were religious separatists. For example, among the passengers were investors driven by greed and poor immigrants seeking a better life. The seventeenth century Plymouth Colony was not a utopia - which is why several crimes were punishable by death and adultery was punished by whipping. Certainly later New England was not without sin. Then, one should remember where most of the seventeen-century immigrants came from at a time when England was in absolute turmoil and, as it would later be in the Soviet Union, dissent was a crime! By the late eighteenth century it has been estimated that a quarter of Britain citizenry resided in America. The difference between early fornicators in America and those of today is those in the eighteenth and nineteenth century the tended to marry the person with whom they slept. Likewise, it is estimate that half of colonial children lived with single parents at some point before their eighteenth birthday. Only those early single parents were the products of untimely death rather than acrimonious divorce. by Noone on 2004 Nov 12 - 19:10 | reply to this comment Divorce or death?