A History of Courting by E.S. Turner (Pan, 1958)

Down deep in hell there let them dwell
and bundle on that bed
Then turn and roll without control
Till all their lusts are fed.

That was how they did it in America in the 18th century.  Bundling it was called.  Not as naughty as it sounds.

In Moscow in 1952 they courted quite differently.  It went like this: The boy was a collective farmer, and the girl a tractor driver working on the same night-shift.  Sighed the girl: 'How wonderful it is to work on such a beautiful night under the full moon and do one's utmost to save petrol!'  Exclaimed the boy: 'The night inspires me to over-fulfill my quota by a higher and still higher percentage.'  Later he admitted: 'I fell in love with your working achievement from the very first moment.

There's no end to the different methods employed in this enchanting game, practised by nearly all of us some time or another.

You'll love this book.  It's instructive.  It's fascinating!

Here we have a very decorous couple from the 1950s looking at a picture of a not-so-decorous couple from an earlier era.  It all seems a bit too clean-cut and peachy keen to be true: surely the 1950s was the era of making out in drive-ins and in the back seats of cinemas?

The answer is, it was, and this book is happy to record it.  It also discusses--yes!--bundling, along with valentines, chaperones, flappers and a thousand and one other elements of courtship in days gone by.  And of course it also has fun with the thoughts of various "experts" on love, marriage and morals through the centuries.