How the Pilgrims shaped our sex lives

Thomas Saddeler got the penal full house. He was found guilty of sex with a mare and sentenced “to be severely whipped at the post, and to sit on the gallows with a rope about his neck during the pleasure of the Court, and to be branded in the forehead with a Roman P to signify his abominable pollution, and so to depart this government.”

The story of Plymouth’s sex life isn’t all men and horses. There were also men and men, and men and women, or at least that seems to have been Edward Michell’s theory. He was put on trial “for his lewd [and] sodomitical practices tending to sodomy with Edward Preston, and other lewd carriages with Lydia Hatch.” He was sentenced to be publicly whipped, first at Plymouth and then Barnstable.

Men were not the only offenders. The prim women weren't always so prim.

“Mary, the wife of Robert Mendame, of Duxborrow” was put on trial for “using dalliance diverse times with Tinsin, an Indian, and after committing the act of uncleanness with him … the Bench doth therefore censure the said Mary to be whipped at a cart’s tail through the town’s streets, and to wear a badge upon her left sleeve during her abroad within this government; and if she shall be found without it abroad, then to be burned in the face with a hot iron; and the said Tinsin, the Indian, to be well whipped with a halter about his neck at the post, because it arose through the allurement [and] enticement of the said Mary, that he was drawn thereunto.”

Women were often caught with the evidence: babies. The records are spotted with one bastard child after another or complaining husbands who can’t figure out just when the new son or daughter was conceived.

Babies showing up just a few months after marriage were also evidence of fornication. Premarital sex was punished severely. Thomas and Joane Pynson, a married couple, were found guilty of “incontinency before their marriage” so Thomas was whipped and Joane had to sit in the stocks.

Fines were levied even for making passes, for appearing to have a “lascivious carriage” in public, or partying in mixed company at an unseemly time of night.

“Whereas Edward Holman hath been observed to frequent the house of Thomas Sherive at unreasonable times of the night, and at other times, which is feared to be of ill consequence, The Court has therefore ordered, that the said Edward Holman be warned by the constable of Plymouth, that he henceforth do no more frequent or come at the house of the said Sherive, nor that the wife of the said Sherive do frequent the house or company of the said Holman, as either of them will answer it at their perils.”

The court had no idea why Holman was going to visit Sherive or his wife (or both? Hmm…) but those who create sex bans often have the best imaginations.

Give thanks
It wasn’t all severity at Plymouth. The Courts did attempt fair trials and some accused were found innocent. Sometimes punishments were skipped out of mercy.

Perhaps such mercy was a nod to human nature. After all, according to Lauria’s estimates, up to 50 percent of Plymouth colonists had premarital sex, despite the laws. Some were gay or bisexual. There were bad marriages, cheating wives, teenagers flooded with hormones. Life was complicated.

Does that sound familiar?

We have an awful lot in common with the Pilgrims, including, among some of us, the unrealistic image of sexual propriety they bequeathed us.

Keep that in mind as you gather around the turkey this Thanksgiving. And as you say grace, give thanks you weren’t one of them.

Brian Alexander, a California-based freelance writer and contributing editor for Glamour magazine, is working on a new book about sex for Harmony, an imprint of Crown Publishing.

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