@nprofile1q... it comes from the latent puritan holdovers from pre-industrialization age. America was so big with independent states that each state basically operated on its own rules because the nation in the 1800s were sooo big that it was to hard to govern as a single entity. During this time, religion was a major factor for "morals", and in specific southern evagangical movements which holds "purity" above all, both purity of virginity and for the south, purity of none race intermixing.