Sexual Revolution in Early America

RICHARD GODBEER, Sexual Revolution in Early America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. Pp. 430. $34.95.

In Sexual Revolution in Early America, Richard Godbeer challenges many assumptions about colonial Americans' attitudes concerning sex and its role in society. Godbeer states that there was no monolithic belief about sexual morality. Rather, ideas ranged from the idealistic to the pragmatic, depending on a person's position and circumstances. Furthermore, even these ideas changed through the course of the eighteenth century as the emphasis shifted from society to the individual, mirroring the move of the colonies from dependence on Great Britain to political autonomy following the Revolution.

Godbeer's book begins where most studies of sex in colonial America startwith the Puritans. But Godbeer's Puritans present no common consensus in the area of sexual activity. he presents a strong tension throughout the colonial era. On one side, political and spiritual leaders pushed for conformity to a strict code of sexual morality that allowed sexual activity only after a formal marriage. Opposing this attitude was a large portion of the general population who failed to criticize both premarital sex...