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Sexual Revolution in Early America

Richard Godbeer

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An Alternate Selection of the History Book Club

In 1695, John Miller, a clergyman traveling through New York, found it appalling that so many couples lived together without ever being married and that no one viewed "ante-nuptial fornication" as anything scandalous or sinful. Charles Woodmason, an Anglican minister in South Carolina in 1766, described the region as a "stage of debauchery" in which polygamy was "very common," "concubinage general," and "bastardy no disrepute." These depictions of colonial North America's sexual culture sharply contradict the stereotype of Puritanical abstinence...

An Alternate Selection of the History Book Club

In 1695, John Miller, a clergyman traveling through New York, found it appalling that so many couples lived together without ever being married and that no one viewed "ante-nuptial fornication" as anything scandalous or sinful. Charles Woodmason, an Anglican minister in South Carolina in 1766, described the region as a "stage of debauchery" in which polygamy was "very common," "concubinage general," and "bastardy no disrepute." These depictions of colonial North America's sexual culture sharply contradict the stereotype of Puritanical abstinence that persists in the popular imagination.

In Sexual Revolution in Early America, Richard Godbeer boldly overturns conventional wisdom about the sexual values and customs of colonial Americans. His eye-opening historical account spans two centuries and most of British North America, from New England to the Caribbean, exploring the social, political, and legal dynamics that shaped a diverse sexual culture. Drawing on exhaustive research into diaries, letters, and other private papers, as well as legal records and official documents, Godbeer's absorbing narrative uncovers a persistent struggle between the moral authorities and the widespread expression of popular customs and individual urges.

Godbeer begins with a discussion of the complex attitude that the Puritans had toward sexuality. For example, although believing that sex could be morally corrupting, they also considered it to be such an essential element of a healthy marriage that they excommunicated those who denied "conjugal fellowship" to their spouses. He next examines the ways in which race and class affected the debate about sexual mores, from anxieties about Anglo-Indian sexual relations to the sense of sexual entitlement that planters held over their African slaves. He concludes by detailing the fundamental shift in sexual culture during the eighteenth century towards the acceptance of a more individualistic concept of sexual desire and fulfillment. Today's moral critics, in their attempts to convince Americans of the social and spiritual consequences of unregulated sexual behavior, often harken back to a more innocent age; as this groundbreaking work makes clear, America's sexual culture has always been rich, vibrant, and contentious.

Reviews

Reviews

According to this meticulously researched study, the Puritan roots of America's sexual mores are deep and surprisingly complex... Godbeer utilizes an impressive array of sources, from private writings, print, and ephemeral materials to court depositions, didactic literature, and official documents for his original research. The result is a valuable contribution to American social history.

Colonial history will never quite be the same. Sexual Revolution in Early America is the most thorough compendium of sexual incidents, attitudes, laws, and literature in British America before 1800.... This work will be the central reference point for our understanding of sexuality in early America for many years to come. The book has much to offer both the casual and the thoughtful reader.

Godbeer offers a fresh view of the 'moral and cultural architecture' of early America and the American Revolution through his analysis of sexual mores and behavior... Godbeer's readings are important to readings of early American captivity narratives... [and] has clear implications for feminist literary scholars and queer theorists who focus on questions of agency and transgression.

Important... Godbeer pays meticulous attention to the details of cultural meaning and practice... The book's regional and chronological range is impressive... and the author's facility with such a wide variety of sources touching on typically private and thus seemingly inaccessible matters might serve as a model for scholars.

Richard Godbeer challenges our traditional stereotypes of colonial America by recovering a remarkable volume of sexual discussion and debate, prosecution and evasion... In both their sexual excesses and anxieties, Godbeer's colonists seem surprisingly modern and accessible.

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Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
448
ISBN
9780801878916
Illustration Description
4 halftones, 1 line drawing
Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Sex, Marriage, and Moral Order in Early America
Part I: Passionate Pilgrims
Chapter 1. " Chambering and Wantonising": Popular Sexual Mores in Seventeenth-Century New England

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Sex, Marriage, and Moral Order in Early America
Part I: Passionate Pilgrims
Chapter 1. " Chambering and Wantonising": Popular Sexual Mores in Seventeenth-Century New England
Chapter 2. "A Complete Body of Divinity": The Puritans and Sex
Chapter 3. "Pregnant with the Seeds of All Sin": Regulating Illicit Sex in Puritan New England
Part II: Sex and Civility
Chapter 4. "Living in a State of Nature": Sex, Marriage, and Southern Degenerates
Chapter 5. The Dangerous Allure of "Copper-Colored Beauties": Anglo-Indian Sexual Relations
Chapter 6. "The Chameleon Lover": Sex, Race, and Cultural Identity in the Colonial South
Part III: The Sexual Revolution
Chapter 7. "Under the Watch": The Metamorphosis of Sexual Regulation in Eighteenth-Century New England
Chapter 8. "A Hint to Young Ladies": Courtship, Sexual Danger, and Moral Agency in Revolutionary America
Chapter 9. "Martyrdom to Venus": Sexual Freedom in Post-Independence Philadelphia
Afterword
Notes
Index

Author Bio
Featured Contributor

Richard Godbeer, Ph.D.

Richard Godbeer is a professor of history at the University of Miami. His books include Sexual Revolution in Early America, also published by Johns Hopkins, The Salem Witch Hunt: A Brief History with Documents, Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692, and The Devil's Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England.