By Richard Shenkman, Harper & Row, 1989

Good annecdotal book about US history.

[p60] In reality the Puritans not only considered intercoures within marriage a positive good but talked about it in public…. As a matter of fact, the Puritans apparently didn’t try very hard to shelter their children from sex and may have been less protective than parents are now.

[p65] The author of one guidebook, “The Gentleman’s Directory”, explained the purpose was to give the reader from out of town “an insight into the character and doings of people whose deeds are carefully screened from public view; when we describe their houses, and give their locations, we supply the stranger with information of which he stands in need, we supply a void that otherwise must remain unfilled. Not that we imagine the read will ever desire to visit these houses. Certainly not; he is, we do not doubt, a member of the Bible Society, a bright and shining light, like Newful Gardner or john Allen. But we point out the lecation of these places in order that the reader may know how to avoid them.”

[p171] Even conservatives like John Adams agreed, Adams himself saying in one place that “the happiness of society is the end of government.”