The Puritans weren’t prudish. In fact, they were passionate.
From the beginning, Puritans maintained sexual intercourse was necessary for procreation, but also asserted sex was an important way for couples to bond in a loving relationship.
“They talk about the duty to desire, that you’re supposed to engage in intercourse with your married partner and that this is good,” says Bremer. “There will actually be some people in early New England who are censured by the church because they have deprived their married partner of sex for three months or more and this is seen as bad.”
“There will actually be some people in early New England who are censured by the church because they have deprived their married partner of sex for three months or more and this is seen as bad.”
Bet I can guess the gender of the people who were censured…
In the 1600s, a man named James Mattock was expelled from the First Church of Boston. His crime? It wasn’t using lewd language or smiling on the Sabbath or anything else that we might think the Puritans had disapproved of. Rather, James Mattock had refused to have sex with his wife for two years.
Looking at other sources, the expulsion was in 1640.
I assumed they were generally against the concept of sex not strictly for the purpose of reproduction.
https://www.bostonmagazine.com/arts-entertainment/2016/10/18/puritans-and-sex-myth/
Bet I can guess the gender of the people who were censured…
I’m assuming that you’re guessing “female”?
https://sexualityandthecity.com/2016/11/26/when-women-wanted-sex-much-more-than-men/
Looking at other sources, the expulsion was in 1640.
TIL thanks