The Puritans: history’s sexist religious reformers

Stuffy, stern and steeple-hatted

When I first began my research for The Hummingbird and the Sea, I didn’t know much at all about New England Puritans. Over the next few months I traversed a very steep learning curve. Much of what I thought I knew was wrong - ideas and stereotypes borne from American cartoons. The notion of Puritans being God-fearing wet blankets who believed even the most meagre pleasure was a sin, simply wasn’t true at all. Consuming alcohol was encouraged and card games were enjoyed. The most interesting facet of my research, however, had to do with sex. Intercourse was spoken of openly and encouraged between husband and wife for both procreation and pleasure.

Shades of grey

Puritans leaders maintained sexual intercourse was necessary for procreation but they also believed sex was an important way for couples to build a happy and loving relationship. Love between married people, they asserted, was the most intimate form of connection humans could achieve on Earth. In a similar way, they argued, humans are united with Christ in Heaven. Therefore, love in marriage had no higher expression than sex.

I am not a theologian, so this blog post gives you a more complete rundown of the biblical background.

Puritans championed sex between married couples. In fact, spouses were punished if they did not perform their carnal duties. There is a documented case of a person (I’m not sure whether they were male or female) suffering punishment because they deprived their partner of sex for three months! Likewise, impotency was grounds for divorce.

Clearly, Puritans were passionate people. Their desires were not concealed.

A prime example of their attitudes towards sex can be found in letters between Massachusetts’ first Governor, John Winthrop (a figure I have derided in a previous blog) and his wife, Margaret Tyndall. Hot-blooded Winthrop wrote the following to his wife in 1618.

‘Being filled with the joy of thy love, and wanting opportunity of more familiar connection with thee, which my heart fervently desires, I am constrained to ease the burden of my mind by this poor help of my scribbling pen, being sufficiently assured that although my presence is that which thou desires, yet in the want thereof these lines shall not be unfruitful of comfort unto thee.’

So racy were his comments that when this letter was included in his journals almost 200 years later, editors were forced to remove the more explicit parts before it was published.

This 19th century bronze statue of John Winthrop stands in Boston.

Even the words of poet Anne Bradstreet are fairly erotic when you comb through the metaphor.

‘Whom whilst I ’joy’d, nor storms, nor frosts I felt,/His warmth such frigid colds did cause to melt.’

But Puritans weren’t entirely open minded. Masturbation, adultery, homosexuality, bestiality and fornication (sex between unmarried people) were to be avoided at all costs.

How did Puritans get such a bad rap?

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as Victorian morality mounted, a certain amount of hostility grew towards the Puritans. They were supposedly responsible for the roots of the temperance movement and the prudish attitudes toward sexuality. The Puritan stereotype was created because Americans were looking for people to blame for society’s conservative outlook.