Were The Puritans Puritanical?

Rain left a comment on my post More Lessons From The Puritans that I have been thinking about. She said,

I think though there is another side which led to denial of natural bodily needs, seeing nudity as sexual sin, suffering being godly, etc. ***I suspect I am too old to change my prejudice that Puritanism is why America still has some of the 'wrong' (in my mind) attitudes toward many natural things-- like being gay. As an artist, I deal with the prejudices against depicting the nude figure even today

Rain said more, but this is the part I have been thinking about most. I looked up Puritanical, and from The Free Dictionary by Farlex, the definition is:

Adj.	1.	puritanical - of or relating to Puritans or Puritanism
	2.	puritanical - exaggeratedly proper; "my straitlaced Aunt Anna doesn't approve of my miniskirts"

Which would seem to imply that according to common usage, the term does mean false body modesty. That bugaboo so many of us had to fight to overcome. Sexually repressed. The stuff I learned at St Mary of the Palms, the Catholic boarding school I attended. The school where I was taught, at the age of six, to take a bath in an over sized tee shirt to "cover your shame." Mama tells me that when I came home, I would not get undressed in front of anyone because "Sister says it isn't modest." Which, I suppose it isn't. However, since I had no such notions when I left my Puritan descended family to go to St Mary's, you can probably guess I associated them with the Catholic church. So, I double checked Fischer's book, Albion's Seed and discovered this paragraph:

The general pattern of sexual attitudes -- strong encouragement of sexual love and sensual bonds within marriage, strict punishment of fornication and adultery, a maniacal horror of unnatural sex, and rigid taboos against contraception within marriage -- was in its totality unique to New England. By and large, the culture was not a system of sexual tyranny and repression. The sex ways of Massachusetts rested upon an intensity of moral and religious purpose which marked so many aspects of this culture*.

If Puritans repressed what they considered unnatural, which would include homosexuality but not the body itself, where did the repressed view of the human body and sex come from? It seems it was more Victorian than Puritanical. Looking at the pictures here of the somber Puritan and the gaily dressed Victorians, one would suppose the opposite.

It was the Victorians who held that women shouldn't enjoy sex and a woman who did was immoral. It was the Victorians who called the bull a "gentleman cow" and legs "limbs" and the chicken breast "white meat" and legs "drum sticks" and "dark meat". They put skirts on tables and chairs and pianos so that men would not see their legs and have sexual thoughts about women, who also had legs. It was the Victorians who considered a glimpse of ankle extremely provocative. Not only were the Victorians sexually repressed, they suffered the things that go along with it. Hypocrisy was rife. This was the age of Jack the Ripper. Prostitution, including child prostitution, was part of the hidden world of Victorian England. Stories are told of upstanding Victorian gentlemen paying for a child prostitute, only to discover when the girl was delivered that she was their own daughter, kidnapped that very afternoon. It was a world with an ugly side.

And the idea of the virtue of chastity, far from being Puritan,** was Catholic.And the ancient Romans and Greeks were shocked at the prudishness of the Hebrews -- one of the sources of the idea that homosexuality was unnatural.

So, we can see that part of the common idea of Puritanical is indeed from Puritans, but much of it is from the Victorians and part from the Catholics and part from the ancient Jews and part undoubtedly from other sources as well. And the Victorian ideas are not founded in a religion, but rather with one woman.

* Fischer, Albion's Seed, Page 93.
** One Puritan elder decreed that life with a bad woman was better than life with no woman.
Photos: Victorian, courtesy Victorian Life
Puritan Woman, courtesy Susan Ditto, 2004

More Lessons from the Puritans

As I start the third section of Fischer's book, Albion's Seed, there are a few more things I discovered about how my Puritan ancestors influenced my family and our country down the ages that I would like to mention.

The idea that education should be provided for all and that it is the path to success originated in the Massachusetts colony. As did the idea that food should be nourishing, but mainly plain, with the exception of pies and cakes.

Business wear is still influenced by the idea of plain clothes in what the Puritans called "sadd" colors -- neutrals. They brought two sports to America. Football, which in Puritan England was played by the entire town, including women, children, and elders. And baseball. The Puritan idea of sport was that it was good for the body, the soul, and the community.

The Puritan work ethic went beyond the idea that work is good for the soul and proper to humanity (as opposed to the Cavalier ideal of being above it all). It also included the idea that goods had a proper price, which was fair. The idea of buy low and sell high was foreign to the Massachusetts settlers. If there was a problem which caused the cost of production and delivery to raise, that cost was for the producer to deal with, and not by raising the price of the goods.

In Massachusetts, there were very few slaves and almost as few servants. Puritans hired "help" and treated them as equals. The help ate at the table with their employers. The very idea of employment being a fair trade of labor for money originated with these people.

Time was something that was supposed to be improved. Work, worship, healthy play, time spent with family and friends, all were ways to improve time. (Unlike the Cavalier south, where time was to be spent.) Modest wealth was a sign that God was pleased with you, but too great a difference between the richest and poorest was not God's plan and was actively discouraged. When land was distributed to settlers, it ran between 20 and 40 acres, depending on what the individual could improve. (In the south, there were original plantations of around 20,000 acres -- balanced by some freemen having up to 40 acres, and most people having none.) Unlike Virginia, Massachusetts did not favor differences in rank. Equality has its roots in this colony, and in the counties in England that sent settlers to it.

The Puritans believed in the sanctity of the home. They settled in towns and neighborhoods. People came together in communities and associations. (And in the south, they spread out in isolated plantations.) Massachusetts valued order, and had a remarkably low crime rate. In the south, the custom of the landed gentry appointing a sheriff who represented their property rights was continued from the old country; in the north, a constable was elected by the people of the community and was concerned with maintaining order for all settlers. Government was by town meeting and selectmen already before they left East Anglia. Most selectmen had gray hair, due to the reverence for age. The Massachusetts Poor Laws, which were the roots of modern liberalism, guaranteed each individual freedom from want and fear.

Altogether, the Puritans had a strong effect and a good one on the direction that the country as a whole, including my family, followed.

A Fair Puritan by E. Percy Moran, Library of Congress

Understanding Family II

I've been working on Albion's Seed and have now learned some things about my maternal grandfather's side of the family, the Cavaliers who migrated from south and west England to Virginia. My ancestors came from Kent, one of the eastern most counties in England. Which is interesting -- my Puritan ancestors came from Devonshire, which was one of the western most counties.

This part of my family followed naming customs in Virginia, as had the Puritans in Massachusetts. Children were named, not after Biblical figures, but for kings and heroes. My great-aunt Julia, a name from Rome; Williams and Edwards abound in the family tree. Even the fact that my grandfather had no sons who survived infancy and so Forrest was given his last name as a middle name is a part of this naming tradition. My father's people, who came to the US in the 19th century, came from Sussex, which is next to Kent and followed the same naming customs. My father was Roland Charles, his father was Roland Charles, his father was Roland Charles -- and one of my brothers was Roland Charles. Roland the knight from the poem, Childe Roland To the Dark Tower Came, by Robert Browning and Charles, the king; and naming sons after fathers.

Where Puritans revered age, Cavaliers respect seniority. In Massachusetts once you were 60, you were an elder. In Virginia, if you were the eldest you received respect. Although Virginia was a very hierarchical society, with a wide range of ranks from high aristocracies through slaves, a young aristocrat would show at least nominal respect to an older freeman, calling him Gaffer and deferring to his judgement.

Children in Virginia were not treated with the same equality as the Puritan children were. Boys were expected to develop a strong will, but to discipline it so that they could discipline their inferiors. Girls were expected to be deferent and sweet and ladylike. Of course, with boys being bred for willfulness, some of the girls were as well. Melonie might have been the ideal southern woman, but Scarlett was recognizable. In my family, it is interesting that the great-grandmother who would not promise to obey when she married was the one from the south. In Fischer's book he mentions southern women in the very early years of the colony who stood in church and when it came to the vows repeated "Not obey" until it was accepted that this woman would not obey.

The tragedy of southern families was the unhealthiness of the region, which led to a very high mortality rate. Where the Puritans could expect to live long lives because of the healthiness of the region they had settled, Cavaliers lost many children and as a rule died young.

My family seems not to have been influenced as much by its Cavalier roots as by its Puritan. And I can say that I'm glad. Almost the first law passed in Massachusetts was the poor law, which forbade anyone be allowed to be hungry. The Puritans taxed themselves higher and supported education from the beginning. The Cavaliers worked hard to prevent literacy among their inferiors (which included the highest ranked women), since reading led to the questioning of authority and Cavalier society was built on accepting authority. Women and men were almost equal in Massachusetts, as unequal as they could be in Virginia. Puritans were given land when they arrived, and although some had more than others, it was not by much. They were a very egalitarian society, working to accept only the middle of the caste system from England. Cavalier aristocracy received huge land grants; hardly anyone else received any. All ranks were encouraged to immigrate, for how else could the aristocracy maintain its position and be served by lower ranks? Massachusetts not only punished rape, the penalty was often death. Virginia had a "boys will be boys" attitude that tolerated rape of inferiors and so thoroughly punished even the slightest crime against superiors that although violence against equals and inferiors was common, against superiors it was almost unheard of.

The Laughing Cavalier by Franz Hals

Understanding Family

I'm currently reading Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America by David Hackett Fischer. Wikipedia says,

The book's descriptions of the four folkways grounding American society is one of the most comprehensive, almost encyclopedic, guide to the origins of colonial American culture. According to Fischer, the foundation of American culture was formed from four mass emigrations from four different regions of Britain by four different socio-religious groups. *** The four migrations are discussed in the four main chapters of the book:

* East Anglia to Massachusetts
The Exodus of the English Puritans

* The South of England to Virginia
Distressed Cavaliers and Indentured Servants

* North Midlands to the Delaware
The Friends' Migration

* Borderlands to the Backcountry
The Flight from Middle Britain and Northern Ireland

As it happens, my maternal grandmother (Lillian Upton) descended from the Puritan migration (before the English Civil War) and my maternal grandfather (Percy Herndon) from the Cavalier (after the English Civil War). And, their families had been on opposite sides of the American Civil War, as well. And, Grandma's family won both of them.

So far I am only partway through the first section; it is amazing how reading this throws light on things in my family. We have been in this country a long time, and we have done well in many ways. But we are not among the powerful, and never have been. I can see from our Puritan origin that this has been so all along. The Puritan leaders tended to be ministers and come from East Anglia; my ancestors tended to be craftsmen and came from Devonshire.

We have many ancestors named Sarah, including the one who was accused as a witch at Salem (Sarah Osborne) and my great-grandmother's great-grandmother (Sarah Proctor) who raised her. Sarah was one of the most popular Puritan names. We have a quote from Sarah Proctor that she had read the Bible "civer to civer" and it turns out that civer was not a sign that Sarah was illiterate, but the way the word was pronounced by Puritans in general.

Puritans revered age. Men who were elected to office in their later years were not voted out, they resigned or died in office. The elderly were believed to be particularly wise and strong. So strong, that when they did bad, they were considered particularly evil. So, one side of the coin was reverence for Granny, making sure she had the best seat in the house and was listened to. And the other side was the witch trials. Since elders had the capacity to be so evil, they were particularly fearsome as witches. And here we always thought they were persecuted because it was safe to go after old women with no power. And, instead, they were old women perceived to have more power than anyone.

My mother tells me that my great-grandfather Upton used to say that babies were utterly selfish. The mother could be dying in the next room, and the selfish baby would cry and demand what it wanted with no regard for her. I was appalled that an ancestor of mine could be so self-centered (I thought he was thinking that women should be paying more attention to their husbands!) that he couldn't see the nature of a baby is innocent. It turns out that this idea was not his, it was the basis of Puritan child rearing methods, and indeed of much of Puritan belief and life. That babies are born corrupt because of Adam's sin and must be taught to be good. That their will must be broken. Interestingly, with the notion that the child's will was always bad and had to be broken, and with laws that allowed parents to kill their children for bad behavior, Puritans tended to be loving parents and seldom even spanked.

My grandmother, Lillian, was the second child named Lillian that her parents had. The first had died. Julie and I thought that was odd and more than a little macabre. But, according to Fischer, that was the custom. If a child died, the next child of that gender would be given that name. There were families that lost multiple children to outbreaks of disease and then gave all of those names to the following children.

It is always interesting to see how my family is not unique or nuts. How what we do and who we are has its roots so far in the past. How things we do not even think about, which seem natural to us, are not the norm for everyone. I expect that there is more in this section of the book that will prove illuminating to me.

When I read about the Cavaliers, I'll bet I learn things about the Herndon side of the family as well.


Photos: Puritan courtesy Brookgreen Gardens, South Carolina
Cavalier courtesy Wikipedia.
Do click the pictures and see the stern Puritan, carrying his Bible, and the handsome Cavalier, with his sword, up close.

Update. It occurs to me that my grandmother's people were forced out of England by my grandfather's people. Then came the English Civil War, and Puritan rule. So, my grandfather's people were forced out of England by my grandmother's people. Sort of a hoot.

Changing More Than The Name

Wikipedia has this to say about the naming of Eskimo peoples.

In Canada and Greenland the term Eskimo has fallen out of favor, is considered pejorative, and has been generally replaced by the term Inuit. However, while Inuit does correctly describe all of the Eskimo peoples in Canada and Greenland, that is not true in Alaska and Siberia. In Alaska the term Eskimo is commonly used, because it includes both Yupik* (sic) and Inupiat, while Inuit is not accepted as a collective term or even specifically used for Inupiat (which technically is Inuit). To date, no universally acceptable replacement term for Eskimo, inclusive of all Inuit andYupik people, has achieved acceptance across the geographical area inhabited by the Inuit and Yupik peoples.

Tonight I saw a public service announcement in which a young Yup'ik girl states that her Yup'ik heritage includes strength and the courage of her convictions (true) and that this heritage gives her the strength to hold with her traditional values. And then she said, "Sex can wait."

Now, I have no problem with sex can wait. I think it should wait a lot longer than it does for too many young girls. And I have no problem with a campaign to encourage young Yup'ik girls to wait. But I do have a problem with not being honest. And the thing is that waiting is not part of the Yup'ik tradition. I remember that when I was in Fairbanks in the late 60s there was concern about Yup'ik teens being sent out to boarding school** in the southwest, among tribes where the teens did wait. And the problem, I was told. with that was that the living conditions in their tradtitional bush villages were so harsh that a man could not afford to marry a woman who couldn't have children.*** And so, I was told, Yup'ik girls couldn't get married unless they were pregnant. And the Yup'ik girls were not waiting at boarding school, and so the students from other tribes were calling them pejorative names and treating them poorly.

So, if pregnancy is required, how do you get there if you wait? And isn't it a little dishonest to sell young Yup'ik teens on the idea of waiting by claiming it is part of a tradition that it absolutely couldn't be part of?

* Yup'ik is the correct spelling, which I now know thanks to ykalaska.
** Pretty much all Native American kids were sent to boarding school during those days.
*** As with many traditional societies, social security was descendants to take care of you in your old age. If a woman couldn't have children, or if a couple couldn't have children together, they would be less secure.

Russell W. Porter
"Eskimo Girl" Umanak, Greenland, 1896, Watercolor

The President's Nose

At the left is a coup stick.






Counting coup, according to Wikipedia,

was a battle practice of Native Americans of the Great Plains. A nonviolent demonstration of bravery, it consisted of touching an enemy warrior, with the hand or with a coup stick, then running away unharmed. Risk of injury or death was involved, should the other warrior respond violently. The phrase "counting coup" can also refer to the recounting of stories about battle exploits.

A few years ago, I heard about a practice among current Native American men that allows them to prove their courage in these modern times. They rappel down Mt. Rushmore and pee on a president's nose.*


* I read this in a book, but I can't remember which one. Nor could I find anything about it on the Internet. Snopes.com hasn't listed it, so at least it isn't a well known urban myth. I do so hope it's true.