Page 4 - Does the Kingdom of God trump politics?
http://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.php ... ing#p49505
Then, went on to begin a new thread,
Page 1 - Pun-Meter
http://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.php ... ing#p49572
The topic jogged my memory a bit.steve-in-kville wrote:What exactly is bed courtship? Is this the same as "bundling"? I never heard of this before.Josh wrote: For example, the Swartzentruber Amish might seem very “plain”, but also have widespread use of tobacco and some engage in the rather sordid custom of “bed courtship”, which to me seems pretty worldly.
i began to recall, i had heard of these practices when i was very young .. was it in pioneer history?!
i was thinking i’d heard of it BEFORE i learned of Anabaptist practices.
Yes. i found some history.
It’s thought to go back to Northern Europe, and was in use by Puritans ..
Colonial Williamsburg -
“Courtship, Sex, and the Single Colonist”
http://www.history.org/foundation/journ ... /court.cfm
Certainly, “that night” with Ruth and Boaz is quite an interesting part of scriptures .... It's said that the precedent for bundling came from the biblical story of Ruth and Boaz,
in which Ruth, a young widow, and Boaz, a wealthy landowner, spend a night together on a threshing room floor and go on to become husband and wife.
Bundling, or bed courting, as it was also known, was introduced to the American colonies by the early flood of Scots, Welsh, and other European immigrants.
Doubtless, the cold, damp nights of their northern climes contributed to its popularity.
Bundling under the covers panders to a certain Scottish thriftiness toward winter heating bills, as an eighteenth-century ditty confirms:
Since in a bed a man and maid,
May bundle and be chaste,
It does no good to burn out wood,
It is just needless waste. ..
but, alas, details are not shared. i trust Boaz behaved himself, no matter how trying the circumstances! Ruth’s mother sent her there .. it is quite a situation.
o.my.goodness.i try not to over-think it.
i’d never heard this possible scriptural correlation before. may-be.
“Weird Decor: What is a Bundling Board?“
https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/weird- ... ard-214210
Bundling boards - not just for courtship!.. Bundling boards are thought to have originated in Northern Europe, but now are usually associated with the Puritans of the American Colonies.
It was a way for young men and women to have some alone time, in an era when that was very scarce for everyone, not just courting couples. After all, most large Puritan families lived in very small, simple homes, so it’s likely that “date night” consisted of dinner and bible study with the siblings.
Consider that the 17th and even 18th centuries were a period without excessive emphasis on emotional bonding before marriage, so it must have been nice for these couples to get a chance to talk through the night before agreeing to the match.
There are plenty of historical mentions of bundling boards used in inns where strangers might share a bed or even in private homes when a traveler needed a place to sleep.
At the very least, it would have prevented kicking your bed-mate during the night. Handy!
