6 Historic Sex and Dating Rituals You'll Be Glad Died Out

For instance, in the 17th century, teen couples interested in spending the night together were wrapped in burlap sacks and left to lie next to each other. Known as "bundling," this practice was incredibly popular in rural areas of England and Wales. It worked like so: When a teenage couple were to spend the night together, the girl would have a sack tied around her waist in order to ward off any intruders. The dehornified couple would then be tucked into bed, and just to make sure that no nonsense happened, they were separated further by a wooden plank.

via Jane Austen's World

The objective wasn't all-out psychological warfare (although that was a bonus). It afforded the couple a chance to spend the night together whilst simultaneously allowing the parents to spend the night without worrying they'd have another mouth to feed in nine months. It was kind of sweet, in a way -- one of the first steps toward allowing young people to pick their own partners rather than have them thrust upon them.

Bundling proved such a successful method of boner-foiling that it soon made its way to New England, where the situation reportedly got even weirder. Supposedly, if a passing traveler needed a bed for the night, the wife and daughter(s) of the house might be bundled and made to share a bed with them. Whether this is merely a prurient rumor or not is a little hard to say, but bed-sharing did happen a lot more back then, and craftsman were selling beds with built-in bundling boards. So it's possible. And certainly one way to boost your Yelp reviews.

These little pictures were called Lover's Eyes, and were en vogue in Western Europe around the start of the 19th century. Legend has it that they got their start when the future King George IV fell in love with a Catholic widow of two husbands, Maria Fitzherbert. After a lengthy and generally fruitless courtship -- including a faked suicide attempt, an illegal proposal, and Maria fleeing the goddamned country -- George finally hit on a winning formula. He sent a painting of his eye, with the postscript: "I send you a parcel, and I send you at the same time an eye. If you have not totally forgotten the whole countenance, I think the likeness will strike you."

Something about this struck her (possibly the futility of trying to escape a persistent prince), because she came back to England and married him in a secret ceremony on December 15, 1785. This creepy love story was the beginning of a creepy love trend, and while it faded out quickly, experts suspect that some 1,000 of these little paintings exist to this day. It's all but impossible to identify them without an inscription though. The subjects, and certainly the depth of meaning of these objects, were clearly intended for one person alone. Which, while still incredibly creepy, is kind of romantic.

Also they let you lie pretty easily about who your lover might be, which is fun.

Within, students could find information on everything from the menstrual cycle to contraception to sex positions. With regards to birth control and abortion, it gave students everything they could possibly need to know, from information on procedures to broaching the subject in conversation to price guides and reviews of local clinics. As one reader makes clear, "women were desperate for this information, so starved for information ... you wanted it, in as much detail as you could get, as graphic as it could be made."

Canadian Museum of Human Rights

The publication of the pamphlet was made possible by donations from students, as well as secret funding from Princeton University and the University of Maine, and boy did they do a lot with it. Between 1968 and 1975, they'd distributed a staggering three million copies of the handbook -- a figure boosted by horny students in the U.S. writing to get their hands on this mythical book that they'd heard about via whispers in sexual backrooms.

There was another illicit sex guide before this. In the 1830s, The Fruits Of Philosophy informed sex-havers everywhere about the science of birth control. Although most of it is hilariously antiquated, it was one of the first publications to espouse the benefits of vaginal douching with a spermicide post-sex. Unlike the Canadians, the author of this pamphlet, Charles Knowlton, was found out by The Man, fined $50 for flouting obscenity laws, and sentenced to hard labor. You'll be glad to know though that this didn't hurt his cause, because his cause was awesome. Case in point: Not only did a member of the jury that convicted him ask for a copy of the book, so did the prosecutor and the judge. It turns out that while they were duty-bound to impose the law, they didn't agree with it.

They also probably liked to fuck.

Moving right along the dark tunnel of old-timey love, we see that love potions in France were once made up of natural herbs, natural flies, and natural menstrual blood. And the 1500s love potion of choice was a mixture of periwinkle, leeks, and earthworms.

Raphael

Now, beyond the fact that these potions don't work (presumably, ingesting this stuff would actively make a person decidedly unappealing), the production and consumption of these things didn't always end well for either party. In New Mexico during the days of Spanish control, women making love potions -- made of fried or mashed worms, milk, bodily fluids, and powdered shells, since you're asking -- were reportedly rounded up as witches. Which ended in the usual theatrical murder of unpopular women, in this case at the hands of men who we're going to go out on a limb and call unsatisfied customers. Which honestly doesn't seem fair. If someone hands you a plate of jizz-worm meal and you eat it and suddenly no one wants to kiss you, at least some of that has to be on you, lover-boy.

And by "themselves," we mean "the wife." Although this was a mutually agreed-upon process, there was never any question of the wife putting the husband out to someone else's pasture. One person walked away single and rich, the other walked away with another husband, and that was that.

Mind you, the wife had some control over this process. In the event that her husband was on the cusp of selling her off to a drunken psycho, the wife had the option to veto any sale that she wanted, thus affording her some hope of being paired off with one of those long-haired lotharios who are always buying women at the market.

And how much could you buy a bride for, you ask, checking your wallet? Well, that all depended on the husband. If he was a businessman, he'd certainly try to get a good price, if only for the sake of his own reputation. But if the husband was a drunken wretch, he'd sell her for whatever pocket change someone had ... or a pint of beer, as one wife in 1862 found to her dismay.

When they aren't ruining history like two drunkards with a time machine, Marina and Adam can be found on Twitter. Adam also has a Facebook page, but that's only for the cool kids. Uncool kids will appreciate that Marina is behind the times and still needs one -- please help her. Thanks again for enduring the punchy puns of Team Marinadam! See you next time!

Also check out 7 Ways Dating Used To Be A Horrifying Game Of Roulette and 6 Reasons Online Dating Will Never Lead To Love.

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