I Will Never Forget

Name: Emmanuel iyoyo                                                                                            Date: 01/28/1014 
Title: The Puritans and Sex 
Author: Edmund S. Morgan 
 
When the Puritan came to the New World after being rejected in England for their beliefs, they knew the demand of perfection in God’s eyes could never be fully accomplish. Humans could never live up to the standards that God set out. After settling in New England, the Puritan became well aware they needed to have law enforcement with religious obligations, and most importantly the sexual temptations. Knowing that human could never fully obey God’s word and always be tempted, the puritans enforced certain punishments for certain sexual crimes, including fornication, adultery, rape and buggery or sodomy.  
In 1630, when the puritans were around, it was required that in order to indulge in such actions of pleasure you must first be married. Many male and women servants would have sexual intercourse and be whipped by their masters. Ironically according to Morgan, most of the time that a woman would have sex, or get raped would be by her master. The reason for many of these illegal sexual actions was because most of the males would already have a wife before settling to the colonies. So in order to fulfill their sexual needs, the male would have to get married to another woman (sex was only permissible if married). According to laws in the seventeenth century and laws according to today, bigamy and polygamy are both felonies. Now this would leave the man with two choices. Either have illicit sex or get married and have legal sex while being in risk for getting caught for both. 
The Puritan established the Massachusetts Bay Colony to practice and love God in their own way. They had a very strict government, with next to no democracy. They believed in hard work and maintaining education. The members who showed weakness and did not practice self-denial would be punished. They also...