the birds and the bees

[Joel S. Berson]

At 9/28/2011 04:53 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

>On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 1:33 PM, Jonathan Lighter
><wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Colonial parents
>
>Did the ordinary colonial 'rental unit enjoy the kind of privacy that
>would have permitted them to keep sexual intercourse a secret till the
>chidren were approaching puberty?

I don't think there were many "rental units".  And my feeling is that
in most homes in the 18th century the children had a separate bedroom
from the parents (at least in the American colonies).  What might
have been heard I can't speak to.  And most families had farm animals
(even in the "cities" a home might have a cow), so observation of
animal copulation perhaps was the common medium of transmission of knowledge.

Joel


>--
>-Wilson
>-----
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
>to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-Mark Twain
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org