Those Naughty Pilgrims

Happy Thanksgiving! Hey, who you calling Puritanical? And the French claim we’re not sexy. Psshhhhh.

American sexual mores are often spoken of derisively in other Western countries as Puritanical. It turns out the Puritans were getting up to plenty of sexy mischief. They just had governors anxious to quash it with very punitive laws.

Lisa M. Lauria of the University of Virginia is an expert on sexual misconduct in Plymouth Colony.

Here are some rather interesting facts about our Pilgrim forebears:

1. Up to 50% of the Puritans engaged in premarital sex.

Professor Lauria reasons that ”Since 11% of marriages involved premarital sex resulting in pregnancy, the actual frequency of premarital sex must be even higher. I cannot be sure what the pregnancy rate was for Plymouth, but some quick calculations provide a rough estimate. If we assume 1) that women are sexually active all days of the year except during menstruation and 2) that they are fertile for only a few days each month, then roughly 1 out of 5 sexual episodes result in pregnancy — that’s a 50% rate of premarital sex. I realize that the estimate is very high, but the point is that sex before marriage was a common occurrence in the colony.”

Once Pilgrims did the math and realized a newborn had been conceived before the marriage, the offenders where punished harshly in public:

“Thomas and Joane Pynson, a married couple, were found guilty of “incontinency before their marriage” so Thomas was whipped and Joane had to sit in the stocks.”

2. Bestiality was a crime punishable by death, in theory.

From an article on How the Pilgrims Shaped our Sex Lives, we learn the fate of poor Thomas Graunger:

Only one person was put to death for a sex crime in the colony, poor Thomas Graunger, a teenage farm boy who, perhaps flush with the surge of hormones, turned to those he knew best. His story could make you look at the Thanksgiving turkey in a whole new way.

Governor William Bradford recounted the tale:

“He was this year detected of buggery, and indicted for the same, with a mare, a cow, two goats, five sheep, two calves and a turkey … He was first discovered by one that accidentally saw his lewd practice towards the mare. (I forbear particulars.) Being upon it examined and committed, in the end he not only confessed the fact with that beast at that time, but sundry times before and at several times with all the rest of the forenamed in his indictment.”

As punishment, he was forced to watch all the animals killed. At first, the court had a problem figuring out which sheep Thomas favored — sheep looking pretty much alike — but Thomas helpfully pointed out his sex partners. After being killed, they were buried in a pit, and then Thomas himself was hanged. If you wonder what the animals did to deserve it, Leviticus was cited by the court: “If a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death; and ye shall slay the beast.”

3. Wearing the Scarlet Letter for adultery was no joke.

Mary Mendame hooked up with an Indian named Tinsin, and got in a bunch of trouble. (No word on whether she thought Tinsin was worth it.)

“Mary, the wife of Robert Mendame, of Duxborrow” was put on trial for “using dalliance diverse times with Tinsin, an Indian, and after committing the act of uncleanness with him … the Bench doth therefore censure the said Mary to be whipped at a cart’s tail through the town’s streets, and to wear a badge upon her left sleeve during her abroad within this government; and if she shall be found without it abroad, then to be burned in the face with a hot iron; and the said Tinsin, the Indian, to be well whipped with a halter about his neck at the post, because it arose through the allurement [and] enticement of the said Mary, that he was drawn thereunto.”

Not surprisingly, there was a double standard around adultery in Plymouth. Married men who had sexual intercourse with single women were punished for fornication, not adultery. Therefore, examination of the cases of adultery within the colony is not a true reflection of the degree of infidelity in Plymouth. The element that sets adultery cases apart from acts of fornication is the crime done to the husband, and adultery was one reason a husband could be divorced from his wife.

4. In Plymouth Colony, it was not yet hip to be bisexual.

Ed Michell got two whippings for double dipping:

Edward Michell was put on trial “for his lewd [and] sodomitical practices tending to sodomy with Edward Preston, and other lewd carriages with Lydia Hatch.” He was sentenced to be publicly whipped, first at Plymouth and then Barnstable.

5. Of course, homosexuality was considered an abomination.

“John Allexander [and] Thomas Roberts were both examined and found guilty of lude behavior and uncleane carriage one w[ith] another, by often spendinge their seede one vpon another, w[hich] was proued both by witnesse & their owne confession; the said Allexander found to haue beene formerly notoriously guilty that way, and seeking to allure others therevnto. The said John Allexander was therefore censured by the Court to be seuerely whipped, and burnt in the shoulder w[ith] a hot iron, and to be perpetually banished the gouernment of New Plymouth.”

Interestingly, the justification for the law against sodomy was a biblical verse from Genesis which condemned the “spilling of seed” to prevent contraception. One can imagine how they felt about masturbation, though I’ve seen no record that it was ever prosecuted as a crime.

Eat, drink and be merry! If you have an opportunity to get sexy this weekend, you can go for it without fear of being whipped in public. But please. Leave the pets alone.

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