That the customs of courtship in many parts of the United Kingdom at the
present day, are precisely what they were in some parts of New England,
New Jersey and Pennsylvania, fifty years ago, is evident from the
revelations of the _Royal Commission on the Marriage Laws_, in the year
1868. Dr. Strahan, a physician and surgeon, who for nearly forty years
has practiced in the Scottish county of Stirling, testifies before the
commission, that his attention was first drawn to the subject in
consequence of observing the very great extent of immorality among the
working classes, not only as evidenced by the large number of
illegitimate children, but also by the still larger number of marriages
after the woman was with child; and the number of children born within
eight months of wedlock. He found, to his astonishment, that among the
working classes (i.e., the agricultural laborers), nine out of ten
women, when married, either had had illegitimate children, or were
pregnant at the time of marriage. "I have," he says, "a large midwifery
practice, and I very rarely attend a woman with her first child, where
the child is not born within a few months of wedlock, or else she has
had an illegitimate child before." He believes it is very common for
women to allow themselves to be seduced in the hope of being married.
They go on until they are _enceinte_, and then, if the young man is at
all a decent fellow, the friends interfere and the marriage is hurried
on. The sketch which Dr. Strahan supplies of Scotch courtships, explains
all this part of his observation. Young men and women meet together at
night, and the ordinary time is the middle of the night, when every one
else is in bed. "It is universal," says Dr. Strahan to the commission,
"among the working classes, to have this manner of courtship of which I
speak; there is no other courtship, in any other form; the fathers and
mothers will not allow their daughters to meet a young man in the
day-time; the young man never visits the family, but the parents quite
allow this; they have done it themselves before, and there is no
objection to it. The young man comes, makes a noise at the window; the
young woman goes out, they go to some outhouse; or perhaps the young man
is admitted to the young woman's bedroom after all are in bed, and there
is an hour or two of what is called courtship, but which would more
properly be called flirtation, because it is not necessary that there
should be any engagement to marry in these cases."
Lord Lyveden inquired: "Do these meetings take place at particular
periods, such as harvest time, or is it over the whole of the year?"
_Answer_: "The whole of the year; very commonly the young man visits the
young woman once a week."
Lord Chelmsford said: "In England that would be called _keeping
company_. It is a very extraordinary way of keeping company when the
parents allow their daughter to go out with the young man at midnight,
or the young man to come into her bedroom."
_Answer_: "Yes; the parents know no other way of doing it. I have
reasoned with the parents often when attending a case of illegitimate
birth, pointing out to the parents how it is they have been led on, but
they cannot imagine any other way of doing it; their daughters must have
husbands, and there is no other way of courting."
Mr. Justice O'Hagan asking--"Does it prevail generally in Scotland?" was
answered--"Universally among the agricultural laborers."
In reply to an inquiry by Mr. Dunlop, whether these young men lived
under any kind of supervision and knowledge of their masters, or whether
they could go out and in as they pleased, Dr. Strahan stated that
"plowmen, for instance, very often live in _bothies_, or in the farm
house; they get out after all are in bed, out of the window; or, if they
live in a bothie, without any trouble. They go to the neighboring
farm-house, they knock at the window, the girl comes to the window, and,
if she know the young man--or, after a little parley, if she does not
know him--she either comes out and goes with him to an outhouse, or he
comes into her bedroom. You must remember that they have no other means
of intercourse."
"That is the point you press so much?"
"Yes; a young woman cannot see either a sweetheart or an acquaintance in
any other way. I believe if it was not for fear of being out at night,
the girls would visit one another in the same way; they have no other
means of visiting; the customs of the country are such that a young man
could not be seen going in day-light to visit his sweetheart."
Mr. Justice O'Hagan: "If the father knew that the young man was coming
into the house, and knew that he was with his daughter, would he not
interfere?"
"He would lie comfortably in his bed, knowing that his daughter was in
an out-house or barn with a young man, for perhaps two hours; shutting
his eyes to it in the same way that a person in the higher ranks would
shut his eyes to his daughter going out for a walk with a young man."
Dr. Strahan said also: "When you come to the middle class a young man
would not marry a girl that had had a child to another man; and very
probably he would not marry a girl that had had a child to himself; but
in the lower classes it is not so; it is almost universal to marry a
woman that has had a child, or that is with child to himself; but it is
very frequent to marry a woman that has had a child to another man; the
only objection is the burden of the child; the burden of the child might
be an obstacle, but the disgrace would be none."
"Is it supposed," asked a commissioner, "that the woman, by marrying
this other man, wipes off her disgrace with the former?"
"Yes; but it is so common that the disgrace is not so much as to prevent
the young man marrying her."
The attorney-general: "It is hardly within our inquiry, but still it is
interesting to know; can you tell me whether, in these cases, where the
woman marries a man who is not the father of her child, any confusion,
as to the parent of the previously born child, arises? Are they apt in
law, to pass as the children of the subsequent husband?"
"No, I do not think so."
"The distinction is always kept up?"
"The distinction is always kept up; very often the illegitimate child
goes by his own father's name, even among the other children; and I do
not think there is apt to be any confusion of that kind."
Still, it seems that, in severely Calvinistic Scotia, the church does
not wholly wink at this state of things. The sinning couple, after
marriage, have to go through a certain whitewashing at church before
they are admitted to what are called church privileges. They have to go
before a kirk session, consisting of the minister and perhaps half a
dozen elders, when they are _admonished_. If the parties are married,
they appear but once; if not married, generally three times. They tender
themselves for rebuke without invitation, as without it the child cannot
be baptized, or admission given to the sacrament. They apply to the
minister in private, and confess their fault, and he causes them to be
summoned before the church session.
INDEX.
African tribes, courtship among, 42
America, English misrepresentation of, 62.
America, bundling in, 44
inherits bundling from Holland, 45.
bundling not peculiar to, 13.
bundling universal in 1750, 106.
Ballads against bundling, 81, 100.
in favor of bundling, 88, 93.
Brychan, a cloth, 23.
Bundling, antiquity of, 14.
Bundling, abuse of, in New England, 75.
ballads on, 81, 88, 93, 100.
ceased with eighteenth century, 106,
confined to the lower classes, 107.
Bundling, described by Lt. Anbury in 1777, 66.
definition of, 13.
decision of N. Y. Supreme Court on, 111.
effect of, 75.
in America, 44.
in British isles, 14, 22.
in Cape Cod, 110.
in Holland, 35.
Bundling in Maine about 1828, 117.
in New England States, 48.
in Wales, 23, 115.
introduced in America from Holland, 45.
mentioned by Rev. Sam'l Peters, 51.
mentioned by Washington Irving, 49.
mentioned by Dr. A. Burnaby, 1759, 58.
mentioned by Sir Walter Scott, 20.
not peculiar to America, 13.
Bundling originating in poverty in Scotland and Ireland, 23.
origin of, 14.
originally confined to the lower classes in America, 65.
practiced in Pennsylvania till late years, 109.
preached against, 54.
recollections of by old persons, 106.
Bundling regarded as a serious evil, 106.
sanctioned by parents, 69.
sermon against, 77.
two forms of, 13.
universal now in lower classes of Scotland, 130.
universal in America in 1750, 106.
-up, in Wales, 42.
Cape Cod, bundling practiced there in 1827, 110.
Central Asia, courtship in, 42.
Confession in public necessary for baptism of children, 76.
Courtship, customs of, in Great Britain, 127.
Courtship among Welsh peasantry, 29.
in Central Asia, 42.
in the 14th century, 37.
among N. A. Indians, 40.
in Switzerland, 38.
Cuckold, no word in Gaelic for, 21.
Customs of courtship, different in the cantons of Switzerland, 39.
Dayaks of Borneo, courtship of, 42.
Dorfen, in Switzerland, 39.
Empress Cartismandua, 21.
Julia, 20.
Epilogue on bundling at Westminster school, 1815, 61.
Free-bench, 22.
French war, demoralizing influence of, 74.
Germans, respect of, for women, 21.
Gordon, Sir Robert, 19.
Sir Adam, 19.
Great Britain, bundling common at the present day in, 126.
Great Britain, immorality of lower classes in, 127.
Gwent, a district in Wales, 34.
Gwentian Code of Wales, 34.
Hand-fasting, a Scotch custom, 17, 19.
common among all classes, 20.
Highland law of marriage, 16.
Highlanders, curious custom of the, 17.
Holland, bundling in, 35, 36.
Illegitimacy not considered a disgrace in Scotland, 131.
Kiltgang in canton of Lucerne. 39.
Kweesten, a Dutch custom, 36.
La Hontan, Indian custom described by, 41.
Lichtgetren, in Switzerland, 39.
Love and courtship in the 14th century, 37.
Maine, bundling in, 1828, 118.
Marriage laws of Great Britain, royal commission on, 127.
Marriage, Welsh laws relating to, 24.
Namzat bezé, an African custom, 42.
Natural children legitimatized in Scotland, 18.
New bundling song, a, 81.
New England, bundling in, 48.
New song in favor of courting, a, 88.
New York Supreme Court on bundling, 111.
N. Am. Indians, chastity of, 41-52.
courtship among, 41.
Pennsylvania, bundling in, 109.
Poem against bundling, a, 100.
Polygamy among ancient nations, 15.
in Great Britain, 15.
Prostitutes, punishment of in Scotland and Germany, 21.
Public confession of unlawful cohabitation made in New England, 75.
records of, 75.
Quest, definition of and origin, 35.
Queesting, 35.
Royal commission on marriage laws of Great Britain, 127.
Savage nations, amatory customs of, 40.
Scotland, courtship of, 128.
conjugal infidelity in, 17.
admonition by church of, 133.
Scotch and Irish moral character, 22.
Scott, Walter, mention of bundling by, 20.
Stubetegetren in Switzerland, 39.
Sutherland, son of a hand-fast marriage claims earldom of, 19.
Switzerland, courtship in, 38.
Tarrying, common in England, 64.
in New England, 70.
Texel, bundling in the island of, 36.
United States, bundling in the, 44.
Vlie and Wieringen, bundling practiced in islands of, 35.
Wales, bundling in, 23.
described by Bingley, 28;
by Barbor, 30;
by Carr, 32;
by Pratt, 25.
chastity in, 115.
Welsh laws relating to marriage, 24.
Whore on the snow crust, the, 93.
Wieringen, see Vlie.
Wynet-werth, a Welsh term, 35.