DuVernois Blog

Bundling boards

Interestingly, this is a subject that isn't well represented on the web. Only a handful of sites are out there with many of them using the phrase as a code-phrase for Victorian, well heck, Puritan, sexual mores. Going tag sale (called garage sales, or yard sales outside of New England) hopping as a child, I remember running into at least a few antique bundling boards and beds that would accept them. Prolly these have all disappeared from tag sales now and can only be found in the antique-stores-for-the-terminally-hip. Anyhow, if you don't know about bundling, and bundling boards, let me enlighten you.

Back in the day (think colonial times through 1900 plus add in certain Pennsylvania and Ohio modern day low-tech religious groups) beds were expensive and guest beds an unlikely indulgence. To keep unmarried folks of the opposite gender from exploring their human natures while sharing a precious resource (the bed, you with your mind in the gutter), a bundling board could be installed between the partners-denied. As an added complication, there was an entire form of courtship in which the man and woman would spend nights (or at least evenings) together, in bed, under the covers, together, but separated by a healthy slab of dimensional lumber. An article on this practice, within the Pennsylvania Dutch, illustrates the many aspects of bundling. And mentions bundling bags as well as boards. Some even think of it as "racy."

Hmmm...the somewhat modern equivalent was in an old movie I remember seeing. I want to say Cary Grant, but I'm not 100% sure. He's traveling around with this woman that he isn't married to. Quelle horror! They share a hotel room each night with a sheet up between them as a divider. In the end, they marry and the sheet comes down. What the heck movie was this? Quick google searches have been unsuccessful...

Appended: "It happened one night" with Clark Gable, not Cary Grant. Oops! According to imdb.com, "While shooting the scene where he undresses, Clark Gable had trouble removing his undershirt while keeping his humorous flow going and took too long. As a result the undershirt was abandoned altogether. It then became cool to not wear an undershirt which resulted in a large drop in undershirt sales around the country. In response, underwear manufacturers tried to sue Columbia."