Blue laws

The United States maintains a number of laws on the books, sometimes referred to as Blue Laws, that enforce everything from moral codes to prohibitions against shopping on Sunday. These were established when the United States was still a set of colonies, and not a united country, originating primarily in Connecticut and other highly conservative and religious areas. They subsequently spread throughout the U.S..  Although many laws stopped being enforced long ago, many were still technically on the books. It is only recently that each state started formally repealing these laws, which were highly restrictive and included such provisions as death for adultery. 

That these laws never existed in Iceland, or most of Europe, has taken me some getting used to. Americans are perhaps not by nature uptight, but we do have a different sensibility. 

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