Were the Puritans Puritanical? (Part 6)

"Contrary to a popular misconception, the Puritans were not squeamish about physical or erotic contact between couples.  Thomas Gataker said that 'the Holy Ghost did allow some such private dalliance and behavior to married persons between themselves as to others might seem dotage.'  Many Puritan writers used Genesis 26:8, which describes Isaac's fondling of Rebekah, to argue that erotic love was legitimate.  One of them commented that in marriage 'a play-fellow is come to make our age merry, as Isaac and Rebecca sported together,' while Gouge cited the same passage to charge husbands who reject such contact as taking no more delight in their own wives than in any other women.  Perkins described one of the ways by which couples should show 'due benevolence' to each other as 'by an holy kind of rejoicing and solacing themselves with each other,' in connection with which he mentioned kissing" (Ryken, Worldly Saints, p. 45).