The Bachelor and other Disorderly Men during the American Founding

The American founders used the figure of the bachelor to represent white males who failed to invest liberty with responsibility, only to foster disorder in the ranks of men. They saw the Bachelor's unrestrained sexuality as a source of social disarray and a symbol for the passions that dwelled within all men. They believed that marriage served a positive educative function, and they urged young males to measure up to manhood by settling down into family life and modest citizenship. The founders also relied on the criminal justice system to perform the negative educative function of punishing the unrepentant bachelor and other disorderly men—itinerants, paupers, rapists, sodomites, soldiers, backwoodsmen, Indians, and blacks—with ridicule, stigma, imprisonment, and banishment. My thesis is that the American founders employed hegemonic norms of manhood to encourage consent among most white men and legitimize coercion against those they considered to be disorderly men.