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.
Richard Godbeer is a professor of history at the University of California, Riverside.
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.
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 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
Sexual Revolution in Early America is the most comprehensive study of colonial sexuality to date. Scholars, students, and general readers alike will find much to interest them here. Godbeer describes a remarkably varied pattern of sexual theory and practice in British North America, detailing both regional differences and change over time.
— Mary Beth Norton, Cornell University
From the Publisher
Sexual Revolution in Early America is the most comprehensive study of colonial sexuality to date. Scholars, students, and general readers alike will find much to interest them here. Godbeer describes a remarkably varied pattern of sexual theory and practice in British North America, detailing both regional differences and change over time.—Mary Beth Norton, Cornell University
