Successful Singleness - 4

In history, it is interesting to note a kind of pendulum swing in culture. The pendulum swings between what some people call liberal and conservative. A more accurate way to say it is that culture swings between extremes.

Avant-Garde is a hodgepodge of all the old ideas, plus new ones. We are now a rainbow culture.

From about 1800 to 1920, there was a period of culture, literature and art known as the Era of Romanticism. One of the main ideas from that period was a focus on emotions.

The French Revolution occurred during this time. The standard of right & wrong (God’s Law) was not important. This led to all sorts of trouble.

The philosophy formed that it was okay for a married man or woman to share their emotions with some other man or woman—but not share their physical body. They invented things like bundling.

The practice of “bundling” was where a man and woman were basically sewn into separate sleeping bags and placed in bed together, so they could have a close relationship but not come together physically, because they were already married to someone else. Some Amish groups still practice this.

The problem is, you may restrain the body, but you cannot restrain the mind. When opportunity presented itself, then the actions were carried out.

It was also commonly believed that virgins could have many emotional relationships before marriage. The process of dating began, where you would have many emotional “marriages” before actually getting married.

This is where dating came from.