In his book "Puritans at Play: Leisure and Recreation in Colonial New England," historian Bruce Daniels points out that "Rates of premarital conception, which had increased steadily but slowly over the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, shot up sharply after 1730, reaching a peak of 30 precent, the highest of any period in American history including all decades of the twentieth century." Daniels continues, writing that "One recent scholar argues that with premarital sex so prevalent, the late eighteenth century may have been the most 'free' period of sexuality in American history." (Both citations from page 140, should anyone care to look.)
