Modern commentators are very keen to perpetuate an image of young couples entering into marriage and procreation in a state of complete ignorance but this is not really the case outside the aristocracy (and then only for the girls).  The idea that 18thC swains and shepherdesses met at the country fair, then married after a few chaste kisses is not impossible, but in reality is highly unlikely.  The openness of courting in England in general (outside particularly religious communities) was observed with both astonishment and approval by Continental travellers, who noted young unchaperoned couples eating picnics together on Sundays in London's various pleasure gardens.  Any reader of Samuel Pepys is aware of the amount of grappling a young woman could expect if caught unawares, or if she had led a man to think she might permit it.  I think Sam was rather enthusiastic in his approach, but he certainly sheds light on the interaction between the sexes in the late 17thC and it appears women were not exactly put on a pedestal, unless they were worth a very great deal of money.

As previously noted, during the long 18thC the average age of marriage for men was in the late 20s, and for women, the early 20s.  This doesn't include the upper classes, where sexual continence for the women was paramount before marriage.  To imagine that all these other young, healthy people abstained from sex for over a decade after puberty is plainly rot.  'Bundling' or 'tarrying' is put forward as one theory whereby young couples in an established relationship might engage in minor foreplay and achieve physical intimacy without intercourse: try before you buy, as it were.

This approach makes perfect sense: as a parent you weren't condoning pre-marital sex.  The opposite in fact.  The girl had a knot tied in the bottom of her nightdress, or was wrapped up in a blanket, and the couple were allowed to sleep together, at the girl's home.  This means the parents were approving of the young man, but setting limits upon the relationship.  The man was to stay dressed and outside the blanket.  It is alleged that the Puritans used a 'bundling board', but I think this is more like for the event of strangers sharing the same bed, rather than courting couples.  Only a minute's thought will reveal tarrying to be both a sensible idea, and a bit of a cheat for the girl.  Still, it was infinitely preferable to getting married without knowing your arse from your elbow, so to speak, and very useful for making sure you weren't going to buy the last chicken in the shop.

Bundling is often asserted to be a one-time only deal, but I'm fairly sure that's not true.  After all, if you liked your daughter's suitor but he didn't have quite enough money to marry but had hopes for the future you'd rather she hung onto him by progressing their relationship under some sort of supervision rather than went off with someone else, or got pregnant after a furtive knee-trembler.  If she did get pregnant, through the blanket obviously, it was expected the couple would marry.  After all, the relationship was established in the family, if not the community.  Apprentices were not supposed to marry during their 7 years, but this method of courtship would allow them much more freedom than simple abstinence.  Bundling was really for younger couples, to allow them to learn gradually about a fundamental part of married life.  It also allowed those stolen moments that are so important to developing relationships.

(A more extensive history of bundling is documented in America, where it continued into the 1920s as a folk custom and ritual part of courtship.  It continued even longer in Amish communities.  Bundling has been recorded from about 1600 in Norway, the Netherlands and Germany, as well as England, and finally appears in the Dictionary for 1781, before which it was known as tarrying.)