A social history of the American family from colonial times to the present

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A SOCIAL HISTORY

OF

THE AMERICAN FAMILY

Vol. I

A SOCIAL HISTORY

OF

THE AMERICAN FAMILY

FROM COLONIAL TIMES
TO THE PRESENT

BY

ARTHUR W. CALHOUN, Ph.D.

VOL. I
COLONIAL PERIOD

THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY

CLEVELAND, U.S.A.

1917

COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY

ARTHUR W. CALHOUN

To

MY MOTHER

who made it possible

CONTENTS

Preface 9

I Old World Origins -the wider Background . 13

II Old World Origins - specific Sources ... 29

III Courtship and Marriage in colonial New Eng-

land 51

IV The New England Family - Prestige and Func- ^ —

TIONS 67

• V The Position of Women in the New England ^

colonial Family . 83—-,

VI The Status of Children in the New England

colonial Family 105 A"^

• VII Sex Sin and Family Failure in colonial New ^

\ England 129 ^

yill Sex and Marriage in colonial New York .
"iX Family Life and Problems in colonial New

York 167

X Colonial New Jersey and Delaware . . . 185

XI The Family in colonial Pennsylvania . . 199

XII The Family Motive in southern Coloniza-

tion 215

XIII Familism and Home Life in the colonial ^^'

South 229 '•''

XIV Southern colonial Courtship and Marriage as

social Institutions 245

XV Regulation and Solemnization of Marriage in

THE southern Colonies 259

XVI Woman's Place in the colonial South . . 273

8 Contents

XVII Cmi.DHdOD IN THE C()L(1NIAL SoUTH . , . 285

• XVIII Family Pathdlogy and social Censorship in

THK COLONIAL SoUTH ..... 299

XIX Ser\itude and Sexuality in the southern

Colonies 313

XX French Colonies in the West . . . . 331
Bibliography 337

PREFACE

The three volumes of which this is the first are an
attempt to develop an understanding of the forces that
have been operative in the evolution of family institu-
tions in the United States. They set forth the nature of
the influences that have shaped marriage, controlled
fecundity, determined the respective status of father,
mother, child, attached relative, and servant, influenced
sexual morality, and governed the function of the fam-
ily as an educational, economic, moral, and spiritual
institution as also its relation to state, industry, and so-
ciety in general in the matter of social control. The
work is primarily a contribution to genetic sociology.

Not until such an investigation, as lies back of these
volumes, has been undertaken is it possible to realize
the absolute dearth of connected and systematic mate-
rial on the general history of the American family as a
social institution in relation to other social institutions
and to "the social forces." In this as in so many other
vital fields of human interest and action, everything has
hitherto been taken for granted. In view, therefore, of
the increasing attention given in recent years to the
problems of the modern family, such as conditions of
marriage, the birth-rate, the waning of home activities,
the insurgency of the child, the economic independence
of woman, sexual morality, divorce, and general family
instability, it seems that the main lines of family evolu-
tion in the United States should be made accessible not
merely to the professional student of sociology but also

lO The American Family -Colonial Period

to the thinking public. The present work is in answer
to that realized need.

The first volume of the series covers the colonial
period and sets forth the germination of the American
family as a product of European folkways, of the eco-
nomic transition to modern capitalism, and of the dis-
tinctive environment of a virgin continent. Usages
imported from Europe are detailed and their gradual
modification or overthrow under the influence of eco-
nomic progress and the sway of the wilderness is exhib-
ited. Variations between the geographical sections are
traced to mesological and population differences but the
general similarity of North and South is affirmed as a
preliminary to the study of their divergence in the na-
tional period. In general, the colonial family is pre-
sented as a property institution dominated by middle
class standards, and operating as an agency of social
control in the midst of a social order governed by the
interests of a forceful aristocracy which shaped religion,
education, politics, and all else to its own profit. The
characteristics of the family in the English colonies re-
ceive accentuation from a brief view of the French
settlements by the Gulf.

In the second volume, the period from Independence
through the Civil War is covered under five main
heads: the influence of pioneering and the frontier, the
rise of urban industrialism, the growth of luxury and
extravagance, the culmination of the regime of slavery,
and the consequences of the Civil War. Cleavages be-
tween East and West and between North and South are
made manifest in this volume and the interaction of
their several influences is noted. It is also made evident
that all the alarming problems that to-day portend fam-
ily disintegration or perversion were present in some

Preface 1 1

degree in ante-bellum days and were even dwelt upon
with alarm.

The third volume analyzes the factors that have con-
summated the revolution of the family during the past
fifty years. Stress is laid on the advance of industrial-
ism, urban concentration, the growth of the larger cap-
italism, the immigrant invasion, the passing of the
frontier, the intensification of the struggle for the stan-
dard of living, the movements of rebellion and revolu-
tion represented by such manifestations as feminism and
socialism, the development of volitional control of fam-
ily evolution, and the outlook for a democratic future.
At no previous point save in the last stages of chattel-
dom in the South does the economic factor extrude so
overwhelmingly.

In common with the best recent historical works, due
place has been given to "the Economic Interpretation,"
but with studied avoidance of fantastic exaggeration.
The true claims of the dispassionate historical spirit
have been held steadily in view. If it seem to the
reader that undue attention has been given to patho-
logical abnormalities, he should bear in mind that the
American history with which most readers are familiar
has been written by litterateurs or historians with little
perspective save that which inheres in loyalty to the
established order, in the attenuated atmosphere of the
middle class, or in the desire to glorify the past, it may
be of New England with its ancestral worthies, or of
some other section in the romantic days. Those trained
in the literature of such shallow schools naturally find
it hard to put aside prepossessions and to refrain from
confounding the disclosures of science with the product
of the muck-raker.

Years of research, analysis, and rumination have gone

12 Preface

into the preparation of these volumes. Exhaustive in-
vestigation of source writings and secondary works to-
gether with painstaking reconstruction and interpreta-
tion of the course of events warrant the assurance that
the present work is the most complete, fundamental,
and authoritative treatment of the field that it covers.
It is given to the public in the hope that it will call
forth a vital interest in the further development of this
aspect of our social history.

To William E. Zeuch, of Clark University, I am
indebted for valued assistance. I also acknowledge
special indebtedness to the libraries of the State His-
torical Society of Wisconsin, the University of Wiscon-
sin, and the University of Tennessee for access to the
principal sources of my material, and to my wife for
assistance and inspiration in the progress of the manu-
script. I shall also be under obligation to such critics
of the work as shall point the way to intrinsic improve-
ment in the presentation of so momentous a theme.

Arthur Wallace Calhoun.
Clark University, November, 1916

I. OLD WORLD ORIGINS-THE WIDER
BACKGROUND^

American family institutions are a resultant of three
main factors: the complex of medieval tradition evolved •
through the centuries on the basis of ancient civilization
plus the usages of its barbarian successor; the economic
transition from medieval landlordism to modern cap-
italism; and the influence of environment in an unfold- -
ing continent. It is necessary to begin this study with
a survey of the European background.^

Medieval thought on the sex relation was inconsistent.
Women were regarded, sometimes as perils, again as
objects of worship. The extremes embodied themselves
in celibacy and in the minne-cult. Which was the more
pregnant of depravity it would be hard to say.^

Military mores are always, at bottom, disdainful of '
women. Chivalry with its sentimental immorality gave
women hyperbolic praise in place of justice. Material
advantage was the gist of medieval marriage. Women
were an incident to their fiefs to be disposed of in love-
less marriage. In the fifteenth century, cases of wives
prostituted for gain to themselves and husbands were
alleged in argument against matrimony. In the larger

^ Compare Goodsell, History of the Family, chapters vii-viii. The ap-
pearance of this work warrants brevity in the introductory chapters of the
present treatise.

2 In introduction, see Bebel, JVoman and Socialism, chapters i-iv; Cooke,
IVoman in the Progress of Civilization, chapters i-iii; Dealey, The Family,
chapters i-iv; Goodsell, History of the Family, chapters i-ix.

8 Compare Cornish, Chivalry, chapter xii.

14 The American Family -Colonial Period

medieval cities there were official brothels -municipal,
state, or church perquisites. Strangers of note were
supplied prostitutes at municipal expense. The woman
who in despair killed her child was put to cruel death,
while the seducer perhaps even sat among the judges.
Adultery of wives met severe punishment.*
/ It may be that marriages turned out as well in the

Middle Ages as now and that adultery was not more
frequent. There was not wanting certain appreciation
of woman as wife and mother. But over against mod-
ern divorce laxity may be set medieval ecclesiastical
jugglery which sold divorces while pretending to pro-
hibit them. In like manner ecclesiastical impediments
to marriage could be removed for a fee.

It is impossible to harmonize medieval "love" with
the strong emphasis laid by feudalism on female chas-
tity. The desire for concentrated transmission of feudal
estates to legitimate offspring tended to monogamy and

• wifely purity. Chastity became woman's main virtue.
The wife's highest duty was to furnish a legitimate male

• heir to the family perquisites. Even the peasant sought
marriage distinctly as a means of getting heirs. Chas-
tity was not incumbent on men. A kind of restraint
was, indeed, incumbent on the males of the nobility so
far as women of their own class were concerned; for
male relatives would visit swift punishment on the man
that ruined a girl's prospects of becoming the brood-
mare to some noble house. But women of the working

- class were legitimate prey of the contemptuous bestial-
ity of the nobles.*^

The master-class encouraged and controlled marriage

*Bebel. Woman and Socialism, 73-75.

•^ On this paragraph, compare Meily, Puritanism, 33-35; Bebel, IVoman
and Socialism, 80.

Old World Origins 15

among the menials as a means of propagating serfs and
securing fees. The lord's power of intercourse with
women of servile rank found expression mthQJus primcB
noctis which existed even into modern times.

It must be admitted that feudal days gave to women
of the nobility a certain prestige and dignity. As chate-
laines they even won military distinction in cases of
siege. Prolonged separations emphasized the mutual
needs of the two sexes. Life in the family remote from
males of equal rank softened patriarchal asperities.
The isolation of noble ladies exposing them somewhat
to the lusts of base-born men required all knights to be
their champions. Chivalry had, forsooth, its fairer
side and performed a substantial service in grafting
upon sex passion that romantic love which, distorted
and perverted as it was by a sickly atmosphere in an
age highly favorable to emotion rather than to reason,
has become the basis of all that is fairest in sex relations
to-day and holds the key to the future.

In the Middle Ages woman was in general an unre-
corded cipher lost in obscure domestic toil and the bear-
ing and rearing of numerous children. She generally
welcomed a suitor at once for her one recourse was to
lose her identity. Military slaughter tended to disturb
the balance of the sexes and magnify the value of men.
Perhaps the witch delusion which operated unbeliev-
ably to decimate the ranks of women was to their sex a
blessing in disguise. But women in the Middle Ages
probably enjoyed more equality with men than most of
the time since. ** Some held responsible positions and
displayed executive ability. In Saxon England women
could be present at the local moot and even at the na-

<> Compare Position of IVomen: Actual and Ideal, 46-47; Abram, English
Life and Manners in the later Middle Ages, 44.

C-

i6 The American Family - Colonial Period

tional Witanagemot. Norman rule reduced woman's
rights, yet under feudalism women could hold high
state office in default of male heirs.

In artisan circles, when the revival of commerce
brought a wider market for the products of household
industry, the patriarchal head of the family owned the
product of all its toil. The standard of living in the
home depended solely on his will. But gilds admitted
women, and women often engaged in commercial pur-
suits along with their husbands or as their successors.
In fourteenth century England, a married woman was
permitted by law to act in business as if single in spite
of her being under tutelage. In the craft gilds wife
and daughters worked with husband and father at his
craft. Journeymen could not marry but the master
must have a wife of approved descent. The gild super-
vised the training of children; they were expected to
follow their parents' craft. Some gilds forbade em-
ployment of wife and daughters and in the last days of
the gilds this prohibition became a general rule. Girls
were helped with money to marry or go into a religious
house as they chose. ^

Woman's subordinate position in marriage came
down through old Teutonic usage. In the old days of
ordeal she was incapable of appearing in the lists in her
own defense and had to be represented by a protector
who, in case of wives, was of course the husband. Even
late in the Middle Ages "ein Weib zu kaufen" was the
stock expression for getting married. The idea of sale
was gone but its place had been taken by the notion of
the transfer of authority. A woman was always under
, guardianship; the natural warden was the father; at

'' On gild privileges for women, see Brentano, History and Development
of Gilds, cxxxii; Lipson, Introduction to the Eoromic History of England,
vol. j, 316-318.

Old World Origins 17

marriage the wardship passed to the husband. The
common law is voiced thus by a dramatic character:
"I will be master of what is mine own. She is my
goods, my chattels; she is my house, my household stuff,
my field, my barn, my horse, my ox, my ass, my any-
thing." The wife was merged in the husband; legally
she did not exist.

Our traditional common law in cases of children
and real estate left without a will gave a son, tho
younger, inheritance before a daughter. In case of a
daughter's seduction, her father's only recourse was on
the ground that she was his servant and that the seducer
had trespassed on his property and deprived him of the
benefit of her labor. In nearly all the Teutonic codes
the husband had the right to beat his wife. "Justice
Brooke affirmeth plainly that if a man beat an outlaw,
a traitor, a pagan, his villein, or his wife it is dispunish-
able, because by the Law Common, these persons can
have no action."^ "Wives in England," says an Ant-
werp merchant, 1599, "are entirely in the power of their
husbands, their lives only excepted." Even in the
eighteenth century, wife trading was an English cus-
tom.^ Until the reign of George IV burning at the
stake was the legal penalty for wives that murdered
their husbands.'"

Doubtless the reality of English life was less bar-
barous than the law; yet we are describing a man-made
world in which economic dependence held woman in
general to a servile level. Her training corresponded
to her sphere. In medieval Europe peasant girls were
taught to work in house and field, accept the conven-
tional piety, barely to read and write, and then marry.

8 Brace. Gesta Chrisii, 285-290.

^ Earle. Colonial Dames and Goodivi'ves, 26, 29.

^° Yonge. Site of Old "James Toivne," 138.

1 8 The Anwrican Family -Colonial Period

All girls were taught the textile arts. Daughters of
wealthy burghers had tutors and after the fourteenth
century there were schools for them in most cities.
Women in i:he castles had enjoyed the same education
as men. The convents, also, had provided training for
women. But the rise of the universities, boisterously
masculine, detracted from the education of women and
a studied contempt for women developed.

Many Renaissance writers gave woman a new recog-
nition. At the Renaissance the position of women un-
derwent a marked transformation. Some women be-
came professors in Italian and Spanish universities."
Erasmus wrote of and for women, though not with en-
tire approval of equal educational opportunities for
them. He said the wise man is aware that nothing is
of greater advantage to woman's morals than worthy
knowledge. Toward the close of feudalism girls were
sent from castles or wealthy burgher homes to the castles
of high nobles to acquire polish. In the fifteenth cen-
tury an increasing number of women -often of the pros-
perous middle class -found opportunities, though lim-
ited, for literary and classical education. Sir Thomas
More believed that education may agree equally well
with both sexes. Agrippa (in a work published in
1530) asserted woman's superiority over man and point-
ed to man's tyranny as the reason for woman's dearth of
achievement."

Like women, the younger children of the medieval
dignitary were subordinate. Feudal lands were limited
in area; hence title, property, rank, and power passed
to one child -the oldest male. The family line was of
huge social importance: status and worth depended on

11 Position of fFoman: Actual and Ideal, 53.

12 Compare Cooke, Woman in the Progress of Civilization, chapter vi.

Old World Origins 19

what one's forebears had done. Exaltation of the family
in linear extension rather than expanse was vital to the
prosperity of the landed class. In Germany, where the
law of primogeniture was too lax, where all of a noble's
children were noble and his estates free from entail, the
continual multiplication of titles and subdivision of ter-
ritories reduced most houses to relative poverty. The
German noble might provide for younger sons by se-
curing them appointment to some rich benefice but this
practice augmented social unrest.

As chivalry sank in decadence the cities flourished
and in them the busy, prosaic middle class whose rise
burst forth in the Reformation. Bourgeois wives found
complete satisfaction around the domestic hearth. In
modest bourgeois circles small attention was given to
the mental culture of children. Girls generally grew
up under the sole supervision of their mothers, or at
best enjoyed convent training directed to piety and do-
mestic accomplishments, in which they became very pro-
ficient. Girls married even in their fourteenth year.
Fathers attached no small importance to practical ad-
vantages in matrimony, and the longing of maidens for
rich knights was widespread. It came to be no dis-
grace for a prince to marry a girl of the middle class,
for such a match might serve as a means of reviving
fading fortunes. Aeneas Sylvius (afterwards Pope Pius
II) said of Germany about the middle of the fifteenth
century: "Where is the woman (I do not speak of the
nobility, but of the bourgeoisie) who does not glitter
with gold? What profusion of gold and pearls, orna-
ments, reliquaries." By the sixteenth century, the cas-
tled knights saw the burghers living in houses that, to
the dwellers in uncomfortable castles, seemed the height
of luxury. The knights' ladies coveted the princely

20 The American Family -Colonial Period

silks and velvets and jewels that decked the vs^omenfolk
of the bourgeoisie. Even when the medieval sumptu-
ary laws forbidding the burghers to wear pearls and
velvet were not disobeyed, the wives and daughters of
the middle class could solace themselves with silks and
diamonds. And to the noble lady, the exclusive privi-
lege of wearing pearls and velvet was small comfort in
default of the means of procuring them. The knights'
attempts to rival the burghers brought on ruin. Switz-
erland saw a similar riot of conspicuous consumption.

Morals were lax. For the satisfaction of vanity and
desire for enjoyment, the daughters of citizens often al-
lowed themselves to be drawn aside from the path of
womanly honor. In cases of seduction, where the suitor
broke his word and tried to back out after betrothal, the
practical father exacted rich compensation. The men
were continually complaining against the women. In
fifteenth century Germany children born out of wedlock
were frequent, growing up in their father's house along
with their half brothers and sisters; and for a long time
no disgrace attached. Why should it in bourgeois cir-
cles, where there was no noble estate to be conserved?^'

In the fifteenth century, with improved hygienic con-
ditions and favorable material conditions, there were,
not uncommonly, families of twelve, fifteen, or even
more children. A chronicle gives the city of Erfurt an
average of eight to ten children per family. Idealism
was not wanting. Albrecht von Eyb, in his treatise
Whether a man ought to take a wife or not, printed in
1472, seems to speak for the Germany of his day when
he says :

Marriage is a useful wholesome thing: by it many a conflict and

13 See Richard, History of German Civilization, 224; KuUurgeschichte des
Mittelalters, 573-574.

Old World Origins 21

war is quieted, relationship and good friendship formed, and the
whole human race perpetuated. Matrimony is also a merr)%
pleasurable, and sweet thing. What is merrier and sweeter
than the names of father and mother and the children hanging
on their parents' necks? If married people have the right love
and the right will for one another, their joy and sorrow are
common to them and they enjoy the good things the more mer-
rily and bear the adverse things the more easily.

Yet the position of woman was not high: her sphere,
was the home, and she was seldom mentioned.

The Protestant Revolution changed markedly the old '
order of life. The movement that is known as the
Reformation had a strong economic element." It sig-
nified the rise to power of a new sovereign -the indus-
trial, mercantile, commercial middle-class -which had
long been falling heir to the power slipping from the
hands of a decadent feudal aristocracy. Since the
Reformation, the moneyed type has dominated the
world.

Where this economic class was not strong enough, the
Reformation proved abortive and spelled tragedy to the
families that accepted it. Thus, in France, the Hugue-
nots were forbidden to train their children in the faith.
A royal decree in 1685 required that every child of five
years and over be removed by the authorities from his
Protestant parents. Protestant marriages were illegal
and the offspring illegitimate. Girls were carried away
to shame and parents had no power to interfere. Co-
ligny was at first reluctant to publish his faith because
of the suffering that would be entailed on his wife and
household; but she preferred to be bold, so he avowed

^* Adams. Laijj of Civilization and Decay, 187-208; Patten. Develop-
ment of English Thought, 102-105, 117; Forrest. Development of JVestern
Civilization, 291-298 ; Stille. Studies in Medieval History, 443-445 ; Traill and
Mann. Social England, vol. iii, 59 ; Pollard. Factors in Modern History, 46-
50; Seignobos. History of Medieval and Modern Civilization, 283, 290-292.

22 The American Family -Colonial Period

his religion and held worship daily in his family. Not
all families in the riven lands enjoyed such unison.

An understanding of the significance of this great
social revolution is essential, both on account of its gen-
eral influence on the European institutions from which
our civilization is derived and from the fact that it was
this revolutionary middle-class, stern, sober, prudential,
industrial, driven into exile by temporary triumphs of
reaction or coming freely in pursuit of opportunity and
economic gain, that made America.

Feudal militancy had subordinated family life to the
afifairs of war. With the passing of the old chivalric
notions a good deal of false sentiment died away and
the attitude of men toward women was markedly al-
tered. The Reformation developed a rather matter-of-
fact view. The bourgeoisie may well claim the honor
of being first to assert that romantic love is the ideal
basis of marriage; but the constraints of private wealth
have always operated to frustrate this ideal. Though
suppression of convents curtailed woman's opportunity,
the Reformation did remove the stain put on marriage
and the family by the law of celibacy. Celibates began
to marry. Luther, by word and example, glorified mar-
riage and the family. He said: "O! what a great rich
and magnificent blessing there is in the married state;
what joy is shown to man in matrimony by his descend-
ants!"^^ His recognition of the normal sex impulse
to propagation appears in this utterance: "Unless
specially endowed by a rare, divine grace, a woman can
no more dispense with a man, than . . . with food,
drink, sleep, and other natural needs. In the same way
a man cannot do without a woman." ^*

15 Richard. History of German Civilization, 253-255 ; Painter. Luther on
Education, 113-116.

16 Bebel. Woman and Socialism, 78.

Old World Origins 23

Luther gave woman no chivalric admiration; yet,
while emphasizing motherhood, he did not regard
woman as a mere bearer of children. Marriage sig-
nified to him the moral restraint and religious sanctifi-
cation of natural impulse. None should marry unless
competent to instruct their children in the elements of
religion. He emphasized the nurture of children,
stressing honor to parents and reverence to God and
making no distinction between boys and girls as to need
of education nor between men and women as to right to
teach. Home should be made a delight but firmness
must not be sacrificed. According to him the wife's
union to the husband is a fit symbol of the soul's union
to Christ by faith. Whatever Christ possesses, the be-
lieving soul may claim as its own."

It might be supposed that such liberal views, coming
at a time when society thrilled with the longing to estab-
lish more firmly the individual personality by means of
marriage and family life, would mean an era of eman-
cipation for woman. But this did not immediately fol-
low. The reformers did not recognize woman as in all
points equal to man. "Let woman learn betimes to ,
serve according to her lot" was their opinion. She was
to be trained to faith and for the calling of housewife
and mother. The home under the Reformation con-
tinued under the old laws. Woman was to be under •
obedience to the male head. She was to be constantly
employed for his benefit. He chose her society, for he
was responsible for her, and to him as a sort of Father
Confessor she was accountable. Neither talent nor .
genius could emancipate her without his consent. At
about the time of the Reformation it was said, "She that

^^ Compare Scherr, Geschichte der deutschen Frauenivelf, Band ii, 19-21;
Vedder, Reformation in Germany, 124; Cooke, IVoman in the Progress of
Civilization, 358-359; Painter, Luther on Education, chapter vi.

24 The American Family — Colonial Period

knoweth how to compound a pudding is more desirable
than she who skillfully compoundeth a poem." It was
the maxim of Luther that "no gown or garment worse
become a woman than that she will be wise." Aboli-
tion of convents brought a period of two or three cen-
turies in northern lands during which the intellectual
training of women largely ceased. Luther pictures the
real German housewife -a pious, God-fearing woman,
domestic toiler, comforter of man, a rare treasure-
trustworthy, loving, industrious, beneficent, blessed.
"When a woman walks in obedience toward God," says
Luther, "holds her husband in love and esteem, and
brings up her children well -in comparison with such
ornament, pearls, velvet, and tinsel are like an old, torn,
patched, beggar's cloak." It is evident that the faith-
ful, unobtrusive, industrious German Hausfrau is the
ideal woman of the Reformation.^*

The reformers had large problems to solve. The
Reformation spelled individualism and the decay of
the modern family can be traced back to this source.
The reformers were not fundamentally to blame. Mar-
riage had been regarded in Germany as a civil contract,
yet mystical elements were present such as the notion
that marriage would purge away crime, in consequence
of which view felons condemned to death would be re-
leased if some one would marry them." At the time of
the Reformation there was growing up a church theory
which treated unblest marriages as concubinage.^" Con-
fusion arose from prevalent usage. It became custom-
ary in one town for betrothed to live together before

18 Compare Scherr, Geschichte der deutschen Frauenivelt, Band ii, 22-23 I
Otto, Deutsches Frauenleben, 94; Gage, Woman, Church, and State, 146-147;
Cooke, Woman in the Progress of Civilization, chapter iv, 47.

18 Baring-Gould. Germany, Present and Past, vol. i, 159, 162, 163.

20— Idem.

Old World Origins 25

marriage. The consistory held such cohabitation to be
true marriage. Luther wrote,

It has often fallen out that a married pair came for me, and
that one or both had already been secretly betrothed to another:
then there was a case of distress and perplexity and we confess-
ors and theologians were expected to give counsel to those tor-
tured consciences. But how could we? ^^

Luther had slight thought of human interdependence.
He looked at morals in a superficial way, as scarcely
more than a department of politics belonging to the
care of the state. Consequently he followed the secular
theory of marriage. He said,

Know that marriage is something extrinsic as any other worldly
action. As I may eat, drink, sleep, walk, ride, and deal with
any heathen, Jew, Turk, or heretic, so to one of these I may
also become and remain married. Do not observe the laws of
fools that forbid such marriages. In regard to matters of mar-
riage and divorce ... let them be subject to worldly rule y
since marriage is a worldly extrinsic thing.^^

Of course Luther desired that the civil authority should
be "pious." But not till the end of the seventeenth cen-
tury was religious ceremony considered necessary to
legal marriage among Protestants. Till then "con-
science [common-law] marriage" sufficed." Luther
and other reformers also opposed restrictions to mar-
riage.

For a time the new era threatened to return to pagan
laxity and licentiousness. The reformers did not al-
ways avoid immorality in their loose handling of mar-
riage. For instance, Luther says.

If a healthy woman is joined in wedlock to an impotent man
and could not, nor would for her honor's sake openly choose

21 Baring-Gould. Germany, Present and Past, vol. i, 147, 154.

22 Bebel. Woman and Socialism, 78-79.

23 — . Idem, 79.

26 The American Family -Colonial Period

another, she should speak to her husband thus: "See, my dear
husband, thou hast deceived me and my young body and en-
dangered my honor and salvation ; before God there is no honor
bet\veen us. Suffer that I maintain secret marriage with thy
brother or closest friend while thou remainest my husband in
name. That thy property may not fall heir to strangers; wil-
lingly be deceived by me as you have unwillingly deceived me."

The husband should consent. If he refuses, she has a
right to leave him, go elsewhere, and remarry. Simi-
larly, if a woman will not perform her conjugal duty,
the husband has the right to get another woman, after
telling his wife his intention.^*

Of course the author of such views was in favor of
permitting divorcees to remarry. He even sanctioned
bigamy. ''I confess," he says, "for my part that if a man
wishes to marry two or more wives, I cannot forbid him,
nor is his conduct repugnant to the Holy Scriptures."
Melanchthon advised Henry VHI. to commit bigamy
rather than divorce Catherine. He and Luther, as a
matter of shrewd politics, connived in the disgraceful
bigamy of Philip of Hesse. Luther forgot all honesty
in trying to cover the trail of this infamy, which he was
unwilling for the "coarse peasants" to imitate. Catho-
lics could well say, "Behold the fruits of the Reforma-
tion!" Kolde says, "It is highly probable that the be-
ginning of the decline of Protestantism as a political
power coincides with the marriage of the Prince of
Hesse.""

Such laxity as the reformers exhibited correlates with
the economic basis of the Protestant Revolution. Un-
like feudal landed estates, bourgeois personalty was not
especially appropriate to concentrated hereditary trans-

2* On Luther's radicalism, see idem, 79-80.

25 On Luther and biganny, see Gage, IVoman, Church, and State, 399;
Vedder, Reformation in Germany, 350-355.

Old World Origins 27

mission, as its items were transient and indefinitely in-
creasable. Primogeniture, and even a closely restricted
progeny, were no longer necessary to the perpetuation
of class domination. The economic reason for the ir-
refragable feudal marriage was gone. Divorce found
a lodgment in bourgeois theory and practice. As we
have seen, a certain recognition began to be bestowed
on illegitimates. As under Roman law, subsequent
marriage of parents became a means of legitimizing
them.'^

It is not to be assumed that sex life in the Reforma-
tion period was purer than ordinary. The code of
Charles V. was severe against sexual transgression and
the sharp penalties denounced upon seduction, adultery,
incest, unnatural lust, abortion, infanticide, etc. indi-
cate the prevalence of these practices. Court records of
the sixteenth century afford confirmatory evidence.
The Protestant clergy declaimed zealously against sex-
ual excess. Prostitutes were harassed and "fallen"
women were relentlessly persecuted.

The Reformation was not in all particulars so radical
as in its handling of the sex relation. For instance,
Luther kept children within the pale of collective re-
ligion by accepting the view that faith of sponsors suf-
fices for infants in baptism. It was left for more thoro-
going sectaries to apply individualism to this rite also
and abolish the baptism of infants.

In so short a space as can be given to this initial chap-
ter it is impossible to harmonize all seeming contradic-
tions in medieval and early modern sex and family life
or to give an adequate perspective. It may suffice to
remember that out of medieval confusion of thought
and practice, out of a feudal society of class privilege

28 Meily. Puritanism, 57-58.

28 The American Family -Colonial Period

and exploitation, arose by economic process a new social
order which stressed the individual and his freedom
and revolved around industry and commerce rather
than around land ownership. This change of economic
base demanded a revolution in thought and morals and
new standards evolved to meet the emergency. A sur-
vey of England in this period of transition leads to the
threshold of American colonization.

II. OLD WORLD ORIGINS-SPECIFIC
SOURCES"

The Paston Letters introduce us to fifteenth century
England. In them marriage seems to be in the main a
matter of mercenary calculation and withal the chief
business of family life. A girl informs her suitor how
much her father will give her; if the amount is unsatis-
factory he must cease his suit. When Margaret made
a love match with a servant in the family her mother
cut her ofif from inheritance tho she did leave twenty
pounds to her grandson by this marriage. John Paston
sometimes had two matrimonial projects on hand at
once. After seeking his brother's advice in a number
of cases he finally made a love match with an ardent
young lady whose mother was favorable but whose
father's economic sense made him hard to satisfy. One
precocious youth begs his brother for help in wooing a
young lady. "The age of her is by all likelihood eigh-
teen or nineteen at the furthest. And as for the money
and plate, it is ready whensoever she were wedded, and
as for her beauty judge you that when you see her, and
specially behold her hands."

Kindly feelings were not wanting. Marital relations
seem to have been comfortable. There were close rela-
tions between brothers and when one Paston married,
his mother wrote her husband to buy the new daughter
a gown "goodly blue" or "bright sanguine." The rear-
ing of children and their start in life were matters of
grave concern. Judge Paston's marriageable daughter

27 Compare Goodsell, History of the Family, chapter ix.

30 The American Family — Colonial Period

was generally beaten once or twice a week by her
mother, sometimes twice in one day, and her head was
broken in two or three places. When her brother aged
sixteen was in school at London the mother sent instruc-
tions for the master as follows, "If he hath nought do
well, nor wyll nought amend, pray hym that he wyll
trewly belassch hym, tyll he wyll amend; and so did the
last master, and the best that ever he had, at Cam-
bridge." Such stringencies shadow the bright episodes
of Paston affairs. The ill-treated daughter was anxious
for a husband as refuge from maternal tyranny. Doubt-
less many an English maid felt like eagerness, for bru-
tality seems to have been usual with British matrons in
high life. Elizabeth Tanfield (1585-1639), Lady Falk-
land, while speaking to her mother always knelt before
her.

The Tudor age found England busy with foreign
enterprises, discovery of new worlds, commerce, trade -
building up a solid basis of wealth and progress -ab-
sorption in economic and intellectual activities that left
no time for "chivalry." The man ushered in by the
revolution we have already traced was the modern ap-
proximation of the "economic man" -a type to whose
senses women make a relatively mild appeal. The men
of the sixteenth century were somewhat of modern men
and regarded woman as a participant in the burdens
and pleasures of life, not a being to be worshiped or
shunned.

English women enjoyed rather more freedom than
some of their continental sisters. A Dutchman of the
sixteenth century writes to that effect concerning wives,
noting also their fondness for dress and ease. He adds:
"England is called the paradise of married women.
The girls who are not yet married are kept much more

Old World Origins-Specific Sources 31

rigorously and strictly than in the Low Countries."
The Duke of Wirtemberg who was in England about
1592 remarked on the great liberty accorded women
and recorded their fondness for finery; so "that, as I am
informed, many a one does not hesitate to wear velvet in
the street, which is common with them, whilst at home
perhaps they have not a piece of dry bread." One ob-
server says, "The females have great liberty and are al-
most like masters." ^^

Foreign observers tend to confine their attention to
the middle and upper classes. The condition of the
lower class, nevertheless, is of equal importance at least.
Europe had been slipping toward the starvation point.
Firewood was becoming a luxury in many parts of
western Europe. Especially in England had the price
of building materials risen to what seemed a very high
point. Vagabondage was repeatedly the subject of
cruel legislation. Any one might take the children of
vagabonds and keep them as apprentices. In Henry
VIII. 's day the culture of wool had desolated many
homes. In order to extend pasturage greedy men re-
sorted to force and fraud and ejected the husbandmen,
occasioning thereby poverty, misery, and crime among
those deprived of employment.

By the middle of the sixteenth century, castle architec-
ture was being superseded. Even in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries domestic arrangements had shown a
tendency to improve. There was more desire for pri-
vacy. The sixteenth century revolutionized domestic
architecture. Dissolution of the monasteries threw
property into hands concerned more with pleasure than
with defense.

28 Traill and Mann. Social England, vol. iii, 785-786; Hill. Women in
English Life, vol. i, 115-118.

32 The American Family -Colonial Period

In Elizabethan England peasant cottages usually had
but two rooms, one for the servants, the other for the
family. Substantial farmers had houses with several
rooms. For some time housing had been a problem in
London. The crowded condition of the city made it an
unpleasant abode. Vacated palaces were transformed
into tenements that would hold a score or more of fam-
ilies. Elizabeth issued an edict against the housing of
different families in the same building but the proc-
lamation was of course mainly futile. Even the people
of the better class seem to have had no notion of privacy
of daily home life. Rooms opened into one another.
Often half a dozen rooms were so connected that some
of them could be reached only by passing through sev-
eral or all of the others. This was the case even with
bedrooms. Frequently a large room was converted
into several sleeping quarters by means of curtains.

The lure of the city was already felt. People flocked
to London and wasted their substance in revels.

When husband hath at play set up his rest,
Then wife and babes at home a hungry goeth.

The master may keep revel all the year,
And leave the vv'ife at home like silly fool.

It seems that country dames did not often share their
husbands' trips to the capital. The wife of the city
burgess also found ample employment in looking after
the multitudinous duties of her household. Little at-
tention was given to improving the education of women
of the middle class. Sir Thomas Overbury's poem,
"A Wife," expresses the sentiment of the age:

Give me next good, an understanding wife,
By nature wise, not learned much by art.

Old World Origins -Specific Sources 33

Some knowledge on her part will all my life
More scope of conversation impart.

A passive understanding to conceive,
And judgment to discern I wish to find.

Beyond that all as hazardous I leave ;

Learning and pregnant wit in woman-kind,

What it finds malleable maketh frail,

And doth not add more ballast but more sail.

Domestic charge doth best that sexe befit,
Contiguous businesse so to fix the minde,

That leisure space for fancies not admit,
Their leisure 'tis corrupteth womankinde.

Else, being placed from many vices free.

They had to heaven a shorter cut than we.

Books are a part of man's Prerogatives . . •

In the words of Gervase Markham [died 1637] also^
appears the ideal for the English housewife:

Next unto her sanctity and holiness of life, it is meet that
our English housewife be a woman of great modesty and tem-
perance, as well inwardly as outwardly; inwardly as in her be-
havior and carriage towards her husband, wherein she shall
shun all violence of rage, passion, and humour, coveting less to
direct than to be directed, appearing ever unto him pleasant,
amiable and delightful ; and, tho' occasions of mishaps, or the
misgovernment of his will may induce her to contrary thoughts,
yet virtuously to suppress them, and with a mild sufferance
rather to call him home from his error, than with the strength
of anger to abate the least spark of his evil, calling into her
mind, that evil and uncomely language is deformed, tho uttered
even to servants; but most monstrous and ugly when it appears
before the presence of a husband ; outwardly as in her apparel
and diet, both of which she shall proportion according to the
competency of her husband's estate and calling, making her
circle rather straight than large.

She should avoid fantastic fashions and remember that

34 The American Family -Colonial Period

diet should be nutritive rather than epicurish. He says
the housewife ought to understand medicine and nurs-
ing, cookery, gardening, care of poultry, making of but-
ter and cheese, cutting up of meat, distilling, and the
care of wool and flax. The average Elizabethan house-
wife was proficient in all these duties. Even if she did
not have to perform them it was often necessary to train
household servants. Their numerous retinue consti-
tuted a veritable familia-z burden of responsibility to
mistress and master. For instance, John Harrington in
1566 drew up rules for his servants requiring them
among other things to attend family prayers under pen-
alty of two pence fine.

With the passing of convent life marriage was more
essential to woman than ever. There were not hus-
bands enough to go round. Girls that failed to find
mates had a dark outlook -perhaps as drudges for their
relatives. For an old maid the Elizabethans could
think of no better employment than "to lead apes in
hell;"^^ so a younger sister was rarely permitted to
marry first. Girls married very young; unmarried
daughters were undesirable members of the household.
A poet makes a girl of fifteen lament that she has not
found a husband ; and he was probably not exaggerating.
Fifteen or sixteen was a common age for marriage in
Shakespeare's day. The maiden of twenty was regard-
ed as a confirmed spinster. Sometimes girls were mar-
ried so young that it was necessary to wait several years
before they were old enough for actual wives. This
may have been shrewd business but much immorality
resulted from this child-marriage common in fashion-
able life.

29 Compare Katherine in Shakespeare, "Taming of the Shrew," act ii,
scene i.

Old World Origins - Specific Sources 35

Courtship in the England of Elizabeth was bolder
and ruder than to-day. It was, however, improper to
propose to the girl before obtaining the parents' consent
and as often as not it was they that conveyed the pro-
posal to the girl. Old plays contain more references to
the necessity of the lover's trying to win the mother's
aid than the father's. A girl rarely dared, however,
withstand the father's will for a marriage, and few
lovers would risk the loss of a marriage portion through
failure to obtain paternal assent to their suit. Lyly
presents the situation vividly in these words :

Parents in these days are grown peevish, they rock their chil-
dren in their cradles till they sleep, and cross them about their
bridals until their hearts ache. Marriage among them has be-
come a market. What will you give with your daughter?
What jointure will you make for your son? And many a match
is broken off for a penny more or less, as tho they could not
afford their children at such a price ; when none should cheapen
such ware but affection, and none buy it but love. . . Our
parents . . . give us pap with a spoon before we can speak,
and when we speak for that we love, pap with a hatchet.

He adds, "I shall measure my love by mine own
judgment, not my father's purse or peevishness. Nature
hath made me his child not his slave." The Elizabethan
girl that opposed her father's choice was indeed treated
like a slave. "Romeo and Juliet" and the "Two Gen-
tlemen of Verona" reflect this fact and Ophelia's im-
plicit acquiescence in her father's despotism shows
what was expected of a well-bred English girl in Shake-
speare's day.

Ceremonial betrothal often preceded marriage. It
took place before a responsible witness, preferably a
priest. After the ceremony the terms husband and
wife could be applied and possibly the privilege of the

36 The American Family - Colonial Period

marriage bed might be enjoyed. A like usage will be
noted in the American colonies.

In a way children seem to have been esteemed in six-
teenth century England. Bonfires were often built in
celebration of a wife's pregnancy. Births were cele-
brated similarly and by other public rejoicing. But
children among all classes were treated with severity.
A Venetian noble who accompanied an ambassador
from Venice to the English court in the sixteenth cen-
tury wrote:

The want of affection in the English is strongly manifested
toward their children [,] for having kept them at home till they
arrive at the age of seven or nine years, they put them out, both
males and females to hard service in the homes of other people,
binding them generally for another seven or nine years. And
these are called apprentices, and during that time they perform
all the most menial offices; and few are born who are exempted
from this fate, for every one, however rich he may be, sends
away his children into the homes of others; whilst he in return
receives those of strangers into his own.

This sounds like a rigid system yet \\t find children
described as "most ongracious graflftes, ripe and ready
in all lewd libertie" through the fault of the parents
and schoolmasters "which do nother teach their chil-
dren good, nother yet chasten them when they do evill."
Between the Reformation and the Civil War lay a cen-
tury of peace. Men had time to know their children.
Little ones figure prettily in memoirs, letters, and art.
These children seem to have led happy lives for the
most part.

In the seventeenth century, people looking back re-
gretted the passing of the time when daughters were
obsequious and serviceable, when

There was no supposed humiliation in offices which are now ac-
counted menial, but which the peer received as a matter of

Old World Origins -Specific Sources 37

course from the gentlemen of his household, and which were
paid to the knights and gentlemen by domestics chosen in the
families of their own most respectable tenants; whilst in the
humbler ranks of middle life it was the uniform and recognized
duty of the wife to wait on her husband, the child on his
parents, the youngest of the family on his elder brothers and
sisters.^**

With the seventeenth century and the Puritan move-'
ment we come to the immediate sources of New Eng-
land family institutions. It is particularly to the tradi-
tions and standards of the middle class, especially of the
Puritan type, that we must look for the genesis of north-
ern colonial life. Moreover in the southern colonies
this class was stronger and the "cream of society" was
weaker than southerners of aristocratic tastes like to ad-
mit. The New World environment, too, favored the
standards of the middle class from which the immi-
grants came. This concurrence of geographic and so-
cial influences gives us our distinctive civilization. Our
modern ideal of monogamy with equality and mutuality
is not of aristocratic lineage. It comes up apparently
from the "lower" classes where econotnic conditions
forbade polygamic connections. Sumner says: "It is
the system of the urban-middle-capitalist class. . .
In the old countries the mores of the middle class have
come into conflict with the mores of peasants and nobles.
The former have steadily won."^^ Naturally so inas-
much as this bourgeoisie, drawing into itself the more
enterprising sons of the peasantry and grasping the
power that economic change wrested from the nobility,
has dominated modern society.

Puritanism was an economic phenomenon. ^^ The in-

30 Hill. Women in English Life, vol. i, 125.

31 Sumner. Folkways, 375-376.

32 Compare Parce, Economic Determinism, 98, 102, no; Patten, Develop-
ment of English Thought, 81-98, 124-134; Meily, Puritanism, chapter iil.

o .

38 The American Family -Colonial Period

fluence of the Renaissance had spread a belief in the
pleasures of this world and a regard for the life of the
flesh as good in itself. Such a view is the spiritual re-
flection of the increased comfort and plenty arising
from even the limited economic progress of the middle
ages. The inventions and changes of the fifteenth cen-
tury made indoor life less barren and more agreeable
and a new type of man was the result- a man that dis-
liked the open country and became attached to home.
Elizabeth introduced many new food plants from Italy.
Domestic comfort began to enter the homes of the poor.
They began to provide their cottages with chimneys.
The use of window glass spread and pillows appeared
on the beds of the common people. The new conditions
made real family life possible. The home became the
center of pleasurable activities. To have a wife a home-
maker -one that could change into comforts the neces-
sities that man produced -was so much the more de-
sirable.

Under earlier conditions enjoyment had been sought
in group festivities, which were likely to be unrestrained
and licentious. The development of the modern home
caused a divide in social life and gave those that were so
disposed a more refined way of satisfying their desire
for pleasure. Those in whom the bonds of morality
and the ties of family life were strongest gradually with-
drew from the coarser community revelry. The Protes-
tant Reformers extolled family life and denounced com-
munal pleasures, attributing their moral degeneration
to the Catholic church. New economic conditions with
their numerous luxuries offered a strong temptation to
depart from ancestral simplicity and brought about a
market for indulgences among those that desired to
reconcile their moral feelings with conflicting economic

Old World Origins -Specific Sources 39

tendencies. The bettering of economic conditions in
the fifteenth century had, then, increased the evils of
communal pleasures and also strengthened and intensi-
fied family life. Europe was at the parting of the ways.
The "Puritan" was ready for a moral crusade against >.
the growing dissipation and vice that threatened the
family.

In the opening years of the seventeenth century re-
fined English ladies preferred rural seclusion to the dis-
soluteness of the court of James I. Charles purified
the court; yet the ladies stayed in the country.

It should be remembered that while Puritanism was
of English growth the continent had a Puritanism of its
own. The ordinary Dutchman of the seventeenth cen-
tury stayed at home three hundred and sixty days in the
year spending his time in the ancestral dwelling that his
grandfather had built for him. In Germany, says
Bebel,

The merry, life-loving townsman of the middle ages became a
bigoted, austere, sombre Philistine. . . The honorable citi-
zen with his stiff cravat, his narrow intellectual horizon, his
severe but hypocritical morality, became the prototype of soci-
ety. Legitimate wives who had not favored the sensuality tol-
erated by the Catholicism of the middle ages, were generally
better pleased by the Puritan spirit of Protestantism.

The Puritan emphasis on sexual restraint was of a
piece with the general gospel of frugality so appropri-
ate among a class of people trying to accumulate capital
in an age of deficit. Urgent economic interests fur-
thered the novel virtue of male chastity. The neces-
sity of accumulation led the Puritan to reprobate all un-
profitable forms of sin including markedly licentious-
ness, that prodigal waster. But male chastity, being
less important than female in safeguarding legitimate

40 The American Family -Colonial Period

inheritance, never has attained the sanctity enforced
upon females.

The Puritan concept of home was negative. A home
was made mainly by abstaining from other social rela-
tions. As we have seen, communal pleasures were mor-
ally dangerous or at least were so considered. Thus
the Maypole had been associated with sex excitement
and indulgence. Accordingly in 1644 the Puritan par-
liament forbade Maypoles. The Puritans also con-
demned music as one of Satan's snares and ruled it out
of the family. They were too short-sighted to glimpse
the remoter connections between rhythm and efficiency.
The Puritan Englishman was unsociable, independent,
full of biblical traditions which cultivated reverence for
paternal authority and a desire for abundant paternity.

English families were among the largest in the world.
The manor house, the parsonage, the doctor's and the
lawyer's homes were swarming with children. The
women married young and very frequently died in their
youth from sheer exhaustion by child-bearing. Second
marriages and double sets of children were found every-
where. Infant mortality was high.

The later Puritanism distorted childhood. Milton's
father, tho a strict Puritan, was not harsh to his children,
but the poet was the embodiment of unreasonableness
and cruelty. The seventeenth century in Europe was
an age of precocity. The Puritans, as we shall see in
the colonies, were ready to promote this tendency. The
fear of infant damnation made necessary the earliest
possible conversion of the child. In seventeenth cen-
tury England it was in Puritan households that the rod
was most favored ; for were not the little ones until con-
version children of wrath requiring to have the devil
well whipped out of them? Calvinism retarded, thus,

Old World Origins -Specific Sources 41

what had been a promising movement away from the
rod. If the Puritan wife "obeyed her husband, calling
him Lord" she required at the same time strict obedi-
ence and honor at the hands of her children.

Nevertheless in some homes of much religious strict-
ness the children were most tenderly dealt with. The
fact that so many mothers died young may have been a
factor in causing women to train their infants pre-
maturely.

A man's family included his entire household from
chaplain to kitchen boy, and for their welfare -soul and
body- the master considered himself accountable. He
ruled at least the lower of them with the rod.

Girls of the seventeenth century, like their predeces-
sors, married early. While daughters were yet at school
or even in the nursery, careful parents were already
pondering the selection of husbands. Children were
often married at thirteen. Daughters were usually al-
lowed at least the right of refusal but they do not seem
to have been prone to make objection. Both Puritans
and cavaliers were ready to advise their children, "Let
not your fancy overrule your necessity," "Where pas-
sion and affection sway, that man is deprived of sense
and understanding." Mercenary marriages were in
keeping with the nature of the hard-headed middle-
class that took to Puritanism. It is surprising that the
majority of the seventeenth century marriages of which
we hear seem to have turned out so well.

Under the early Stuarts the education of women
continued to be seriously regarded but it is doubtful
whether the high standards of the Tudor ladies were
preserved save in select circles. A volume published
in London in 1632 declares that "the reason why women
have no control in Parliament, why they make no laws.

42 The American Family -Colonial Period

consent to none, abrogate none, is their original sin."
The Cromvvellian period brought no improvement in
the condition of woman. Ministers still preached her
responsibility for the fall, and warnings were thundered
against her extreme sinfulness. Milton's views were
derogatory of woman. He says: "Either . . .
polygamy is a true marriage, or all children born in
that state are spurious, which would include the whole
race of Jacob, the twelve tribes chosen by God. . .
Not a trace appears of the interdiction of polygamy
throughout the whole law, not even in any of the proph-
ets." Paradise Lost inculcated many views inimical
to woman. Milton was a tyrant over his own house,
unloved by any of his series of wives or by his daugh-
ters. He did much to strengthen the idea of woman's
subordination to man: "He for God; she for God in
him;" or as Eve puts it-"God thy law, thou mine."

The idea that learning was a waste of time for a
woman was beginning to assert itself but did not meet
with universal acceptance. The education of women
was generally neglected: some women of high rank
could not write. The mother was generally found at
home superintending the education of her daughters.
As housewife she was supposed to order thoroly her
household.

We must not suppose that the Puritan husband was
always a despot. There were many happy marriages.^^
Cromwell's wife wrote to him: "My life is but half a
life in your absence, did not the Lord make it up in
Himself." He wrote to her: "Thou art dearer to me
than any creature, let that suffice." Colonel Hutchin-

33 Traill and Mann. Social England, vol. iv, 220; Byington. The Puri-
tan in England and New England, 222-231; Coxe. Claims of the Country on
American Females, vol. ii, 15; Young. Chronicles of the First Planters of
the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, from 1623 to 1636, 432.

Old World Origins -Specific Sources 43

son, one of the Ironsides, was a model husband, full of
tenderness and devotion. The age shows many illustra-
tions of beautiful family relations. John Winthrop
writes to his wife thus: "My only beloved spouse, my
most sweet friend, and faithful companion of my pil-
grimage, the happye and hopeful supplye (next Christ
Jesus) of my greatest losses." He addresses her at va-
rious times as -"My truly beloved and deare wife. . .
My sweet wife. . . My most deare and sweete
spouse. . . My deare wife, my chief love in this
world." Mrs. Winthrop declared that her husband
loved her; and "she delighted to steal time from house-
hold duties to talk with her absent lord." John Cotton
addresses his wife as "Dear wife and comfortable yoke-
fellow . . . sweetheart."

The seventeenth-century lady who, owing to her
shortage of money or to other disability, had failed of
marriage enjoyed none of the present recourses. She
could not properly set up bachelor quarters. It was
customary for the mistress of a house to have a gentle-
woman as assistant and such a position afforded a nat-
ural occupation for an unmarried relative or friend tho
the "position was often not much better than that of a
superior lady's maid." "Even before their marriage,
if they had no homes, and in the hard and troublous
times of the Civil War, girls not infrequently accepted
an ofifer of this description."^*

While the spirit of Puritanism drew sharp lines
around the family and strengthened its stakes, there
were Reformation influences, as we have seen, that
tended to unsettle the family (along with other social
institutions). The Renaissance and the Reformation

3* Bradley. The English Housewife in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth
Centuries, 24,

44 The American Family -Colonial Period

worked out in the elevation of the individual and tended
to cause the decline of the family as a social unit. Every
man was to stand on his own feet. Laxity of opinion
and teaching on the sacredness of the marriage bond
and in regard to divorce goes back to continental Prot-
estants of the sixteenth century. It was reflected in the
laws of Protestant states in Europe and in the codes of
New England. The Reformation was not immediate-
ly a great ethical force. The effect of Protestant lib-
erty was at first bad because it set men free to violate
social standards. Rights were magnified; duties ap-
proached zero. Reformers' later writings lament hor-
rible moral deterioration of the people.

Strange sects arose. In 1532 John Becold of Leyden
arrived at Miinster with a great number of believers.
He pretended to receive revelations, one of which was
that God willed that a man should have as many wives
as he pleased. John had fifteen and encouraged poly-
gamy among his followers. It was counted praise-
worthy to have many wives and all the good-looking
women in Miinster were besieged with solicitations.
(It is noteworthy that there was a surplus of woman in
Miinster at the time. Such a situation favors poly-
gamy.) A later leader, Jan Wilhelms, had twenty-one
wives.

Save at Miinster polygamy was never even proposed
by Anabaptists. Nevertheless dangerous influences
were spreading. It was at Norwich among an ofifshoot
of Anabaptists that Brown (Separatist) established his
first congregation. In the eyes of the Brownists mar-
riage was only an ordinary contract requiring neither
minister nor magistrate. Francis Johnson, third chief
of the Brownists, justified bundling with other men's
wives. The Pilgrims were Brownists. Robertson at-

Old World Origins -Specific Sources 45

tributes the Plymouth communism to Brownist influ-
ence. It may be that some of the sexual looseness and
trouble with people marrying themselves (in New Eng-
land) was a reflection of the extravagances of the Eu-
ropean sectaries.

To some the doctrines and practices of the Friends
seemed dangerously loose. This sect believed mar-
riage to be an ordinance of God, not requiring the in-
tervention of a clergyman. The bride and the groom
took each other in presence of the meeting and signed
a certificate which was then signed by the audience.
For a time such marriages were illegal but in 1661 a
decision was rendered in their favor. This was an im-
portant victory as enemies were raising questions as to
legitimacy and property under such marriages. Fox
claimed scripture in support of the Friends' practice.
"Where do you read," he says, "from Genesis to Revela-
tion that ever any priest did marry any?"

But the Friends found it necessary to censor marriage.
Fox says, "Many had gone together in marriage con-
trary to their relations minds; and some young, raw
people, that came among us had mixt with the world.
Widows had married without making provision for
their children by their former husbands," etc. So it
was ordered that all bring their marriages before the
meetings. Fox opposed marriage of too near kindred,
hasty remarriages, and child marriages. He advocat-
ed a register of marriages. None were to marry with-
out parents' or relatives' certificate. The Quakers in
England were demanding (1655) equal rights for wo-
men, abolition of lewd sports, and establishment of
civil marriage. The Quakers were a species of Super-
Puritans.

Had the unsettling, secularizing, individualistic ten-

/

46 The American Family -Colonial Period

dencies of the Protestant movement gone altogether
without counteraction the family would doubtless have
approached a stage of disintegration comparable to
that of to-day. Milton's liberal divorce ideas are no-
torious. Puritan advocacy of divorce was stimulated
by the trading-class opposition to feudalism. ^^ Indis-
soluble marriage, vital to feudalism, was a convenient
point of attack. (Present outcry against "the divorce
evil" comes chiefly from the ritualistic churches, them-
selves survivals of feudalism.) But the original ground
of monogamy- the necessity of restricted and ascer-
tained progeny as heirs- remained and monogamy was
consequently retained with divorce as a loophole. An
additional support of monogamy continued in the fact
that the order of exploitation established by the bour-
geoisie like its feudal predecessor kept most men too
poor to afford a plurality of wives.

There was sufficient canniness in the Calvinist to pre-
vent excess of riot. The Puritans were men of business
and where the financial pawn is at stake marriage is
likely to be relatively stable. The significance of Cal-
vin's position (for the purpose of this study) will be
very evident if we remember the make-up of the colo-
nial population. Through all the colonies ran the creed
of Calvin whose doctrines lived in the Puritan, the
Dutch Reformed, the Huguenot, the Scotch-Irish. It
may be well therefore to cite the position of this man
whose teachings influenced so deeply the foundations
of America.

From our point of view at least, Calvin's doctrine of
marriage lacks consistency and, judged by present no-
tions, his conception of the marriage relation is by no
means a high one. True, he does liken the conjugal

35 Meily. Puritanism, 58.

Old World Origins -Specific Sources /\rj

relation to that existing between Christ and the believer
and insists that it must be supported by mutual fidelity
but when all is said marriage is, according to his teach-
ing, simply a vent to passion, a last resort when self-
control fails. (The Westminster larger catechism
enumerates among "the duties required in the seventh
commandment . . . marriage by those that have
not the gift of continency.") Woman, wife, thus be-
came a channel for lust, tho even in matrimony due re-
straint and moderation were to be observed.

Children were to be kept in strict subjection. "Those
who violate the parental authority by contempt or re-
bellion, are not men but monsters. Therefore the Lord
commands all those who are disobedient to their parents
to be put to death." '^

Obviously this stern doctrine of the family was cal-
culated to develop an institution under paternal su-
premacy with the wife a mere adjunct to her lord's
desires and the children minor slaves of his will. Such
results are easier to secure than the masculine fidelity
with which Calvin idealized his teachings. It will be
found that, in broad outline, the colonial family re-
flected the type approved by Calvin, tho not without
mollifications induced by fatherly love or by the limits
of wifely and filial patience, or imposed by the sense of
the community.

Inasmuch as the first English colony of the North
was formed by sojourners from Holland it is well be-
fore proceeding to the study of colonial life to examine
the influences to which the Pilgrims were subject dur-
ing their stay in the low countries.

In Leyden the (Dutch) people generally were be-
trothed or married very young. Sometimes the be-

2^ On Calvin, see his Institutes, vol. i, 344-345, 360, 364-367.

48 The American Family -Colonial Period

trothal was of considerable duration and the betrothed
pair enjoyed great liberty. At the end of the sixteenth
century marriage was solemnized in church, tho some-
what privately, but inside of ten years it became almost
entirely a civil ceremony, celebrated in presence of the
magistrate. Pastor Robinson agreed "that the cere-
monies of marriage and burial, being common to all
men, whether Christian or heathen, were no part of the
services of the church, and should be performed . . .
by a civil magistrate."

Some other features of Dutch life seem to have in-
fluenced American life through the Pilgrims. One was
the high position of women. The women of Nether-
lands in the sixteenth century were distinguished by
beauty of form and vigor of constitution. Unconfined,
travelling alone and unafraid, they had acquired man-
ners more frank and independent than women in other
lands, while their morals were pure and their decorum
undoubted. The women of the Dutch Netherlands in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were more high-
ly educated, better protected by the laws, and more
prominent in station than any of their contemporaries."
On the wife's judgment, prudence, foresight, everything
hinged. In business, women's opinions were sought
and valued. They often engaged unquestioned in busi-
ness independent of their men-folk. Holland was the
only country where boys and girls were educated alike
in the same schools. In most cities husband and wife
were responsible for each others' debts. According to
Moryson the husbands were veritable slaves and he tells
of one wife who said that her husband "had newly asked

37 Compare Van Rensselaer, The Goede Vrouiu of Mana-ha-fa, i6og-jy6o,
10-13; Motley, Rise of the Dutch Republic, vol. i, 98; Cockshott, The Pil-
grim Fathers, n6, 117.

Old World Origins -Specific Sources 49

her leave to goe abroade." "I may boldly say," he re-
marks, "that the women of those parts, are above all
others truly taxed with this unnatural domineering over
their husbands." The high position of woman was not
approved by English writers. Guicciardini, also,
writes: "The Women governe all, both within doors
and without, and make all bargains, which joyned with
the natural desire that Women have to bear rule, mak-
eth them too imperious and troublesome."

The rights of wife and children were very carefully
secured. A wife could bequeath her dowry as she
pleased and, if childless, could will to her kin, after her
husband's death, half of what he had acquired after
marriage. Should husbands "either break in life-time,
or be found banckerouts at death the wives are pre-
ferred to all debtors in the recovery of their dowry."
The influence of this usage on Plymouth law will be
suggested in the study of that colony, as also the influ-
ence of the Dutch law of inheritance which provided
for far greater equality among members of the family
than prevailed in England.

In Holland estates were usually left to be divided
equally among all the children. Thus few received
enough for maintenance and it was necessary to learn
self-support. A son could not be disinherited save for
certain causes approved by law and a father must leave
at least one-third his estate for his children. More-
over, upon the death of their mother the children could
require their father to divide his goods with them "lest
he should waste all."

Dutch influence had something to do with the broad
liberal policy of the first generation of Pilgrims. More-
over, the Pilgrims had during their twelve years in Hoi-

50 The Anur'uan Family - Colonial Period

land an excellent experience in family training. The
schools were Dutch and home training was necessary.

Conditions in Holland were not sufficiently favorable
to invite permanent residence.

¥oT [says Bradford] many of their children, that were of best
dispositions and gracious inclinations, having learned to bear
the yoke in their youth, and willing to bear part of their parents
burdens, were oftentimes so oppressed with their heavy labors,
tho their minds were free and willing, yet their bodies bowed
under the weight of the same and they became decrepit in their
early youth. . . Many of their children . . , were
drawn away by evil examples into extravagant and dangerous
courses, getting the reins off their necks, and departing from
their parents.

This was one of the considerations that led to migra-
tion to America.

III. COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE IN
COLONIAL NEW ENGLAND

In essentials the marriage usages of the United States
run back to the period before the Revolution. The
American colonist of English stock was a home-builder
from the beginning. It was because the hazards of
life at home made it impossible to gather a competence
for their children that the religious enthusiasts sought
a settled habitation over seas.^^ These sturdy English-
men came, not as individual adventurers, but as fam-
ilies. If men came alone it was to prepare the way for
wife and children or sweetheart by the next ship and
they came to stay. The success of English colonization
as contrasted with the more brilliant but less substantial
French and Spanish occupation of the new world is due
to its family nature.

The white colonial population of New England was
pure English save for some Scotch-Irish in New Hamp-
shire and Huguenots in Massachusetts and Rhode Is-
land. This homogeneity of the North Atlantic colonies
makes it possible to study them as a group and simpli-
fies the understanding of their cultural lineage.

Marriages began at an early date in the new world.
Love-making must have been a welcome pastime on the
interminable voyages of those days and chaperonage
seems to have been unknown in colonial life. Men
took long rides with the damsel on the pillion behind
them. Certainly the Puritans, sharply struggling, fru-

^** Smythe. Conquest of Arid America, 12, 14.

52 The American Family -Colonial Period

gal, and homekeeping, did not multiply social functions
as means for intercourse of youths and maidens. Till
the singing-school came to save the day, regular oppor-
tunities for young New Englanders to become acquaint-
ed with prospective mates were apparently few. But
even in New England, maidens enjoyed large liberty,
for the neighborhoods were at first composed of ap-
proved families and in any case it was impossible in the
; wild, rough, new land, where every hand was needed
for urgent labor, to think of secluding girls. To such
influences we may trace the liberty of the modern Amer-
ican girl. Untoward results sometimes ensued, even in
supposedly staid colonial days, before the primitive
simplicity was adequately safeguarded.

Love and marriage at first sight brought romantic in-
terest to the wilderness life where existence without
home connections offered no attraction to serious men.
In more than one instance a lonely Puritan came to the
door of a maiden he had never seen, presented creden-
tials, told his need of a housekeeper, proposed marriage,
obtained hasty consent, and notified the town clerk, all
in one day. On one occasion a bold fellow removed a
rival's name from the posted marriage notice, inserted
his own, and carried off the bride. After his death she
married the first lover. Another Lochinvar kidnapped
a bride-to-be on the eve of marriage.

In some parts of Connecticut courtship was carried
on in the living-room in the presence of the family.
Sara Knight, who journeyed from Boston to New York
and back in 1704, notes the Puritanism of people along
the way who would not allow harmless kissing among
the young people. An earlier English traveller gives
a cheering glimpse of Boston: ''On the South there
is a small but pleasant common, where the gallants, a
little before sunset, walk with their Marmalet-Madams

Courtship and Marriage in New England 53

till the nine o'clock bell rings them home to their re-
spective habitations."

In at least one noteworthy case the maiden did the
courting. Cotton Mather writes:

There is a young gentlewoman of incomparable accomplish-
ments. No gentlewoman in the English Americas has had a
more polite education. She is one of rare witt and sense; and
of a comely aspect ; and . . . she has a mother of an extra-
ordinary character for her piety. This young gentlewoman
first addresses me with diverse letters, and then makes me a visit
at my house; wherein she gives me to understand, that she has
long had more than an ordinary value for my ministry ; and that
since my present condition has given her more of liberty to think
of me, she must confess herself charmed with my person, to such
a degree, that she could not but break in upon me, with her
most importunate requests, that I should make her mine, and
that the highest consideration she had in it was her eternal sal-
vation, for if she were mine, she could not but hope the effect of
it would be that she should also be Christ's. I endeavored faith-
fully to set before her all the discouraging circumstances at-
tending me, that I could think of. She told me that she had
weighed all those discouragements but was fortified and resolved
with a strong faith in the mighty God for to encounter them
all. . . I was in a great strait how to treat so polite a gen-
tlewoman. . . I plainly told her that I feared, whether her
proposal would not meet with unsurmountable opposition, from
those who had a great interest in disposing of me. However I
desired that there might be time taken. . . In the mean-
time, if I could not make her my own, I should be glad of being
any way instrumental, to make her the Lord's. . . She is
not much more than twenty years old. I know she has been a
very aiery person. Her reputation has been under some disad-
vantage. What snares may be laying for me I know not. [The
gossip that arose about this case became such a nuisance that]
all the friends I have . . . persuade me, that I shall have
no way to get from under these confusions but by proceeding
unto another marriage. Lord help me, what shall I do? ^^

39 Mather's Diary (Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, seventh
ser., vol. vii), part i, 457-458, 477,

54 The American Family -Colonial Period

The fathers seem to have relied much on the Lord
ill their courtship. On the occasion of his widowhood
Mather wrote: "1 have committed unto my Lord
Jesus Christ the care of providing an agreeable consort
for me, if my support in the service of his church . . .
render it necessary or convenient." Later he thinks
that the Lord is arranging things tho the people are
worrying him about matches. It would be hard for
them to tell, one might suppose, how much had been
done by divine agency, inasmuch as match-makers were
common. Thus Sewall writes of his second wife: ". . .
My loving wife, who was the promoter of the match
[of daughter Judith] and an industrious contriver of
my daughter's comfortable settlement" has died. "I
need your prayers that God . . . would yet again
provide such a good wife for me, that I may be able to
say I have obtained favor of the Lord ; or else to make it
best for me to spend the remnant of my life in a wid-
owed condition."

Parents had, of course, a profound interest in their
children's matrimonial outlook. We find Judge Sewall
craftily and slyly endeavoring to ascertain whether his
daughter Mary's prospective suitor had previously
courted another girl. Later we read: "In the even-
ing Sam Gerrish came not; we expected him; Mary
dress'd herself; it was a painfull disgracefull disapoint-
ment." A month later the delinquent lover returned
and finally married Mary, who died shortly and thus
opened the way for a speedy remarriage to his first love.

Zeal for parental authority shows itself in legal at-
tempts to restrain eager suitors from their unauthorized
courting of "men's daughters and maids under guard-
ians . . . and of mayde servants." As late as 1756,
Connecticut recognized the right of parents to dispose

Courtship and Marriage in New England 55

of children in marriage. In New Haven, 1660, Jacob
Minline went into the room where Sarah Tuttle was,
seized her gloves, and then kissed her. "They sat down
together; his arm being about her; and her arm upon
his shoulder or about his neck; and hee kissed her, and
shee kissed him, or they kissed one another, continuing
in this posture about half an hour." Father Tuttle
sued Jacob for inveigling his daughter's affections.
When asked in court whether Jacob inveigled her affec-
tions she answered "No;" so the court fined Sarah rath-
er than Jacob, calling her a "bould virgin." She
answered "she hoped God would help her to carry it
better for time to come." At the end of two years her
fine was still unpaid and half of it was remitted.

In spite of all the seeming parental tyranny that pre-
vailed in colonial days young women seem to have exer-
cised considerable independence in love affairs. Betty
Sewall, to her father's dismay, refused several suitors.
Once he writes urging her to think well before she dis-
misses a certain suitor but telling her, nevertheless, that
if she can not love, honor, and obey the man, her father
will say no more.

Parents were not, indeed, legally supreme over their
children's espousal. The general authority pursued its
own ends and might work against the parental authority
as well as with it. In a new country, needing popula-
tion, it was natural that pious authorities should frown
upon any discouragement of legitimate increase. The
interests of the community took precedence over the pri-
vate interests of parents, guardians, and masters. Mar-
riage was normally undelayed. Appeal to a magistrate
was in order in case of unreasonable opposition by those
in charge of the young people. Thus unruly parents
could be brought to terms. .

56 The American Family -Colonial Period

Parents could be held to account for evil results of
unreasonable opposition. In 1679 a couple being con-
victed of fornication before marriage, the case was held
over and parents summoned to show why they denied
the young couple marriage so long "after they were in
order thereto." Such a decision would be distasteful
to those that regarded as a divine gift the parental pow-
er to dispose of a child in marriage. We can imagine
how it would impress the colonial gentleman who once
expressed the opinion that "virgin modesty . . .
should make marriage an act rather of obedience than
choice . . . and they that think their friends too
slow-paced in the matter give certain proof that lust is
the sole motive."

Breach of promise sometimes occurred. Suits seem
to have been rare; but cases were sometimes brought
against both men and women and there are instances of
damages assessed in behalf of men as well as for women.
Such episodes suggest the economic element in mar-
riage.

The European tendency to mercenary marriage car-
ried over to the new world. Capital was naturally in
urgent demand. Marriage was accorded matter-of-
fact treatment. No sentiment was presupposed and it
was easy for marriage to degenerate into a mere bar-
gain. Emanuel Downing, one of the ablest Puritans,
writes in 1640 of his matrimonial projects for children
and niece, for which maiden he had secured a "varie
good match," a member of the church with an estate of
four hundred or five hundreds pounds. Governor Win-
throp was Mrs. Downing's brother and guardian to the
little orphan girl, Rebecca Cooper, "a verie good
match," an "inheritance" on whom Downing and his
wife had pitched as a fit wife for their son. Without

Courtship and Marriage in New England 57

speaking to the girl they wrote to the governor. He
refused

For the present, for these grounds. First: The girle desires
not to mary as yet. Secondlie: Shee confesseth (which is the
truth) hereself to be altogether yett unfitt for such a condition,
shee being a verie girl and but fifteen yeares of age. Thirdlie:
When the man was moved to her shee said shee could not like
him. Fourthlie: You know it would be of ill reporte that a
girl because she hath some estate should bee disposed of soe
young, espetialie not having any parents to choose for her. . .
If this will not satisfy some, let the court take her from mee
and place with any other to dispose of her. I shall be content.
Which I heare was plotted to accomplish this end.

There was doubtless point to the Massachusetts law of
1646 that no female orphan during her minority should
be given in marriage except with the approbation of
the majority of the selectmen of her town.

Luce Downing was persuaded by her mercenary par-
ents' statement of pecuniary benefits to wed Mr. Norton
to her father's delight, who wrote: "Shee may stay
long ere she meet with a better unless I had more monie
for her than I now can spare." But the girl's affections
were vacillating; she seemed to be proposing to jilt
Norton. His brother wrote a pointed letter to the gov-
ernor about her vagaries. More liberal settlements
were made; so she married Norton. The crassly mon-
etary philanderings of Sewall" illustrate splendidly
the mercenary spirit pervading the match-making of
the New Englanders.

The useful function of widows in colonial economics
appears in the frank words of one worthy who says,

Our uncle is not at present able to pay you or any other he owes
money to. If he was able to pay he would ; they must have pa-
tience till God enable him. As his wife died in mercy near

*" Summarized in Goodsell, History of the Family, 360-363 ; Earle, Cus-
toms and Fashions in Old Nnv England, 43-56.

58 The American Family -Colonial Period

twelve months since, it may be he may light of some rich widow-
that may make him capable to pay; except God in this way
raise him he cannot pay you or any one else.

Benjamin Franklin, in the New England Courant

of December 11, 1721, lampoons economic marriage

thus:

ON SYLVIA THE FAIR- A JINGLE

A Swarm of Sparks, young, gay, and bold,
Lov'd Sylvia long, but she was cold ;
Int'rest and pride the nymph control'd,
So they in vain their passion told.
At last came Dulman, he was old.
Nay, he was ugly, but had gold.
He came, and saw, and took the hold.
While t'other beaux their loss consol'd.
Some say, she 's wed ; I say she 's sold.

Speculating fops are hit in the Courant of January
29, 1722:

Adv. Several journeymen gentlemen (some foreigners and
others of our own growth), never sully'd with business, and fit
for town or country diversion, are willing to dispose of them-
selves in marriage, as follows, viz: Some to old virgins, who,
by long industry have laid up £500, or proved themselves
capable of maintaining a husband in a genteel and commendable
idleness. Some to old or young widows, who have estates of
their first husband's getting, to dispose of at their second hus-
band's pleasure. And some to young ladies, under age, who
have their fortunes in their own hands, and are willing to main-
tain a pretty', genteel man, rather than be without him.

N.B. The above gentlemen may be spoke with almost any
hour in the day at the Tick-Tavern in Prodigal Square, and
will proceed to courtship as soon as their mistresses shall pay
their tavern score.

The genuine matrimonial advertisement put in its
appearance in 1759. In the Boston Evening Post^ Feb.
23, 1759) appeared:

To the ladies. Any young lady betvveen the age of 18 and 23
of a midling stature; brown hair, regular features and a lively

Courtship and Marriage in New England 59

brisk eye: of good morals and not tinctured with anything that
may sully so distinguishable a form possessed of £300 or 400
entirely her own disposal and where there will be no necessity
of going through the tiresome talk of addressing parents or
guardians for their consent: such a one by leaving a line directed
for A.W. at the British Coffee House in King Street appoint-
ing where an interview may be had will meet with a person
who flatters himself he shall not be thought disagreeable by any
lady answering the above description. N.B. Profound secrecy
will be observ'd. No trifling answers will be regarded.

We have ample evidence that fashionable courtship
was permeated by a constantly economic spirit. Hap-
py husbands were ready to sue their fathers-in-law if
they proved too tardy or remiss in the matter of the
bridal portion." For years Edward Palmer worried
the Winthrops about their sister's (his first wife's)
dowry, long after he had taken a second wife. In 1679
James Willet, who had married Lieutenant Peter
Hunt's daughter Elizabeth, claimed that the father had
promised one hundred pounds as inducement. He
sued for payment but lost and had to pay costs. Still
the marriage seems to have been honorable and happy.
Judge Sewall after his daughter's death higgled with
her father-in-law over her dowry and grief did not dull
his shrewdness.

As has already been suggested, the entrance to matri-
mony was well guarded in colonial New England. The
law required previous publication, parental consent, and
registration. Throughout New England except in New
Hampshire the law enforced for nearly two centuries
the publication of the banns three times preliminary to
marriage. Sometimes consent of parents was included
in the notice of banns. New Hampshire law, breezy

*^ Earle. Customs and Fashions in Old Neiv England, 62.

6o The American Family - Colonial Period

foreshadowing of western recklessness, made possible
''unpublished" marriage for such as would pay two
guineas for a license. Considerations of revenue were
the spring of this radicalism. Sometimes parsons kept
a stock of these licenses on hand for issue to eloping
couples at a profit."^ Runaway marriages without pub-
lication were not considered very respectable; strict-
ness in regard to marriage was as much in the interest
of the state as for the satisfaction of parents.

New England called a halt to the growing tendency
to make marriage an ecclesiastical function. Marriage
was declared to be a civil contract, not a sacrament, and
to require no priestly intervention. In the early period
the Puritans were ordinarily more careful than Calvin
who called the conjugal relation "sacred." They were
satisfied with calling it "honorable." The publication
of banns was ordinarily set for a public lecture or train-
ing day rather than on the Sabbath. The administra-
tion of the marriage law was a local function, per-
formed by town officers. The Pilgrims had adopted
the views of the Dutch Calvinists as to marriage ; they
held that neither Scripture nor the primitive Christians
had ever authorized clergymen to perform marriage
services, but that marriage with its civil obligations and
connection with property rights as well as its impor-
tance in a business way to the state should be a strictly
civil contract to be entered into before a magistrate.
Thus William Bradford writes:

May 12 was the first marriage in this place; which according to
the laudable custom of the low-cuntries, in which they had
lived, was thought most requisite to be performed by the magis-
trate, as being a civill thing upon which many questions about
inheritances doe depende with other things most proper to their
cognizance, and most consonante to the Scriptures.

•*2 Earle. Customs and Fashions in Old Neiv England, 76.

Courtship and Marriage in New England 6i

Civil marriage was not only the custom; it was the only
legal form. Winthrop reports an interesting case.

There was a great marriage to be solemnized at Boston. The
bridegroom being of Hingham Mr. Hubbard's church, he was
procured to preach and came to Boston to that end. But the
magistrates . . . sent to him to forbear. The reasons : . . .
For that his spirit had been discovered to be averse to our ec-
clesiastical and civil government; and he was a bold man and
would speak his mind. 2. We were not willing to bring in the
English custom of ministers performing the solemnities of mar-
riage, which sermons at such times might induce; but if any
ministers were present, and would bestow a word of exhorta-
tion, etc., it was permitted.

Opposition to a religious ceremony existed at a late
date. A Huguenot clergyman was haled to court in
1685 for solemnizing marriages in Boston. He agreed
to desist but presently forgot his promise. For some
reason he saw fit to depart the same week for New York.

In the early years of the colonies the English usage
of ceremonial betrothal persisted. In Plymouth this
observance was known as pre-contract. Cotton Mather
says : "There was maintained a solemnity called a con-
traction a little before the consummation of a marriage
was allowed of. A pastor was usually employed and a
sermon also preached on this occasion." One minister
preached from Ephesians, vi, 10, 11, in order "to teach
that marriage is a state of warfaring condition." The
moral tendency of this half-way marriage must have
been bad.

In many towns disorderly marriages -many of them,
doubtless, between Quakers-were punished. Cases of
self-betrothal seem to have been frequent and an ob-
server writes that "there are those who practice no
formality of marriage except joining hands and so live."

62 The American Family -Colonial Period

The possible connection of such laxity with Brownism
has already been suggested. Clandestine marriages
were frequent enough to be troublesome. The second
generation at Plymouth developed radicalism. One
fancy was the performance of marriage by unauthor-
ized persons. Some couples dispensed with celebrant
altogether. Men were fined for disorderly marriage.
In Boston in 1641, Governor Bellingham gave scandal
by suddenly marrying a woman who was about forming
a contract with another. The banns had not been legal-
ly published and he married himself. He was prose-
cuted but refused to leave the bench of the court. Amid
excitement the case was postponed and it was not again
called up. Some couples were fined every month till
they were properly married.

A Rhode Island act of 1647 outlaws the simple mar-
riage by agreement. The Rhode Island colony records
contain the case of a couple who had married them-
selves before witnesses. The woman had been legally
separated from her husband, who got away with most
of her estate. So she took up with George Gardener
for her maintenance but was oppressed in spirit because
she judged him not to be lawfully her husband. She
petitioned to have her property and live apart. The
assembly stigmatizes her as an abominable fornicator.
The pair had owned each other as man and wife for
eighteen or twenty years. Each was fined twenty
pounds and ordered "not to lead soe scandalose life."
Thereafter such marriages were to be proceeded against
as for fornication. Due rules for marriage should be
observed. Exception was made in favor of those then
irregularly living as man and wife. They must live
together.

A New London scapegrace insisted on taking up

Courtship and Marriage in New England 63

with a woman and making her his wife without cere-
mony. The affair was a scandal to the community. A
magistrate, meeting the couple on the street, accosted
them thus: "John Rogers, do you persist in calling
this woman, a servant, so much younger than yourself,
your wife?" "Yes, I do," retorted John. "And do
you, Mary, wish such an old man as this to be your
husband?" "Indeed I do," she said. "Then, by the
laws of God and this commonwealth," was the discon-
certing reply, "I, as a magistrate, pronounce you man
and wife."

Such were the difficulties that beset the fathers in
their attempt to steer a safe middle course between cere-
monial and common law marriage.

During the "tyranny" following 1686 the laws re-
quiring marriage by civil magistrate were abrogated.
Referring to Charlestow^n, Mr. Edes writes that the
Reverend Charles Morton "was the first clergyman in
this place to solemnize marriages, which previously to
1686 were performed only by civil magistrates."

As it became apparent that the Reformation church
was a safe constituent of the new economic order, dis-
trust of ecclesiastical functionings faded. In 1692 (the
year Plymouth was merged in Massachusetts) the
clergy were first authorized by the new province to per-
form marriages. The following is found for Connecti-
cut in 1694:

This court for the satisfaction of such as are conscientiously de-
sireous to be marryed by the minister of their plantations do
grant the ordayned ministers of the severall plantations . . .
liberty to joyne in marriage such persons as are qualified for
the same according to law.

Opposition to religious ceremonial abated and presently
ministers of all denominations were allowed to perform

64 The American Family -Colonial Period

the ceremony. Neal in his History of New England
wrote :

All marriages in New England were formerly performed by the
civil magistrate, but of late they are more frequently solemnized
by the clerg}', who imitate the method prescribed by the church
of England except in their collects, and the ceremony of the
ring.

Nevertheless the Puritan contention has prevailed.
Marriage was secularized and brought under control
of the civil law and to-day when a minister performs the
ceremony it is as an agent of the state that he acts.

The settlers in the New World gradually introduced
more ceremony and gayety into their weddings. As-
ceticism could not outlive the age of deficit. In wealthy
families a handsome outfit was usually provided for the
adornment of the bride. Rude merriment attended
New England weddings. There was sometimes a
scramble for the bride's garter. The winner was sup-
posed to gain luck and speedy marriage. In Marble-
head the bridesmaids and groomsmen put the newly
married pair to bed. It is said also that the bridal
chamber was the scene of healths drunk and prayers
offered. Judge Sewall was slighted on one occasion.
He says that "none came to us" (after he and his elder-
ly bride had retired) . This usage of visiting the bridal
chamber was doubtless a reminiscence of the day when
every marriage w^as a tribal concern whose issue was
vital to group life.

It was customary to allow the bride to choose the text
of the sermon on the Sabbath when she appeared as
bride. Brides were sometimes commendably clever in
this matter. Thus Asa Somebody and his bride were
edified by a discourse on the words: "And Asa did
that which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord
his God." Another favorite was: "Two are better

Courtship and Marriage in New England 65

than one; because they have a good reward for their
labor. For if they fall the one will lift up his fellow;
but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he
hath not another to help him up." In some places the
bride and groom seated themselves prominently in the
gallery and in the midst of the service rose and rotated
slowly several times for the edification of the congrega-
tion.

Even the small number of negroes in New England
was a problem. In 1705 in Massachusetts we find that
intermarriage between a white person and a negro or
mulatto was forbidden by statute and a fine of fifty
pounds fixed upon any person officiating at such mar-
riage. It was also ordered that "no master shall un-
reasonably deny marriage to his negro with one of the
same nation." Masters were responsible for the fines
incurred by their slaves for sex offences ; hence it might
be less trouble to allow regular wedlock. Common-
law marriage seems to have been valid but there were
public legal marriages among Massachusetts slaves.
Their banns were published in regular form.

The dependence of negro marriage on the master's
good will is illustrated by a bill of sale of a negress in
Boston in 1724 which recites that "Whereas Scipio, of
Boston . . . free negro . . . purposes mar-
riage to Margaret, . . . servant of . . . Dor-
cas Marshall: now to the intent that the said intended
marriage may take efi^ect, and that the said Scipio may
enjoy the said Margaret without any interruption," etc.
she is duly sold with her apparel for fifty pounds.

The later Massachusetts act (1786) prohibiting the
marriage of whites to Indians, negroes, or mulattoes
and declaring such marriages void was not repealed
till 1843.

66 The American Family -Colonial Period

There were throughout New England regular mar-
riages of white men with Indian women. In slavery
days in Massachusetts it was to the advantage of ne-
groes to take Indian wives for the children of such
unions would be free.

That economic interest was stronger than moral sense
in the hearts of the fathers is shown in a formula for
slave marriage" prepared and used by Reverend Sam-
uel Phillips of Andover (1710-1771) :

You S. do now in the presence of God, and these witnesses, take
R. to be your wife ; promising that so far as shall be consistent
with the relation which you now sustain, as a servant, you will
perform the part of a husband towards her; and in particular
3'ou promise that you w^ill love her; and that, as j^ou shall have
the opportunity' and ability you will take a proper care of her in
sickness and health, in prosperity and adversity; and that you
will be true and faithful to her, and will cleave to her only, so
long as God in his Providence, shall continue your and her
abode in such place (or places) as that you can conveniently
come together.

Similar words were repeated to the woman.

*3 Howard. History of Matrimonial Institutions, vol. ii, 225-226.

IV. THE NEW ENGLAND FAMILY- PRES-
TIGE AND FUNCTIONS

To the Pilgrim and the Puritan the home and the
church were preeminent treasures. Yet it is hard to
say whether family or property constituted the Puritans'
chief treasure. The two interests interacted.

The early Puritans married young. Madam Knight
wrote (1704) of Connecticut youth : "They generally
marry very young, the males oftener as I am told under
twenty years than above." Girls often married at six-
teen or under. Old maids were ridiculed or even de-
spised. A woman became an "antient maid" at twenty-
five. But there is no evidence that child marriages, so
common in England at the time, were ever permitted in
America.

A man or woman, however, without family ties was
almost unthinkable. Such an anomaly could not be
tolerated. Even apart from the weight of this senti-
ment, it is easy to see that marriage would be almost
the only honorable refuge for a woman. But New
England family policy pressed as heavily upon the un-
attached man as on the isolated woman. Bachelors
were rare and were viewed with disapproval. They
were almost in the class of suspected criminals. They
were rarely allowed to live by themselves or even to
choose their places of abode but had to live wherever
the court put them. A Massachusetts act of 1631 for-
bade hiring any person for less than a year unless he
were a "settled housekeeper." In Hartford solitary

68 The American Family - Colonial Period

men were taxed twenty shillings a week. A New

Haven law runs thus: in order to

Suppress inconvenience, and disorders inconsistent with the
mind of God in the fifth commandment, single persons, not in
service or dwellinjj; with their relatives are forbidden to diet or
lodge alone; but they are required to live in "licensed" families;
and the governors of such families are ordered to "observe the
course, carriage, and behavior of every such single person,
whether he or she walk diligently in a constant lawful employ-
ment, attending both family duties and the public worship of
God, and keeping good order day and night or otherwise.

Similar measures are found in the other colonies.
Bachelors were under the special espionage of the con-
stable, the watchman, and the tithing-man. There was,
moreover, a positive premium on marriage in addition
to the freedom gained. Many towns assigned building
lots to bachelors upon marriage. It is not strange that
bachelors were scarce.

Old maids, too, were rare and hard-off. The ques-
tion of the "aimless and homeless" condition of single
women troubled the selectmen. Grants seem to have
been made of "maid's lots" but the policy was ques-
tioned. In 1636 we find this entry: "Deborah Holmes
refused land, being a maid (but hath four bu. of corn
granted her. . .) and would be a bad precedent to
keep house alone." Later we find the Bay Colony al-
lowing single women to follow approved callings. But
marriage was, normally, prompt. A man writing from
the Piscataqua colony says, "A good husband, with his
wife to attend the cattle and make butter and cheese will
be profitable, for maids they are soone gonne in this
countrie."

There were, however, a few notable spinsters. The
Plymouth church record of March 19, 1667, notes the
death of "Mary Carpenter sister of Mrs. Alice Brad-

The New England Family 69

ford, wife of Governor Bradford, being newly entered

into the ninety-first year of her age. She was a godly

old maid never married."

John Dunton wrote in glowing terms of one ideal

"virgin."

It is true an old (or superannuated) maid in Boston is thought
such a curse, as nothing can exceed it (and looked on as a dismal
spectacle) yet she by her good nature, gravity, and strict virtue
convinces all (so much as the fleering Beaus) that it is not her
necessity but her choice that keeps her a virgin. She is now
about thirty years (the age which they call a thornback) yet she
never disguises herself, and talks as little as she thinks of love.

This maid must have been very singular to deserve as
much space as she received. The eulogist dilates at
length on her modesty and propriety. "She would
neither anticipate nor contradict the will of her par-
ents" and "is against forcing her own, by marrying
where she can not love; and that is the reason she is still
a virgin."

Taunton, Massachusetts, was founded by an "ancient
maid" of forty-eight. Winthrop's Journal for 1637
contains this item: "This year a plantation begun at
Tichcutt by ... an ancient maid, one Mrs. Poole.
She went late thither and endured much hardship and
lost much cattle."

In case of the decease of husband or wife remarriage .
was prompt. The first marriage in Plymouth colony
was that of Edward Winslow, who had been a widower
only seven weeks, to Susanna White who had been a
widow not twelve weeks. The case was exceptional
but in the new land there was no place for ceremonial
mourning in such a case. It was fitting that Winslow
should be at the head of a household and the White
children needed a father especially as their mother was
taken up with the care of an infant. Later the governor

70 The American Family - Colonial Period

of New Hampshire married a lady whose husband was
but ten days dead. Such frequent and hasty espousals
were not altogether due to the impossible condition of a
man or woman without a partner in the midst of a wil-
derness with all the families fully occupied in caring
for their own. They were common in England.

A few concrete cases of colonial remarriage will
make the usage vivid. Peter Sargent, a rich Boston
merchant, had three wives. His second had had two
previous husbands. His third wife had lost one hus-
band, and she survived Peter, and also her third hus-
band, who had three wives. His father had four, the
last three of whom were widows. One reverend gentle-
man, facing death, confidently told his wife that she
would soon be well provided for. "She was very short-
ly after very honorably and comfortably married unto a
gentleman of good estate" and lived with him nearly
two score years.

"Mistress" was attached to the names even of young
girls. This usage makes it hard sometimes to ascer-
tain whether a bride was a widow. But it is certain
that widows were at a premium in colonial days. Per-
haps the principal reason for this fact was the one in-
dicated in the previous chapter in the discussion of ec-
onomic marriage. It is hard to explain otherwise-^hy
men passed by the maidens and took the widows. And
among these there was room to choose, for the number
of colonial widows was huge. In 1698 it was said that
Boston was full of widows and orphans, many of them
very helpless. It is safe to say that the helpless ones
went longest desolate. Their miserable condition em-
phasized again the importance of normal family con-
nections. So we need not be surprised to find a choice
widow whose love for her departed husband was reput-
ed to be "strong as death" speedily marrying again.

The New England Family 71

So important was proper family relation that persons
living apart from their spouses were sometimes ordered
to get their partners or clear out. The well-being of
the community was conceived to depend on rigid fam-
ily discipline and if a man had no family he must find
one. Thus New England law provided that "married
persons must live together, unless the court of assistants
approve of the cause to the contrary." In Rhode Is-
land in 1655 we find it "ordered that Thomas Gennings
shall go and demand his wife to live with him, but in
case she refuse, he shall make his addresse to the Gen-
erall Court of Commissioners for redresse in the case."
In 1660 the Connecticut court ordered

That noe man or woman, within this colony who hath a wife or
husband in forraigne parts, shall live here above two years, upon
penalty of 40s. per month upon every such offender and any that
have been above three years already, not to remaine within this
colony above one yeare longer upon the same penalty, except
they have liberty from the General Court.

It was not uncommon for immigrants to leave their
spouses in Europe. Sometimes, as we shall see later,
this was simple desertion, but by no means always.
Thus a letter from England to Mr. Gibb in Piscataquay
reads :

I hope by this both your wives are with you according to your
desire. I wish all your wives were with you, and that so many
of you as desire wives had such as they desire. Your wife,
Roger Knight's wife, and one wife more we have already sent
you and more you shall have as you have wish for them.

Occasionally a wife was disinclined to come to Amer-
ica. Governor Winthrop wrote to England in 1632:

I have much difficultye to keepe John Galope heere by reason
his wife will not come. I marvayle at her womans weaknesse,
that she will live myserably with her children there when she
might live comfortably with her husband here. I pray per-
swade and further her coming by all means. If she will come

72 The American Family -Colonial Period

let her have the remainder of his wages, if not let it be bestowed
to bring over his children for soe he desires.

Reverend Mr. Wilson had a hard time persuading his
wife to cross. Even a cleverly interpreted dream did
not avail. He sent back comfortable reports, and fi-
nally recrossed the ocean after her. Then, after much
fasting and prayer, she finally agreed to "accompany
him over an ocean to a wilderness." These cases were
not typical. Wives were ordinarily willing to try the
new world.

It is evident that the family w^as regarded as an in-
strument to be used deliberately by the community for
social welfare.

In the colonial records of Connecticut (1643), it is
declared that

The prsprit\' and well being of Comon weles doth much dep>end
vvpon the well gouerment and ordering of prticuler Familyes,
wch in an ordinary way cannot be expected when the rules of
God are neglected in laying the foundation of a family state.

In Massachusetts during the period between 1660
and 1672, it was ordered that

[The] selectmen of every town, in the several precincts and
quarters wher they dwell, shall have a vigilant eye over their
brethren and neighbors to see, first that none of them shall
suffer so much barbarism in any of their families, as not to
endeavor to teach . . . their children and apprentices so
much learning as may enable them perfectly to read the English
tongue and knowledge of the capital laws.

Once a week children and apprentices are to be cate-
chized "in the grounds and principles of religion" and
they are to be bred and brought up in some honest law-
ful calling "profitable for themselves and the common-
wealth," if their parents "will not or can not train them
up in learning to fit them for higher employments."
Neglect of parental duty "whereby children and ser-

The New England Family 73

vants become rude, stubborn and unruly" is penalized
by the removal of the children into better hands until
they come of age. It seems that the law was for a time
unenforced, "sin and prophaness" increased "and the
ensnaring of many children and servants by the disso-
lute lives and practices of such as do live from under
family government." The laws were ordered enforced
and a list to be made of young persons living "from un-
der family government, viz., do not serve their parents
or masters as children, apprentices, hired servants, or
journeymen ought to do, and usually did in our native
country, being subject to their commands and disci-
pline." Masters and heads of families were to take
effectual care that their children and servants did not
violate the Sabbath laws. Selectmen were to see to it
that parents educated their children, for "many parents
and masters are too indulgent and negligent of their
duty."

Plymouth also took action : "Forasmuch as the good
education of children and youth is of singular benefit
and use to any commonwealth; and whereas many par-
ents and masters either through an over respect to their
own occasions and business or not duly considering the
good of their children and servants, have too much
neglected their duty in their education," parents are to
be watched so that they properly teach their children.
If after admonition and repeated fine negligent parents
did not improve, the children were to be taken away
and placed with masters where they would receive
training and government. It should be remembered
in this connection that the Plymouth people for a long
period were in bondage to the capitalists that financed
the original expedition, and consequently had to absorb

74 The American Family -Colonial Period

all their energies in a sordid struggle for material inter-
ests. But pioneer life puts a damper on culture.

In the records of Connecticut (1665-1677) we find
the following:

Whereas reading the Scripture, cattechizing of children and
dayly prayer with giueing of thanks is part of God's worship and
the homage due to him, to be atended conscientiously by euery
Christian family to distinguish them from the heathen whoe
call not upon God, and the neglect of it a great sin . . .
this court do solemnly recommend it to the ministry in all
places, to look into the state of such famalyes, convince them of
and instruct them in their duty [etc. Townsmen were to as-
sist ministers] but if any heads or gouernors of such famalys
shall be obstinate and refractorie and will not be reformed, that
the grand jury present such person to the county court to be
fined or punished or bownd to good behavior, according to the
demeritts of the case.

The tithing-man was the censor of New England
family life. His power entered every home. He
looked after family morals and saw to the main-
tenance of family government, that all single per-
sons were attached to some family, that children and
servants were properly taught and trained at home and
kept from disorderly and rude practices abroad. By a
town order of Dorchester in 1678 it was required "that
the tithing men in their severall precincts should in-
spect all inmates that do come into each of their pre-
cincts either single persons or families, and to give
spedy information thereof unto the selectmen from time
to time or to some of them that order may be taken
about them."

Under such supervision it was a risky thing to have
visitors. The harboring of strangers, even relatives
from other places, often brought difficulty between citi-
zens and magistrates and frequently caused arbitration
between towns. Thus, in Connecticut, "Goodman Hunt

The New England Family 75

and his wife, for keeping the counsels of the said Wil-
liam Harding, baking him a pasty and plum cakes,
and keeping company with him on the Lord's day, and
she suffering Harding to kiss her," were ordered to be
sent out of town "within one month after the date here-
of, yea, in a shorter time if any miscarriage be found in
them." A Dorchester widow was not allowed to enter-
tain a visiting son-in-law. Another woman was fined
in 1671 "under distress" for housing her own daughter
tho the latter (a married woman) said the bad weather
kept her from home.

This prying authority would have been resented by
as keen a people as the New Englanders had it been im-
posed by external authority. In later days they quickly
remembered the English maxim, "every man's house
his castle." James Otis in his speech on writs of assis-
tance said, "One of the most essential branches of Eng-
lish liberty is the freedom of one's house. A man's
house is his castle; and whilst he is quiet is as well
guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ would
totally annihilate this privilege." One can imagine the
indignation when an officer whom Justice Walley had
summoned for breach of the Sabbath used his power to
search that dignitary's house from cellar to attic. Prob-
ably even the building laws imposed by the local au-
thorities for fire-protection would have been looked at
askance if they had been imposed by an alien power.

The reader has, of course, noted the religious cast of
the family function. The fathers adopted the maxim
that "families are the nurseries of the church and the
commonwealth; ruin families and you ruin all." The
maintenance of family religion was universally recog-
nized in early New England as a duty and was seriously
attended to in most families. Daily the scriptures were

76 The American Family -Colonial Period

read and worship was offered to God. Fathers sought
for their children, as for themselves, "first the kingdom
of God and His righteousness" (which, somehow, un-
fortunately for morality, seemed to sanction forms of
sin that filled the pocketbook). The religious influence
pervaded family, school, society. Yet as early as 1679
a ''Reforming Synod" at Boston said, "Family Worship
is much neglected" and by 1691 a lament arose over the
decay of piety and family religion. This was just one
year after the appearance of the New England Primer
which w^as certainly calculated to stem such a tide of
evil. Catechism learning was enforced by law. But
even in 1716 Mather thought it necessary, in the assem-
bly of ministers, to "propose a motion . . . that no
family in the country be without a Bible and a cate-
chism; and that all children of a fitt age, be found able
to read."

Theophilus Eaton, first governor of New Haven, was
a shining example of the true patriarch.

As in his government of the commonwealth, so in the govern-
ment of his family, he was prudent, serious, happy to a wonder ;
and altho he sometimes had a large family, consisting of no less
than thirty persons, yet he managed them with such an even
temper, that observers have affirmed that they never saw a
house ordered with more wisdom. He kept an honorable and
hospitable table; but one thing that made the entertainment
thereof the better, was the continual presence of his aged mother,
by feeding of whom with an exemplary piety till she died, he in-
sured his own prosperity as long as he lived. His children and
servants he mightily encouraged in the study of the scriptures,
and countenanced their addresses to himself with any of their
inquiries ; but when he saw any of them sinfully negligent about
the concerns either of their general or particular callings, he
would admonish them with such a penetrating efficacy, that they
could scarce forbear falling down at his feet with tears. A
word from him was enough to steer them.

The New England Family 77

Special laws for the further safeguarding of the fam-
ily may be mentioned. For years the general court of
Massachusetts acted as guardian of widows and or-
phans. The Body of Liberties decreed that "no man
shall be deprived of his wife or children . . . un-
less by virtue of some express law of the country estab-
lished by the General Court and sufficiently published."

But the laws were not solely in the interest of the in-
dividuals afifected. The Plymouth colony ordered that
"no one be allowed to be housekeepers . . . till
such time as they be allowed and approved by the gov-
ernor and councill;" also "no servant coming out of his
time or other single person [is] suffered to keep house
or be for him or themselves till . . . competently
provided of arms and ammunition according to the
orders of the colony." In case of certain youthful
offenders Massachusetts ordered (1645) that "their
parents or masters shall give them due correction and
that in the presence of some officer if any magistral
shall so appoint." Again, 1668,

This court taking notice, upon good information and sad com-
plaints, that there are some persons in this jurisdiction, that
have families to provide for, who greatly neglect their callings,
or misspend what they earn, whereby their families are in much
want, and are thereby exposed to suffer, and to need relief from
others, This court for remedy of these great and unsuflferable
evils, do declare that . . . such neglectors of families are
comprehended among [such idle persons as are subject to the
house of correction].

Such legislation is an interesting rival of maximum
wage laws as is also the provision of 1703- 1704 that
children of parents unable to maintain them are to be
bound out.

In spite of legal subordination and occasional actual
sacrifice to the public interest the New England family

78 The American Family -Colonial Period

was not without individuality. One of the causes of
the failure of the early communism lies right here.
The yong-men that were most able and fitte for labor and
service did repine that they should spend their time and strength
to work for other men's wives and children without any recom-
pense. . . And for men's wives to be commanded to do ser-
vice for other men, as dressing their meate, washing their
cloathes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slaverie; neither could
many husbands well brooke it.

After assignments of land were made to each household
"Women and children helped plant the family lots,
altho they would have considered it a great hardship to
work in the common field."

The Puritan censorship of family life was enforced
by the arm of the law. But the Quakers, who could
not control the civil power, maintained ecclesiastical
oversight in behalf of moral training, sectarian sol-
idarity and exclusiveness, parental control over court-
ship, and general propriety as in the following query:
"Do no widows admit proposals of marage too early
after the death of their former husbands, or from wid-
owers sooner after the death of a former wife than is
consistent with decency?"

The New England aristocracy possessed marked
pride of family. Sumptuary laws were designed to
maintain the distinction between rich and poor. One
law provided that the wearing of gold or silver orna-
ments, silk ribbons, etc. should cause assessment at one
hundred fifty pounds. The law exempted families of
magistrates or "such whose quality and estate have been
above the ordinary degree tho now decayed."

Ministers' families almost constituted a nobility.
John Adams, who was only the son of a small, middle-
class farmer, met with opposition from members of the
flock of the minister whose daughter he was courting.

The New England Family 79

The Adams family was thought scarcely fit to match
with the minister's daughter, the descendant of so many
worthies. It so happened that her father was well dis-
posed to the young man and after the ceremony had oc-
curred saw fit to deliver an "Apology" from the text,
"John came neither eating bread nor drinking wine,
and ye say: 'He hath a devil.'"

True to their noble rank the reverend families tended
to marry into each other. For a century and a half
such marriages were very numerous. It seemed to be
according to social propriety for ministers' sons to
marry ministers' daughters. Pastors often married into
the family of their predecessors -often the daughter,
sometimes the widow. Many families may be cited as
exhibits of interrelationship among ministers. The
"Mather Dynasty" is a conspicuous case in point. Rich-
ard Mather's second wife was the widow of John Cotton.
Their children, Increase Mather and Mary Cotton,
were as brother and sister but were married and became
the parents of Cotton Mather. The sons, grandsons,
and great-grandsons of Richard Mather entered the
ministry. The girls in the same generations married
ministers. Thus the Mather blood fertilized the re-
mote quarters of New England.

Family integrity reached beyond death. Much so-
licitude was felt by the New England people for the
salvation of kindred. In many communities each fam-
ily had a burying-place on the home-farm. Thus the
dust of the dead consecrated the family devotion and
the ancestral home of the living. Sewall considered a
visit to the family tomb and the sight of the cofiins in it
an "awful yet pleasing treat" and Joseph Eliot said
"that the two days wherein he buried his wife and son
were the best he ever had in the world."

8o The American Family - Colonial Period

In the rapid expansion of New England families
there developed a tendency to the formation of patri-
archal clans. Aubury noted the great number of half-
finished houses. A man would build and occupy half
of the structure; when his son married, the new couple
finished and moved into the other half. The families
were thus separate, yet united by the common shelter-
ing roof. Often, too, as already suggested, the family
circle was expanded into a real "familia." In the
household of the prosperous Massachusetts merchant
were indentured servants, male and female, generally
young, working out their time. Wage employees, even
those used in his business, commonly ate at his family
table, and lived under his roof. All such were, of
course, under the paternal care of the house-father.
Besides these, were unattached female relatives, who
often lived with their kindred.

Careful as the new Americans were of their own
families, and censorious as the aristocracy was of the
families of the hard-pressed plebeians, they found them-
selves unable (or unwilling) to safe-guard the family
relations of their slaves. Slavery can scarcely respect
the family integrity of the servile class. Aside from
the lust of males of the master race, is the economic mo-
tive that severs families for business reasons. Sewall,
who was sufficiently cool-blooded in his own matri-
monial ventures, was distressed at the thought of "how
in taking negroes out of Africa and selling of them
here, that which God has joined together men do boldly
rend asunder; men from their country, husbands from
their wives, parents from their children." Nor did the
process end with the voyage from Africa. There was
really no protection of marriage or sanction of marital
or parental rights and duties. Who could be depended

The New England Family 8 1

on to vindicate the slave if the whim of a master ''un-
reasonably" denied marriage? The owner of a valu-
able female slave had to consider the risks of mother-
hood as compared with the accession of a slave child
which would be little worth. And as for males Sewall
refers to the well-known temptation masters have to
connive at their fornication lest they should have to find
wives for them or pay their fines. And it is certain that,
in spite of Puritan regard for parenthood and the care
of children, they separated mothers from their off-
spring.

One Massachusetts town hands down in tradition the
memory of "raising slaves for market."" But the
breeding of slaves was not, in general, regarded favor-
ably in that colony. It seems to have been unprofitable.
Negro children were, indeed, sold by the pound but the .
market was sadly sluggish, for negro babies were adver-
tised in Boston to be given away like puppies and some- '
times money was offered to any one that would take
them.*^ Thus economic interest hoodwinked the Cal-
vinist conscience as it always hoodwinks or swamps the •
conscience of the master class in matters of class dom-
inance.

Some show must, of course, be made of approxi-
mating the relations of the disinherited to those of the
privileged class. Thus in 1745 a negro slave obtained
a divorce for his wife's adultery (with a white man)
and in 1758 the Superior Court decided that a child of
a female slave "never married according to any of the
forms prescribed by the laws of the land" by another •
slave who "had kept her company with her master's

** Moore. Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts, 69.
*° Earle. Customs and Fashions in Old Neiv England, 89; Moore, op. cit.,
57-

82 The American Family -Colonial Period

consent" was not a bastard. The reader will recall the
mockery of slave marriage previously mentioned.

Slavery never took deep root in New England. The
climate was against it. The fewness of the negroes
tended to make race questions less urgent than in the
South. Some of the farmers ate with their slaves.
Madam Knight complained that in Connecticut slaves
were allowed to sit and eat with the masters. "Into the
dish goes the black hoof as freely as the white hand."
Hawthorne says concerning the slaves of New England :

They were not excluded from the domestic affections; in fam-
ilies of middling rank, they had their places at the board; and
when the circle closed around the evening hearth its blaze
glowed on their dark shining faces, intermixed familiarly with
their master's children.

But the system was evil at best, and did violence to
the fundamentals of morality. There might be cause to
wonder that the subordinating of the marital interests
and family ties of the servile class to monetary consid-
erations did not demoralize the family institutions of
the masters, were it not that bourgeois marriage is
itself an economic institution subordinating love to
money, and further that in a society marked by class
cleavage each social level preserves its own ethic, more
or less distinct and insulated from that of the other
classes. And we need only note the present-day phe-
nomenon of "the divided conscience" in order to appre-
ciate the incongruities that economic interest can per-
petrate. The colonial conscience was able to witness
even the shocking system of white servitude with its
ruinous effects. Massachusetts tried to sell children of
Quakers to Barbadoes but could find no shipmaster base
enough to take them.*''

*^ Moore, op. cit., 33.

V. THE POSITION OF WOMEN IN THE
NEW ENGLAND COLONIAL FAMILY

The rigors and dangers of pioneer life constit
colonial New England a man's world. Life condi
allowed a type of patriarchism that found affinity in the/
Old Testament regime. Views as to proper relation*
between husband and wife, parent and child, or be-
tween man and maid before marriage, came directly
from the scriptures, as for example Calvin's views
quoted in an introductory chapter. Byington thinks
that "The Courtship of Miles Standish" gives us a very
correct picture of the social and family life of the Pil-
grims. The proxy wooing suggests the patriarchal
story of Isaac.

Inasmuch as the husband was the patriarch, woman |
found in matrimony but limited freedom. Sewall re- |
ports a wedding address by Mr. Noyes in which he said
that: "Love was the sugar to sweeten every condition
in the married relation." It is to be feared that there
was no superabundance of sugar in the Puritan domestic
economy. An excess of male despotism is more prob-
able. One man that abused his wife asserted in good
ancestral phrase that she was his servant and slave.

Woman was indeed "a sweet sex" but her sphere was
narrow. Altho it was a woman that gave the first plot
of ground for a free school in Massachusetts, education
even in common schools was withheld from girls until
it was found necessary to allow them to attend during
the summer (while the boys were busy fishing) in or-

84 The American Family - Colonial Period

der to hold school moneys.*' One Connecticut town
voted not to "waste" any of its money in educating
girls.''* One small maiden sat for hours daily on the
schoolhouse steps in order to catch as much as possible
of the lessons going on inside. By the middle of the
eighteenth century girls were sometimes sent to the city
to finishing school. In 1788 Northampton voted not
to spend any money on the education of girls. It was
well into the nineteenth century before the New Eng-
landers thought education for girls desirable. Mrs.
John Adams said: "It was fashionable to ridicule fe-
male learning. . . Female education in the best
families went no further than writing and arithmetic;
in some few and rare instances, music and dancing."
Woman's only chance for much intellectual improve-
ment was to be found in occasional contact with the
learned, and in the families of the educated class. The
only useful instruction in practical afifairs was received
from the mother. When Governor Winthrop's wife
lost her mind her Puritan women friends attributed the
calamity to her desertion of her domestic duties and
meddling in man's sphere. Governor Winthrop be-
lieved that the young wife of the governor of Connec-
ticut had gone insane "by occasion of giving herself
wholly to reading and writing." Had she "not gone
out of her way and calling to meddle in such things as
are proper for men, whose minds are stronger, etc., she
had kept her wits, and might have improved them use-
fully and honorably in the place God had set her."

There were, indeed, during the colonial period some
women conspicuous for their brilliancy and mental at-
tainments; but their field was cramped. The principal

*'■ Gage. Woman, Church, and State, 407.
*^ Scribner's Magazine, vol. 1, 762.

Women in the New England Family 85

charge against Mrs. Hutchinson was that she had, con-
trary to Paul, presumed to instruct men. Anne Brad-
street, daughter of Govejrnor Dudley and wife of a gov-
ernor, the mother of eight children, and a faithful per-
former of household and social duties, felt the pressure
when she essayed to write poetry. She says :

I am obnoxious to each carping tongue ^

Who says my hand a needle better fits,

A poets pen all scorn I should thus wrong,
For such despite they cast on female wits :

If what I do prove well, it won't advance,

They'l say it 's stoln, or else it was by chance.

Let Greeks be Greeks, and women what they are
Men have precedency and still excell,

It is but vain unjustly to wage warre:
Men can do best, and women know it well

Preheminence in all and each is yours;

Yet grant some small acknowledgement of ours.

In such an atmosphere it is not strange if, as Fisher says
of the colonies in general, "Married women usually be-
came prudes and retired from all amusements and
pleasures."

Mrs. Adams writing in 1778 says: "I regret the
trifling, narrow, contracted education of the females of
my own country." She quotes some writer thus:

If women are to be esteemed our enemies, methinks it is an ig-
noble cowardice, thus to disarm them, and not allow them the
same weapons we use ourselves ; but if they deserve the titles of
our friends, 'tis an inhuman tyranny to debar them of the priv-
ileges of ingenuous education, which would also render their
friendship so much the more delightful to themselves and
us. . . Their senses are generally as quick as ours; their
reason as nervous, their judgment as mature and solid. . .
Nor need we fear to lose our empire over them by thus improv-
ing their native abilities; since, where there is most learning,

86 The American Family - Colonial Period

sense, and knowledge, there is always observed to be the most
modest}^ and rectitude of manners.

John Adams expressed his belief in the education of
women. He said that great characters usually have
some woman about them and that much of their larger
success and the greatness of their lives is due to her
influence. But in his opinion femmes savantes are
contemptible. Mrs. Adams thought however that "if
we mean to have heroes, statesmen, and philosophers,
we should have learned women."

One writer waxes poetic in his portrayal of the ideal

woman. "Mrs. R had a round and pretty face,

with gentle manners; kept her house well, her only
pride to be neat and orderly. . . The hyacinth fol-
lows not the sun more willingly than she her husband's
pleasure." Dunton remarks, in like vein, of Mrs. Stew-
art of Boston: "Her pride was to be neat and cleanly,
and her thrift not to be prodigal, which made her sel-
dom a non-resident of her household." It was a hard
life -full of drudgery and of daily monotony. In old
letters we find great rejoicing over small luxuries or
labor-saving contrivances that found their way to the
busy housekeeper.

Among the Puritans no spirit of chivalry prevailed.
The Massachusetts colony had a law that women sus-
pected of witchcraft be stripped and their bodies scru-
tinized by a male "witch-pricker" to see if there was
not the devil's mark upon them. When in 1656 two
Quaker women came to Boston from Barbadoes the
deputy-governor apprehended and jailed them. They
were in prison five weeks -till a ship was ready to de-
port them. Endicott would have had them flogged.
At Hartford, 1645, a man was fined "for bequething his

Women in the New England Family 87

wyfe." A Boston paper of 1736 contains the following:

The beginning of last week a pretty odd and uncommon ad-
venture happened in this town, between two men about a certain
woman, each one claiming her as his wife, but so it was, that
one of them had actually disposed of his right in her to the
other for fifteen shillings this currency, who had only paid ten
of it in part, and refus'd to pay the other five, inclining rather to
quit the woman and lose his earnest ; but two gentlemen happen-
ing to be present, who were friends to peace, charitably gave
him half a crown apiece to enable him to fulfil his agreement,
which the creditor readily took, and gave the woman a modest
salute, wishing her well and his Brother Stirling much joy of
his bargain.

The reader will recall what was said in a previous
chapter about the usage of wife-sale in England.

On woman rested the burden of interminable child-
bearing. Large families were the rule. Families of
ten and twelve children were very common. Families
of from twenty to twenty-five children were not rare
enough to call forth expression of wonder. Josselyn
(1673) remarks: "They have store of children."

"Steeped in the Old Testament" where they read,
"Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord : and the fruit
of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of
a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy
is the man that hath his quiver full of them," and living
in an empty land, the springs of fecundity were strong.
Large families were eagerly welcomed. Boston had as
little land to spare as any New England town but in the
allotments women and children received a full share.
In Brookline the early allotments were in proportion to
the size of the family. As bait for immigrants, Gabriel
Thomas wrote of the new world :

The Christian children born here are generally well-favored
and beautiful. . . I never knew any to come into the world

88 The American Family — Colonial Period

with the least blemish . . . being in the general . . .
better-natured, milder, and more tender-hearted than those born
in England.

Equal praise was given to the children of Virginia. It
was also asserted that the average family was larger in
America. The question of pioneer fecundity receives
larger attention in the next volume but it is cited here
in order to emphasize the burden laid upon woman
by primitive standards.

Some specific illustrations may be of service. Speak-
ing of a worthy, Mather said:

He was twice married. By his first wife, the vertuous daugh-
ter of parents therein resembled by her, he had six children.
But his next wife was a young gentlewoman whom he chose
from under the guardianship and with the countenance of Ed-
ward Hopkins Esq., the excellent governor of Connecticut. . .
By the daughter of that Mr. Launce, who is yet living among
us, Mr. Sherman had no less than twenty children added unto
the number of six which he had before. . . One woman [in
New England] has had not less than twenty-two children:
whereof she buried fourteen sons and six daughters. Another
woman has had no less than twenty-three children by one hus-
band; whereof nineteen lived unto men's and women's estate.
A third was mother to seven-and-twenty children: and she that
was mother to Sir William Phips, the late governor of New
England, had no less than twenty-five children besides him;
she had one and twenty sons and five daughters. Now unto the
catalog of such "fruitful vines by the sides of the house" is this
gentlewoman Mrs. Sherman to be enumerated. Behold thus
was our Sherman, that eminent fearer of the Lord, blessed of
Him.

Green, the Boston printer, had thirty children. Wil-
liam Rawson had twenty by one wife. The reverend S.
Willard, first minister of Groton, was one of seventeen
children and himself had twenty. The reverend Abijah
Weld of Attleboro, Massachusetts, had fifteen children.

Women in the New England Family 89

The reverend Moses Fisher had sixteen. Of Mrs.
Sara Thayer, who died in 1751, a local poet wrote:

Also she was a fruitful vine,

The truth I may relate, -
Fourteen was of her body born

And lived to mans estate.

From these did spring a numerous race,

One hundred thirty-two;
Sixty and six each sex alike,

As I declare to you.

And one thing more remarkable,

Which I shall here record:
She'd fourteen children with her

At the table of our Lord.

One worthy colonist died in 1771 leaving a progeny of
one hundred eight children, grandchildren, and great-
grandchildren. Another Massachusetts man died about
the same time, leaving one hundred fifty-seven issue
alive, including five great-grandchildren.

In the seventeenth century, in spite of early marriage
and very high birth-rate, increase was offset by fright-
ful mortality of children; so that the slaughter of
womanhood in incessant child-bearing was relatively
vain. Significant is the inscription on a Plymouth

grave-stone: "Here lies with twenty small

children.

Perhaps there is danger of overdrawing the harsh
lines in colonial family life. There was real affection
in many cases between Puritan husbands and wives. A
few love letters ofTer proof. And the New Englanders
wrote many eulogies of their wives. Ministers sounded
in tedious sermons the piety of colonial women and
poets sang their charms. A colonial writer (supposed-

90 The American Family - Colonial Period

ly President Clap of Yale, 1740- 1766) pays this trib-
ute to his wife :

[The Lord had apparently supplied his want of a woman of
serene temper, and piety.] And if it happened at any time that
we seemed not altogether to agree in our opinion or inclination
about any lesser matter we used to discourse upon it, with a per-
fect calmness and pleasancy ; but she did not choose to debate
long upon any such thing but was always free and ready enough
to acquiesce in the opinion or inclination of her husband. And
such was her kind and obliging carriage to me, that I took great
pleasure in pleasing her in everything that I could. . . And
if at any time she had any just and necessary occasion to correct
her children or servants she would do it with a proper and
moderate smartness so as effectually to answer yet without the
least passion or ruffle of mind. . . [If her husband was re-
miss in anything, she gently intimated it to him, and (he says)
she was usually right.] She always went through the difficul-
ties of childbearing with a remarkable steadfastness, faith, pa-
tience, and decency. . . Indeed she would sometimes say to
me that bearing, tending and burying children was hard work,
and that she had done a great deal of it for one of her age, (she
had six children, whereof she buried four, and died in the 24
year of her age.) yet would say it was the work she was made
for, and what God in his providence had called her to, and
she could freely do it all for Him.

Minister Clap in his diary speaks thus of his wife:

She exceeded all persons that ever I saw, in a most serene, pleas-
ant, and excellent temper and disposition, which rendered her
very agreeable and lovely to me, and all that were acquainted
with her. I lived with her in the house near eleven years, and
she was my wife for almost nine, and I never saw her in any
unpleasant temper. Indeed I took great pleasure in pleasing
her in everj'thing which I thought I conveniently could ; and if
she erred in anything of that nature, it was sometimes in not in-
sisting upon her own inclination so much as a wife may mod-
estly do. [When he concluded to marry again he prayed:] If
it be thy holy will and pleasure, I entreat thou wouldst bestow
upon me one who is of a healthy constitution, chaste, diligent,

Women in the New England Family 91

prudent, grave and cheerful - one who is descended from cred-
ible parents, who has been well educated in the principles of
religion, virtue, industry, and decent behavior. And may be
the desire of mine eye, as well as the delight of my heart.

Back in the seventeenth century, the century of Puri-
tanism, Anne Bradstreet wrote

To MY Dear and Loving Husband

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me ye women if you can.

I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold.
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that Rivers cannot quench, yc

Nor ought but love from thee, give recompence.

Thy love is such I can no way repay.
The heavens reward thee manifold I pray.
Then while we live, in love lets so persever.
That when we live no more, we may live ever.

Thomas Shepherd, pastor at Cambridge from 1636
to 1649, wrote on the death of his second wife that the
Lord mixes mercy and affliction.

My dear, precious, meek, and loving wife [has died in child-
birth leaving two dear children. The Lord threatened to pro-
ceed in rooting out my family like Eli's.] I saw that if I had
profited by my former afflictions of this nature, I should not
have had this scourge. . . This loss was very great. She
was a woman of incomparable meekness of spirit, toward my-
self especially, and very loving; of great prudence to take care
for and order my family affairs, being neither too lavish nor
sordid in anything, so that I knew not what was under her
hands. . . The death of her first-born . . , was a
great affliction to her. . . She . . . was the comfort
of my life to me. . . When her fever began . . . she
told me . . . we should love exceedingly together because

qz The American Family -Colonial Period

we should not live long together. . . Thus God hath
much scourged me for my sins, and sought to wean me from this
world.

It was not prudent for the Puritan husband to be
publicly demonstrative. Captain Kemble of Boston sat
two hours in the public stocks (1656) for his "lewd and
unseemly behavior" in kissing his wife "publicquely"
on the Sabbath upon his doorstep when he had just re-
turned from a voyage of three years.*^

Even such a scandalous wight as Captain Underbill
had some regard for wifely wisdom. Against his will he
had been prevailed upon by his wife to wear his helmet
to battle against the Indians and it had saved his life.
So he writes :

Let no man despise advice and counsel of his wife, tho she be a
woman. It were strange to nature to think a man should be
bound to fulfil the humor of a woman what arms he should
carry; but you see God will have it so that a woman should
overcome a man. What with Delilah's flattery and with her
mournful tears, they must and will have their desire, when the
hand of God goes along in the matter. . . Therefore let the
clamor be quenched I daily hear in my ears, that New England
men usurp over their wives, and keep them in servile subjec-
tion. The country is wronged in this matter as in many things
else. Let this precedent satisfy the doubtful for that comes
from the example of a rude soldier. If they be so courteous to
their wives, as to take their advice in warlike matters, how
much more kind is the tender affectionate husband to honor his
wife as the w^eaker vessel? Yet mistake not. I say not that
they are bound to call their wives in council, tho they are bound
to take their private advice (so far as they see it make for their
advantage and their good).

On his trips with circuit court John Adams used to
keep his wife regularly informed of his experiences.
She does not appear to have often replied to these let-
ters. To do so would have been difKcult, in that day of

■*» Earle. Colonial Dames and Goodivives, 136.

Women in the New England Family 93

slow post, with him on the move. She was in closest
sympathy with the development of his mind toward the
Revolution. She bids adieu to domestic felicity, per-
haps until they shall meet in another world. By her
prudence during her husband's period of preoccupation
in public afifairs, she saved him the embarrassment of
poverty in later years. She was a moderating influence
upon his fieriness.

It is evident that practice in the best families in re-
spect to woman's place outstript legal theory as implied
in such a law as that of Massachusetts to the effect that
"any conveyance or alienation of land or other estate
whatsoever, made by any woman that is married, any
child under age, ideott or distracted person, shall be
good if it be passed and ratified by the consent of a gen-
erall court." The pater familias was not absolute in his
authority, even in the eyes of the law. Massachusetts
provided that ''no man shall strike his wife, nor any
woman her husband, on penalty of such fine, not ex-
ceeding £10 for one offence, or such corporall punish-
ment as the county court shall determine." The Ply-
mouth law was the same. The Body of Liberties ( 1641 )
ordained that "everie marryed woeman shall be free
from bodily correction or stripes by her husband, unless
it be in his own defence upon her assault. If there be
any just cause of correction complaint shall be made to
authoritie assembled in some court, from which only
she shall receive it."

Wives enjoyed large protection from early laws. A
man was not permitted to keep his wife on remote and
dangerous plantations but must "bring her in, else the
town will pull his house down." A man might not
leave his wife for any length of time nor "marrie too
wifes which were both alive for anything that can ap-

94 The American Family - Colonial Period

pear otherwise at one time." Nor must he even use
''hard words" to her.^°

The question of wifely subjection was not in all cases
a simple one. In Rhode Island Mr. Verin's wife used
to go out the back way to the adjoining house of Roger
Williams to listen to his religious talks. Verin forbade
her and the matter came up to the council. It was ob-
jected that a motion to censure Verin would mean that
"men's wives and children and servants could claim
liberty to go to all religious meetings, tho never so
often." One Arnold asserted that 'Svhen he consented
to that order" for religious liberty, "he never intended
it should extend to the breach of any ordinance of God,
such as the subjection of wives to their husbands," etc.
One Green replied "that if they should restrain their
wives etc, all the. women of the country would cry out
of them, etc." Arnold alleged that the desire to be
gadding about was not prompted altogether by woman's
conscience. Governor Winthrop notes that some mem-
bers of the church at Providence suggested that if
Goodman Verin would not allow his wife entire liberty
to attend meeting on Sunday and weekly lectures as
often as she desired "the church would dispose her to
some other man who would use her better." The final
action condemned Verin (1638). "It was agreed that
Joshua Verin, upon the breach of a covenant for re-
straining of the libertie of conscience, shall be withheld
from the libertie of voting till he shall declare the con-
trarie." He soon left Providence. Williams wrote of
Verin:

He hath refused to hear the word with us (which we molested
him, not for this i2month) so because he could not draw his
wife, a gracious modest woman, to the same ungodliness with
50 Earle. Customs and Fashions in Old Neiu England, 68.

Women in the New England Family 95

him, he hath trodden her underfoot tj'rannically and brutishly;
which she and we long bearing, tho with his furious blows she
went in danger of her life, at the last the major vote of us dis-
card him from our civil freedom, or disfranchise.

Women's property interests received a measure of
legal protection. It was enacted in Plymouth in 1636
(perhaps under the influence of Dutch law) that when
lands were seized to satisfy the creditors of a deceased
man the part reserved for the support of wife and chil-
dren could not be touched. In 1646 the consent of the
wife was made necessary to the sale of houses or lands.
This measure was reenacted in 1658. Massachusetts
(1647) allowed the widow one-third of her husband's
estate as dowry. Previously the Body of Liberties had
provided that "if any man at his death shall not leave
his wife a competent portion of his estate, upon just
complaint made to the general court she shall be re-
lieved."

In Connecticut "when any man dieth intestate leav-
ing an estate his widdow" shall have besides the third
part of his real estate during her life "a part also of his
personall estate equall to his eldest child, provided it
exceed not a third part of the sd personall estate, which
said part of her husband's personall estate shall be her
own forever" (1696). The records of Connecticut
show that "in the first settlement of the colony land was
of little value in comparison with what it now [1723]
is, by which means it became a general custom, that the
real estate of any person" descending to his daughters
"became . . . the proper and sole estate of their
husbands, and might be by him alienated or disposed of
without the knowledge or consent of such wives; and a
great number of estates having been thus settled and so
remain at this day. . ." Hereafter such real estate is

96 The American Family - Colonial Period

not to be alienable without the wife's consent. In
Rhode Island the dower right was used as a check on
wives. It was ordained that a married woman "that
elopeth with her adventurer" should lose her dower of
lands.

The reasonableness of provision for the widow is ex-
pressed in the case of a woman of Plymouth colony
thus: "Joane Tilson her husband dying without will,
and forasmuch as she hath bine a true laborer with
him . . . that shee shall have £30 sterling out of
the said estate."

In Rhode Island, 1671, Mr. R. Waterman died in-
testate. The town council allotted the widow the en-
joyment of house and lot, other lands and meadows,
w^ith the cattle, for her "maintenance and the bringing
up of the orphans five small children." In December,
1699, a curious agreement was made between George
Potter and Rachel, his wife. She had with his

Consent and in hope of more peaceable Hveing, withdrawn her-
self and removed to Boston for some time: and now finding it
uncomfortable so to live and I being desirous to come together
againe, doe here for her further incouragement and to prevent
after strifes and alienations propose these Artikles. I. She has
given some things to her children. I shall never abraid her
nor seek a return to them. 2ly. Our house and land, if I dye
before my wife, she shall have it during her widowhood and
bearing my name. In case of marriage she shall enjoy 1/3,
other 2/3 to my nearest relations- at her decease her 1/3 to re-
turn. 3ly. I will not sell or mortgage any house or lands.
4ly. I promise to dwell in all loving and quiet behavior. All
moveables she shall possess at my desease. 5ly. I Rachel Potter
if it appear I have desposed of more than one bed since our de-
parture, said bed shall be returned.

Such an agreement suggests an approach to equality,
freedom, and mutuality between husband and wife.
A few instances of bequests to wives may reflect in a

Women in the New England Family 97

measure the regard of husband for wife. Thomas Man
gives his wife the use of all the household goods so long
as she remains a widow. If she remarried, three-
fourths of the goods should go to the daughters, one-
fourth to the mother. In 1787 John Potter made con-
siderate provision for his wife. A good riding beast,
saddle and bridle with one good cow was to go to either
son with whom she might choose to live. Firewood
was to be brought to her room and she was to have
everything to make her happy. If she should marry,
these bequests were to go to the daughters. This con-
ditioning of bequests on abstinence from remarriage
illustrates the concept of the wife as an annex to the
husband rather than as an individual personality.

Intestate settlements are an index of public opinion.
This fact makes significant such a case as that when
William Turpin died intestate in 171 1, leaving a widow
and three children. The son William agrees with his
"mother-in-law" [step-mother?] to allow her the room
now occupied by her in his father's house for life with
benefit of fire, etc. If she needed a physician the ex-
pense was to be borne out of her own estate.

Tho the home was not sacred from the invasion of the
state in case of parental unfitness, nevertheless, in the
normal home domestic ties were manifold and strong
in these simple days before economic evolution had
banished or even considerably weakened home indus-
tries. The normal home was an almost self-sufficient
unit. The wife attended to all manner of household
manufactures after the fashion set by the virtuous
woman in the last chapter of Proverbs.

But the impression that the colonial dame performed
Herculean labors is a myth. These tours de force were
rarely performed by a one-woman household. The

98 The American Family -Colonial Period

wife bore and reared children and superintended the
house; but she did not do the heavy work if there was
need of her services in other lines. Some families had
numerous trained and capable servants. In the country
daughters not needed at home worked in neighbors'
households until married. Many families in town and
country took bound children to raise for the returns
from their labor. They were generally children of
neighbors or friends. They were not always well treat-
ed. The commonest helpers were the unmarried sis-
ters of husband or wife. Moreover, most of the large
families of earlier times were the offspring of at least
two mothers," and the later wives had fewer children.
The first wife would get quickly six or seven children
and die exhausted by maternity and labor. The next
wife, young and sturdy, would take hold and bring up
the family, some of whom were likely old enough to be
of help. She would have three or four children, per-
haps at longer intervals. If a third wife supervened
she had a strong corps of assistants. The number of
women that actually performed unaided the fabled
tasks while bearing and rearing many children was
probably not much greater than now. Many children
died before their rearing was much of a tax. The typ-
ical family included several adult unmarried women,
unpaid servants of their kindred. Often they filled a
place of honor and esteem but in many cases they la-
bored bitterly in dishonor- "old maids" in the sense
that made the term one of intense reproach. These toil-
ing spinsters are forgotten and their toils have been put
down to the account of their married sisters. The exis-
tence of such a supply of high-class cheap labor de-

si Compare Hall and Smith, Marriage and Fecundity of Colonial Men
and fVomen, in Pedagogical Seminary, vol. x, 275-314.

Women in the New England Family 99

pressed the wages of domestic servants, and formed a
tradition that has remained unto this day as a weight
upon household service."

The presence of a number of unmarried females in
the household gave grounds for the enforcement of the
Mosaic prohibition of marriage within forbidden de-
grees. We can imagine that the home would not have
been very harmonious if the wife had felt that her sis-
ters living in the same house were potential rivals and
successors. In colonial days the family connections
were closer than now and it was not unreasonable that
persons related even by marriage should have been pro-
hibited from marrying each other. Such restrictions
would make less constrained and precarious the inter-
course of large groups of kinsfolk. Whether or not the
colonists were conscious of this reason for the "forbid-
den degrees" it is tolerably sure that these restrictions
would not have lingered had they been altogether an-
achronistic.

In fact the barriers could scarcely be maintained.
In 1 69 1 Hannah Owen and Josiah Owen were adjudged
to be "within the line of kindred or affinity forbidden"
and ordered to cohabit no more. Hannah "owned that
she was said Josiah's own brother's relict." To Josiah,
who had brought about the marriage, nothing was done.
The woman was ordered to "make a public acknowl-
edgement of her sin and evil before the congregation at
Braintree on their Lecture Day, or on the Lord's Day."
Samuel Newton of Marlborough married his uncle's
widow and had two children by her. The marriage
was declared void "by the word of God as also by the
law of England;" and they were forbidden to continue

''2 MacGill. "Myth of the Colonial Housewife," in the Independent, vol.
Ixix, 1318-1322.

lOO The American Family -Colonial Period

in their "incest." In Massachusetts, 1695, ^ bill against
incest was passed by the slight margin of twenty-seven
to twenty-four.

The ministers gave in their arguments yesterday in writing;
else it had hardly gone, because several have married their
wives' sisters, and the deputies thought it hard to part them.
'Twas concluded on the other hand that not to part them were
to make the law abortive, by begetting in people a conceipt that
such marriages were not against the law of God.

This law forbade marriage with wife's sister or niece.
A few years later Samuel Sewall wrote to his cousin
who had asked advice about a proposed marriage to the
widow of his cousin-german. Samuel advised against
the marriage on the ground of doubtful degrees and
cited the Assembly's annotations on Leviticus^ xviii. The
gist of this is that as far as the ties of kindred love reach,
so far the prohibition of marriage extends. Marriage
should be with more remote persons "that so charity
might be more diffusive; and not so contracted to one's
kindred as it was among the Jews." Sewall says the
Indians seldom marry so near as cousins-german and
surely we ought not to have to go to school to them.
Besides the saints disapprove. How much the Con-
necticut saints disapproved of what they considered in-
cest is apparent from the law that he who married a
sister-in-law was punished (and the wife too) with
forty lashes on the bare back and forced to wear a letter
"I" sewed on the outside of arm or on the back.

But not all women were content to constitute domestic
problems. The spirit of self-reliance was, in case of
necessity, as quick and steady in women of at least the
later colonial period as now. But even in the early
days, as suggested in our reference to the exploits of
"ancient maids," women could do things. Governor

Women in the New England Family loi

John Winthrop Junior's afifairs in New Haven seem to
have been placed in the care of Mrs. Davenport, wife
of the Reverend John. There even were women voters
in the New England colonies.^^ Advertisements from
1720 to 1800 show that women were teachers, embroid-
erers, jelly-makers, cooks, wax-workers, japanners,
mantua makers, dealers in crockery, musical instru-
ments, hardware, farm products, groceries, drugs, wines
and spirits; and Hawthorne noted one colonial woman
that ran a blacksmith shop. Peter Faneuil's account-
books show dealings with many Boston tradeswomen,
some of whom bought thousands of pounds' worth of
imported goods in a year. On the list of Salem con-
spirators against taxation may be found the names of
five women merchants. Women also published news-
papers.^" Most of these took charge on the death of a
husband, brother, or son who had been editor. Some-
times they substituted for their male relatives in case of
sickness or press of affairs. Women in New England
coast towns were urged to participate actively in for-
eign commerce by sending a "venture" when a vessel
departed with a cargo. Mrs. Grant, a business woman
of Newport, who assumed charge of the business on her
husband's death, found out that her lawyer was a rascal ;
so she rushed into court, pleaded a case for herself, and
won the verdict. For nearly a century and a half after
the landing of the Pilgrims there were practically no
women wage-earners, however, outside of domestic ser-
vice.

Colonial women were not altogether out of the "great
world," the world of fashion. There were no fashion
papers in the old days, but dolls dressed in the latest

•'•^ Bjorkman and Porritt. fVoman Suffrage- History, Arguments, Re-
sults, 5 ; Stanton, et al. History of Woman Suffrage, vol. i, footnote 208.
•''* For details see Stanton et al., History of IVoman Suffrage, vol. i, 43-44.

I02 The American Family -Colonial Period

styles were exhibited. The following is a New Eng-
land advertisement of the eighteenth century:

To be seen at Mrs. Hannah Teats', a baby drest after the new-
est fashions. . . Lately arrived from London. Any ladies
that desire to see it may either come or send. . . If they
come . . . two shillings, and if she waits on 'em it is seven
shillings.

Back in the early days Nathaniel Ward, minister at
Ipswich (1634-1636), expressed disgust with extrava-
gant fashions.

Writers tell us in glowing terms of woman's high
position in colonial New England. Elliot says in The
New England History: "In New England, women
were never made the slaves, or inferiors of men; they
were co-equal in social life, and held a position superior
to that held by them in England." Dexter tells us that

The Plymouth colony w^as the first in this country if not in the
whole world, to recognize and honor woman. From the very
outset, she had her rightful place at her husband's side as her
children's head. And the Plymouth wives and mothers . . .
were worthy of the men by whose side they stood. They rep-
resented in character and experience the best type of woman-
hood of that age. The same thing was true of the colony of
Massachusetts Bay.

Warfield writes:

There was material for Hawthorne's masterpiece even in Mass-
achusetts Bay . . . but the current ran deep and strong
through simple lives, finding their inspiration and happiness in
the family, its home life, its bonds of affection, its widening
circuit as younger generations cut their way westward through
the forest. The familiar picture of the Puritan father [which
Warfield seems to think overdrawn] is that of a man burdened
with the responsibilities of life for himself and for his children.
The companion piece is a mother who is a shield and a com-
forter, sharing the faith of her husband but manifesting its
gentler aspects; not less anxious for the moral conduct of her

Women in the New England Family 103

offspring, but more confident of the value of a ministry of
love. . . Throughout the colonies for the greater part of
their history, the wife and mother dominated the home, ruling
it with a light hand and a loving sway. The home life was
very simple. The home training was reduced to a narrow field
of purpose. The boys were to be fitted to go forth and earn a
living, setting up homes for themselves as soon as possible. The
girls were trained to become housewives.

Of course such generalizations partake of idealiza-
tion. These pictures of the matriarchate of love are too
idyllic. Warfield's generalization would be rather
poetic even for our day.

VI. THE STATUS OF CHILDREN IN THE
NEW ENGLAND COLONIAL FAMILY

If one were to infer the colonial attitude toward chil-
dren from the prevalent fecundity he might guess that
children were held in great esteem. The inference
would be only partly correct. Dependent on men for
the opportunity to live, women were the instruments of
male gratification and did not realize their degrada-
tion. They were the vicarious sacrifice to the peopling
of a continent. The children were providential acci-
dents, prized, indeed, in a rather instinctive fashion by
a people soaked in Hebraism, and living close to the
line of annihilation, or, if more prosperous, requiring
heirs that their hoard of goods might pass on with dis-
tinction and men to occupy the continent against all
comers.

Colonial childhood is largely hidden in obscurity.
Letters and diaries contain little mention of the chil-
dren save the record of births and deaths and maladies
and the like. Children were "to be_^en not heard, ^V
and not seen too much either. There was no purpose to
make the child appear valuable or noteworthy to him-
self or others. Scientific child study was a thing of the
future.

Yet the family of moderate means was in many ways
better off in America than in England and children
profited by the improvement. It was difficult at first to
rear children in the new country. In the bareness and
cold of Massachusetts, mortality of infants was fright-

io6 The American Family - Colonial Period

ful. One man had sixteen children. The first was
only a year and a half old when the second was born.
When the baby was four days old the older child died.
This calamity was five times repeated. Married nine
years the mother had one child living and five dead.
With freezing homes, bad diet, and Spartan treatment
it does not seem strange that a large proportion of sev-
enteenth century children died in infancy. This was
the case even in the most favored families; thus of Cot-
ton Mather's fifteen children only two survived him
and of Judge Sewall's fourteen only three outlived their
father.

This curtailment in face of the vacancy of a limitless
continent enhanced the value of children. This in-
creased esteem is obvious in colonial laws and children
began to acquire that growing sense of their own im-
portance that has at length illumined "the century of
the child."

The colonists still believed in astrology; hence the
very minute of the child's birth was recorded. Parents
searched for names of deep import, and this with a view
to their influence on the child's life. Quack medicines
and vile doses were in evidence even tho it seems that
Locke's Thoughts on Education published in England
in 1690 was popular in the new world. It occurs on
many old library lists in New England and among the
few volumes on the single book shelf. His precepts
were diffused on the pages of almanacs, the "best sell-
ers" (save the Bible) of all eighteenth century books.
From him came such practical suggestions as "always
wetting children's feet in cold water to toughen them;
and also have children wear thin-soled shoes that the
wet may come freely in." It was urged that boys
should go hatless and nightcapless as soon as they had

Children in the New England Family 107

hair. Josiah Quincy at three years was taken from his
warm bed, winter and summer, carried to the cellar
kitchen, and dipped three times in water just from the
pump. He said that in his boyhood he sat more than
half the time with wet feet without ill effects. Many
Revolutionary heroes grew up under Locke's strenuous
rules of dietary and sleeping. If his embargo on
"physic" was too little followed, it was a cause for re-
gret. But less beer was consumed in America than in
the Old World, and more milk -a change beneficial to
colonial children.

Nothing was allowed to interfere with due observance
of religious form. The infant must be taken to the fire-
less church for baptism on the first Sabbath after birth
no matter if ice had to be broken in the font. He went
in the arms of the midwife- a great colonial dignitary.
One parson practiced immersion till his own children
nearly succumbed under the ordeal. It is said that the
meeting-house contained sometimes a little wooden
cage or frame to hold babies too young or feeble or
sleepy to sit up. One would suppose that the inter-
minable sermons in icy churches must have been re-
sponsible for many deaths.

The century of colony-planting, the seventeenth, was,
in Europe, an age of precocity. The same atavism
characterized the American colonies. A stern theology
contributed to this distortion of childhood. Michael
Wigglesworth, "the most popular versifier of early
New England Puritanism," in his Day of Doom, which
countless children had to learn, represents children de-
ceased in infancy as pleading with the judge that if
Adam, the author of original sin, is saved, they should
also be. Christ tells them that if Adam had stood true
they would have been glad to enjoy the reward ; so they

io8 The American Family -Colonial Period

ought to be satisfied to take the penalty. Edwards, in a
sermon, describes parents in heaven "with holy joy
upon their countenances" at the torment of their little
ones. This view of the depravity of child nature made
it necessary to seek infantile conversion. Children
from their earliest years were confronted with the ter-
rors of hell from which they could escape only by fol-
lowing what they were taught and abstaining from
everything they would naturally want to do. Cotton
Mather writes:

I took my little daughter Katy [aged four] into my study and
there told my child that I am to dy shortly and she must, when
I am dead, remember everything I now said unto her. I sett
before her the sinful! condition of her nature and charged her
to pray in secret places every day. That God for the sake of
Jesus Christ would give her a new heart. . . I gave her to
understand that when I am taken from her she must look to
meet with more humbling afflictions than she does now she has
a tender father to provide for her.

This was thirty years before he died.

Judge Sewall records the distress of his daughter
Betty who burst out in a sudden cry, fearing she would
go to hell.

She was first wounded by my reading a sermon of Mr. Nor-
ton's; text "Ye shall seek me and shall not find me." And
those words in the sermon "Ye shall seek me and die in your
sins" ran in her mind and terrified her greatly. And staying
at home she read out of Mr. Cotton Mather, "Why had Satan
filled thy heart," which increased her fear. Her mother asked her
whether she prayed. She answered "yes" but feared her prayers
were not heard because her sins were not pardoned. . .
[Two weeks later he wrrites:] Betty comes in as soon as I was
up and tells me the disquiet she had when wak'd. Told me
she was afraid she should go to hell ; was like Spira not elected.
Ask'd her what I should pray for, she said that God .would
pardon her sin and give her a new heart. I answered her fears

Children in the New England Family 109

as well as I could, and prayed with many fears on either part.
Hope God heard us.

Jonathan Edwards tells of Phebe Bartlet who at four
was greatly affected by the talk of her brother converted
a little before at about eleven. Her parents were not
used to directing their serious counsels to their chil-
dren, especially not to her as they thought her too
young. But they watched her after her brother's talk
listen earnestly to the advice they gave to the other chil-
dren. She retired to pray several times daily. She
one day told her mother her fear she should go to hell.
Her mother quieted her, told her she must be a good
girl and pray every day and that she hoped God would
give her salvation. Later the child experienced salva-
tion. When questioned she said she loved God better
than father or mother or sister or anything. Then she
cried for fear her sister would go to hell. At church
she did not spend her time in child fashion. She went
once with bigger children to a neighbor's lot to get
plums. Her mother reproved her gently for taking
them without leave. She had not known it was wrong.
Distressed over her sin she retained her aversion to the
fruit for a considerable time tho the other children were
not much affected.

Anne Dudley at six or seven tells her grief at her
"neglect of Private Duteys" in which she is too often
lax. At sixteen recognizing herself as "carnall and
sitting loose from God" she accepts the smallpox as a
"proper rebuke to her pride and vanity." Nathaniel
Mather tells us in his diary:

When very young I went astray from God and my mind was
altogether taken with vanities and follies, such as the remem-
brance of them doth greatly abase my soul within me. Of the
manifold sins which then I was guilty of, none so sticks upon

iio The American Family -Colonial Period

me, as that, being very young, I was whittling on the Sabbath
Day, and for fear of being seen I did it behind the door. A
great reproach of God ! a specimen of that Atheism I brought
into the world with me.

Children on the streets mouthed the current phrases
and during the Hutchinson trial jeered at one another
as believers in the "Covenant of Works" or in the "Cov-
enant of Grace."

In many cases parental zeal for education over-
stimulated and forced baby minds. One of the most
precocious w^as a girl born in Boston in 1708. In her
second year she knew her letters and "could relate many
stories out of the Scriptures to the satisfaction and
pleasure of the most judicious." At three she knew
most of the catechism, many psalms, many lines of
poetry, and read distinctly; at four she asked many
astonishing questions about theology. (Her father was
president of Harvard.) A letter of Jonathan Edwards
written at twelve sounds like the work of a grown man.
Boys entered Boston Latin School as young as six and a
half. They often began Latin much younger. Infants
of three were sometimes taught to read Latin words as
soon as English. One minister used to throw the book
at a child of five for his slowness in learning Latin.
Timothy Dwight is said to have committed the alphabet
in a single lesson and could read the Bible before four
and taught it to his comrades. At six he wanted to
study Latin. Being denied he went at it alone and
studied through the Latin grammar twice. He would
have been ready for college at eight if the grammar
school had not closed. In 1799 a boy of fourteen was
graduated at Rhode Island College.

In other respects than education and religion pre-
cocity was taken for granted. Until the Revolution

Children in the New England Family in

boys became men at sixteen, paid taxes, and served in
the militia. Girl orphans were permitted at fourteen
to choose their own guardians. When Governor Win-
throp's son John was only fourteen, the governor made
the boy executor of his will. He evidently considered
a boy of fourteen or fifteen mature.^^ Such curtailment
of infancy as colonial precocity exhibits evidences the
simplicity of colonial civilization. It was a crime
against childhood. Children of to-day would be nervous
invalids if they were driven by uncanny fear to morbid
introspection such as afflicted the young Puritans.

Those that survived infancy, tho probably as dearly
loved as are children to-day, were denied all the normal
sources of joy and happiness. Childish manners were
formal and meek. Parents were addressed as "esteemed
parent" or "honored sir and madam." A pert child
was generally thought to be delirious or bewitched.
One son of a stern Puritan said that "he never ventured
to make a boy's simple request of his father, to ofifer so
much as a petition for a knife or a ball without putting
it into writing in due form." Children were now and
then favored with a visit to some sainted person who
would bless them or warn them to flee from the wrath
to come. Everybody went to funerals. There was a
dire scarcity of anything worthy to be called children's
literature. The children of to-day would hardly be at-
tracted by such advertisements as these: "Small book
in easey verse Very Suitable for Children, entitled the
Prodigal Daughter or the Disobedient Lady Re-
claimed: adorned with curious cuts, Price 6d." "A
Token for Children. Being the exact account of the
Conversation and Holy and Exemplary Lives of several

■'^ Compare Earle, Child Life in Colonial Days, chapter ix, "Childish
Precocity."

112 The American Family -Colonial Period

Young Children." Or Mather's work, "Some Examples
of Children in whom the Fear of God was remarkably
Budding before they died ; in several Parts of New Eng-
land." How glad the children, after the first quarter
of the eighteenth century, must have been to get Mother
Goose\ Of course to the stern Puritan, inexorably
utilitarian, what afiforded amusement seemed sinful.
Child nature being depraved and wicked must be dam-
pered. Play instincts were inexcusable.

The sense of parental responsibility was strong.
When Cotton Mather's child fell into the fire the father
wrote : "Alas for my sin, the just God throws my child
into the fire!" A similar disaster led him to preach on
"What use ought parents to make of disasters befalling
their children?" Again he was led to preach on "What
parents are to do for the salvation of their children."

Home discipline was relentless. Stern and arbitrary
command compelled obedience, submissive and gen-
erally complete. Reverence and respect for older per-
sons were seldom withheld. Adults believed in the rod
as an instrument of subjugation. John Robinson, the
Pilgrim preacher, said.

Surely there is in all children (tho not alike) a stubbernes and
stoutnes of minde arising from naturall pride which must in
the first place be broken and beaten down that so the founda-
tion of their education being layd in humilitie and tractable-
ness other virtues may in their time be built thereon. It is
commendable in a horse that he be stout and stomackfull being
never left to his own government, but always to have his rider
on his back and his bit in his mouth, but who would have his
child like his horse in his brutishnes?

A little book of etiquette apparently widely circu-
lated in colonial days contains directions for the table
behavior of children:

Never sit down at the table till asked, and after the blessing.

Children in the New England Family 113

Ask for nothing; tarry till it be offered thee. Speak not. Bite
not thy bread but break it. Take salt only with a clean knife.
Dip not the meat in the same. Hold not thy knife upright but
sloping, and lay it down at right hand of plate with blade on
plate. Look not earnestly at any other that is eating. When
moderately satisfied leave the table. Sing not, hum not, wriggle
not. Spit nowhere in the room but in the corner. . . When
any speak to thee, stand up. Say not I have heard it before.
Never endeavor to help him out if he tell it not right. Snigger
not; never question the truth of it.

Some children were indulged and parents did the
best they could for them and grieved at their death.
Touchingly significant is the brief note left by one:
"Fifty years ago today died my little John, Alas!"
Giles Corry refused to plead on the charge of witch-
craft because he had been informed that if convicted of
felony the inheritance of his children would be forfeit
to the crown. Even the discipline of eminent Puritans
reveals kindliness of spirit. Cotton Mather writes:
"My children are with me. I have now three of them
(and my wife's kinswoman) at my table. . . I will
have my table talk facetious as well as instructive, and
use much freedom of conversation in it. . . I will
sett before them some sentences of the Bible." He pub-
lished a booklet (which was "much desired") on A
family Well-ordered; or an Essay to Render Parents
and Children Happy in one another. He tries to train
his children in goodness and piety.

I first beget in them a high opinion of their father's love to
them, and of his being best able to judge, what shall be good for
them. Then I make them sensible, tis a folly for them to pre-
tend unto any witt and will of their own . . . my word
must be their law. . . I would never come to give a child a
blow; except in case of obstinacy or some gross enormity. To
be chased for a while out of my presence I would make to be
looked upon, as the sorest punishment in the family. . . The

114 Tilt' American Family -Colonial Period

stanch way of Education, carried on with raving and kicking
and scourging (in schools as well as families) tis abominable;
and a dreadful judgment of God upon the world. . . [He
prays with his children; sets before them heaven and hell, etc.
He would use their games to make them think of piety and
goodness.] I would put my children upon chusing their sev-
eral ways of usefulness, and enkindle in them as far as I can, a
mighty desire of being useful in the world, and assist them unto
the uttermost."

It was a child of this man that, dying at two years and
seven months, "made a most edifying end in prayer and
praise."

The reverend Jonathan Edwards of Northhampton
was careful and thoro in his paternal discipline but
his children reverenced, esteemed, and loved him.

He took the utmost care to begin his government of them when
they were very young. When they first discovered any degree
of self-will and stubbornness, he would attend to them until he
had thoroly subdued them, and brought them to submit. Such
prudent discipline, exercised with the greatest calmness, being
repeated once or twice, was generally sufficient for that child,
and efiEectually established his parental authority, and produced
a cheerful obedience ever after. [He conversed with his chil-
dren] singly and closely about the concerns of their souls.
In the evening after tea, he customarily sat in the parlor with
his family, for an hour, unbending from the severity of study,
entering freely into the feelings and concerns of his children,
and relaxing into cheerful and animated conversation, accom-
panied frequently with sprightly remarks, sallies of wit and hu-
mor. But before retiring to his study, he usually gave the con-
versation by degrees a more serious turn, addressing his children
with great tenderness and earnestness on the subject of their sal-
vation. . . He was utterly opposed to everj^thing like unrea-
sonable hours on the part of young people, in their visiting and
amusements, which he regarded as a dangerous step toward cor-
rupting them and bringing them to ruin. And he thought the
excuse ofifered by many parents for tolerating this practise in
their children - that it is the custom, and that the children of

Children in the New England Family 115

other people are allowed thus to practise, and therefore it is dif-
ficult and even impossible to restrain them — was insufficient and
frivolous, and manifested a great degree of stupidity-. . . He
allowed none of his children to be absent from home after nine
o'clock at night, when they went abroad to see their friends and
companions; neither were they allowed to sit up much after
that time, in his own house, when any of their friends came to
visit them. If any gentleman desired to address either of his
daughters, after the requisite introduction and preliminaries, he
was allowed all proper opportunities of becoming thoroly ac-
quainted with the manners and disposition of the young lady,
but must not intrude on the customary hours of rest and sleep,
nor on the religion and order of the family.

We are expected to believe that the Edwards young
people went betimes cheerfully to bed. Incidentally
the passage throws significant side-light on the relaxing
of the hold of Puritanism. Many a stern Puritan fam-
ily in America succumbed to the easier ways of the
Church of England.

The letters of John Adams are full of interest from
the standpoint of family training at the end of the
colonial period. Thus in 1774, he writes to his wife:
Let us . . . my dear partner, from that affection which we
feel for our lovely babes, apply ourselves, by every way we can,
to the cultivation of our farm. . . Above all cares of this
life, let our ardent anxiety be to mould the minds and manners
of our children. [Again] : Pray remember me to my dear
little babes, whom I long to see running to meet me and climb
up upon me under the smiles of their mother. . . For God's
sake make your children hardy, active, and industrious', for
strength, activity, and industry will be their only resource and
dependence. [Once more] : Remember my tender love to little
Abby; tell her she must write me a letter. . . I am charmed
with your amusement with our little Johnny. Tell him I am
glad to hear he is so good a boy as to read to his mamma for
her entertainment, and to keep himself out of the company of
rude children. Tell him I hope to hear a good account of his
accidence and nomenclature when I return. . . The educa-

ii6 The American Family -Colonial Period

tion of our children is never out of my mind. Train them to
virtue. Habituate them to industr,v, activity, and spirit.

Later he is distressed at illness of the family, and la-
ments the death of his mother-in-law. He says the
children were better for her influence. John Quincy,
aged seven, writes a bright little letter to his father tell-
ing of his lessons and reading and hope to see his father.
When the boy is ten, the father writes to him recom-
mending certain formidable historical reading. His
letters to his wife refer repeatedly to the need of train-
ing the children in good habits. She says on one
occasion:

I often point them to their sire -

engaged in a corrupted state,
wrestling with vice and faction.

These letters disclose a human interest and spirit in fam-
ily life, which, while not lax, is remote from fanaticism.
In addition to home training the New Englanders
provided schools. Each town had a school. By 1649
some degree of education was compulsory in every
New England colony except Rhode Island. School in
New England ran seven or eight hours a day. Chil-
dren took a live interest if we may judge by a juvenile
couplet -

New teachers, new laws,
New devils, sharp claws.

Pioneering caused school interest to wane. In conse-
quence of the loss of six hundred men in King Philip's
War, schools were abandoned.

From Judge Sewall and Jonathan Edwards comes
the impression that Puritan children were priggish,
morbid, and doleful. Thanks to these w^orthy men the
odd little creatures whose pictures have descended to us
figure in our fancy as intolerable theologs. But the
evidence is ample that the children of the Puritans no

Children in the New England Family 117

more relished the weary sermons beyond their depths,
with their lurid threats of hell, than children of to-day
relish the imprisonment of the rigid schoolroom or the
tedium of Sunday clothes. Boys and even girls at
church were a pest to the parson and had to be put un-
der town surveillance. Laws passed at the close of
King Philip's War confessed that the war was a judg-
ment on the colony for the "disorder and rudeness of
youth in many congregations in time of the worship of
God, whereby sin and profaneness is greatly increased."
John Pike of Dedham received sixteen shillings in 1723
for "keeping the boys in subjection six months." When
rehired he exacted twice as much. Similar episodes
took place every^vhere. In Harwich, it was voted
"that the same course be pursued with the girls" as with
the boys, and at Farmington in 1772:

Whereas indecencies are practised by the young people in time
of Publick Worship by frequently passing and repassing by one
another in the galleries; intermingh'ng sexes to the great dis-
turbance of many serious and well minded people - Resolved
that each of us that are heads of families will use our utmost
endeavor to suppress the evils.

One might suppose that the corralling of the boys on
the back benches at church promoted the "Rude and
Idel Behavior" which a Connecticut justice entered in
his note-book thus:

Smiling and larfing and intlseing others to the same evil. . .
Pulling the hair of his nayber Veroni Simkins in the time of
public worship. . . Throwing Sister Penticost Perkins on
the ice on the Sabath day between the meeting hows and his
place of abode.

But in spite of strict family discipline human nature
in the colonies was much like human nature elsewhere.
The amusements of the young were sometimes scandal-
ous. There are numerous accounts of "mixt dancings,

ii8 The American Family -Colonial Period

unlawful gamings, extravagance in dress, light be-
havior" and such-like offences. As early as 1657, Bos-
ton deemed it wise to pass a law as follows:

Forasmuch as sundry complaints are made that several persons
have received hurt by boys and young men playing at football in
the streets, these therefore are to enjoin that none be found at
that game in any of the streets, lanes or enclosures of this town
under the penalty of 20s. for every such oifence.

Sewall writes on one occasion :

Joseph threw a knop of brass, and hit his sister Betty on the
forehead so as to make it bleed and swell; upon which and for
his playing at prayer time, and eating when return thanks, I
whipped him pretty smartly.

But tho the judge could manage his own children his
graceless grandchildren were a sore trial. Sam Hirst,
the son of timid Betty, lived with his grandfather for
a while. On April i, 1719, the Judge wrote:

In the morning I dehorted Sam Hirst and Grendall Rawson
from playing idle tricks because 'twas first of April: They
were the greatest fools that did so. [March 15, 1725]: Sam
Hirst got up betime in the morning, and took Ben Swett with
him and went into the Comon to play Wicket. Went before
anybody was up, left the door open : Sam came not to prayer
at which I was much displeased. [Two days later] : Did the
like again, but took not Ben with him. I told him he could
not lodge here practicing thus. So he log'd elsewher.

"What little hope of a happy generation after us,"
runs a seventeenth century plaint, "when many among
us scarcely know how to teach their children man-
ners!" Extreme Puritanism, indeed, did not last long
in full strength. The reverend Ezekiel Rogers, a Pur-
itan preacher who lived at the time when extreme Puri-
tanism was waning, wTote in 1657:

Do your children and family grow more godly? I find great-
est trouble and grief about the rising generation. Young people

Children in the New England Family 119

are little stirred here ; but they strengthen one another in evil by
example and by counsel. Much ado have I with my own
family.

Just before the Revolution a little girl of eight came
from the Barbadoes to her grandmother in Boston to
attend school. The young lady left her grandmother's
roof in great indignation because she was not allowed
wine at all her meals. Her parents took her part say-
ing that she had been reared as a lady and must have
wine when she wished it. Thus imported looseness,
together with the economic advance that relegated as-
ceticism to the rear, contributed in the later days to the
decline of Puritan rigor.

Colonial law upheld, of course, paternal authority.
A Massachusetts law reads thus : "Forasmuch as it ap-
peareth by too much experience, that divers children
and servants do behave themselves disobediently and
disorderly, towards their parents, masters, and govern-
ors [and this not many years after the founding of Mas-
sachusetts!] to the disturbance of families, and discour-
agement of such parents and governors," authority is
given to magistrates to summon offenders and have
them punished by whipping or otherwise. Further-
more, "upon information of diverse loose, vaine, and
corrupt persons . . . which insinuate themselves
into the fellowship of the young people . . . draw-
ing them both by night and by day from their callings,
studyes, and honest occupations and lodging places to
the dishonor of God and grief of their parents, masters,
teachers," therefore "persons under government not to
be entertained in common houses." New Haven made
persons trading with or abetting minors, etc., liable to
punishment. Massachusetts in 1694-1695 made a furth-
er law: "Whereas complaint has been made by sundry

120 The American Family - Colonial Period

inhabitants of this province that have sustained great
damage by their sons and servants deserting their ser-
vice without consent of their parents or masters," being
encouraged aboard ships, a penalty is imposed on ship-
masters for entertaining sons or servants without leave.
Massachusetts had a law against excess of apparel on
children and servants. ''Also if any taylor shall make
or fashion any garment for such children and serv-
ants . . . contrary to the mind and order of their
parents and governors; every such taylor shall for the
first ofifence be admonished; and for the second . . .
forfeit double the value of such apparel or garment."

The law had to take cognizance of the fact that Amer-
ica was a sort of reformatory for parents in the old
country to use. As early as 1647 a law was passed as
follows: "Whereas sundry gentlemen of quality and
others, ofttimes send over their children unto this coun-
try, to some friends here, hoping (at least) thereby to
prevent their extravagant and notoris courses," but they
manage to get credit and go on in extravagance to the
grief of friends, therefore merchants giving credit with-
out authority shall lose the debt.

For incorrigible disobedience to parents the colo-
nists, in accordance with Moses and Calvin, prescribed
the death penalty. The Connecticut statute reads:
Forasmuch as incorrigibleness is also adjudged to be a sin of
death, but noe law yet amongst us established for the execution
thereof . . . it is ordered, that whatsoever child or serv-
ant . . . shall be convicted of any stubborn or rebellious
caridge against their parents or gouernors, wch is a forerunner
of the forementioned evell, the gouernor or any two magistrats
haue liberty and power fro this court to commit such prson or
prsons to the house of correction, and there to remayne under
hard labor and severe punishment, so long as the court or the
major part of the magistrats shall judge meet.

Children in the New England Family 121
The Piscataqua colony had the following law:

If any child or children above 16 yrs. old of competent under-
standing, shall curse or smite their natural father or mother, he
or they shall be put to death unless it can be sufficiently testi-
fied that the parents have been very unchristianly negligent of
the education of such children. , . If any man have a re-
bellious or stubborne son of sufficient years and understanding,
viz. 16 years of age or upwards, wch shall not obey the voice of
his father or the voice of his mother, yt when they have chas-
tened him will not hearken unto them . . . such son shall
be put to death, or otherwise severely punished.

The Bay Colony statute was to the same effect. The
capital laws of Connecticut recognize an additional
mitigating circumstance in case of the smiting, etc., of
parents : "unless . . . the parents . . . so pro-
voke them by extreme and cruell correction that they
have been forced thereunto to preserve themselves from
death, maiming." This law is buttressed with proof
texts. There is no record of the actual infliction of the
death penalty in Massachusetts and probably none else-
where.

Regarding the distribution of property among chil-
dren we find that the Puritan colonists legally repudiat-
ed the feudal principle of male preference and primo-
geniture, tho granting a double portion to the eldest
son (in some colonies). In 1627 De Rasures, a visitor
to Plymouth, found that "In the inheritance they place
all the children in one degree, only the eldest son has
an acknowledgement for his seniority of birth." The
Massachusetts law of 1641 provides that

When parents die intestate, the elder sonne shall have a double
portion of his whole estate reall and personal!, unless the gen-
eral court upon just cause alleged shall judge otherwise. When
parents die intestate having noe heirs male of their bodies their
daughters shall inherit as copartners, unless the general court
upon just reason shall judge otherwise.

122 The American Family - Colonial Period

Connecticut law of 1699 directs that children shall share
equally in the estate of intestates. An example of the
principle of equality is found in the Plymouth records.
The court ordered in the case of a man dying without
will that after the wife's share was deducted "the young-
er children bee made equal to the elder in what they
have had, and for the remainder, after that is done, that
it bee equally devided amongst all the children in equall
proportions." The special privilege of the eldest son
did not last long.

The usage of equal distribution may be derived from
"the custom of Gavelkind in Kent" from which region
many of the first colonists of New England, especially
Connecticut, came. Campbell, however, traces back
to Dutch law our principle of equal division of land
among the children of an intestate."*^ His interpretation,
tho suggestive, is too superficial. The decline of male
primogeniture is essentially a phenomenon of the pass-
ing of feudalism -a system of society based on the own-
ership of land, limited in quantity and demanding mil-
itary service of the holders. As soon as society ceased
to center in military land-holding, the foundation of
male primogeniture crumbled. In America land was!
too abundant to become an insignium of nobility. In!
the North the aristocracy was based on the ownership
of increasable commodities and commerce rather than
of land; society was only incidentally and temporarily
military; so there was no need of limiting inheritance
to the first-born male. Campbell's account of Dutch
usage itself hints at the connection of primogeniture
with feudal institutions. Our interpretation gets to the
bottom of that association.

58 Campbell. The Puritan in Holland, England, and America, vol. ii,
452-453-

Children in the New England Family 123

In so far as the old aristocracy lingered English tra-
ditions as to primogeniture retained their hold inas-
much as parents could use their discretion if they made
a will. Not always were estates divided evenly in New
England. Usually the sons were set above the daugh-
ters. The larger the estate the greater was likely to be
the discrimination. The father of Sir William Pep-
perell left his daughters five hundred pounds each in
addition to previous advances. Then, after a few be-
quests, the whole large estate went to the future baronet,
whereat the daughters and sons-in-law were greatly dis-
appointed. It was the theory in Rhode Island that the
father should provide for his sons and thus for other
men's daughters.

Disinheritance was sometimes used as a means of dis-
cipline. The marriage of a daughter with an unwel-
come swain was often prohibited by will : "not to suffer
her to be circumvented and cast away upon a swagger-
ing gentleman."

One might wonder how parents could provide for
twelve, eighteen, or twenty-four children let alone have
anything to leave them. But children of that period
were soon able to contribute to the family store. When
a host of the children were boys it was doubtless a relief
to the weary mother when a lot of them went to sea, as
in an eighteenth century news item from Portsmouth,
New Hampshire:

There are now livinjz; in this town, a lady and gentleman who
have not been married more than twenty years, and yet have
eighteen sons ; ten of whom are at sea, and eight at home with
their parents.

But it must have been a problem for the reverend Abi-
jah Weld to rear his fifteen children on his salary
of about two hundred and twenty dollars, tho he had

124 ^^'^' ^nierican Family - Colonial Period

a small farm. Moreover he entertained freely and
gave to the poor. Reverend Moses Fisher with his
sixteen children and a salary never over ninety pounds,
usually only sixty pounds paid mainly in corn and wood,
managed to send three sons to college and he married
off all his daughters.

But high fecundity and child labor are consorts. The
colonial home was a little world within whose bounds
woman found her life, under whose roof the children
could, if need were, learn all that was necessary for their
future careers. The Puritans, as has been seen, were
strong for the training of children for their duties here
and beyond. Higgeson in New England's Plantation
(1629) tells that "Little children here by setting of
corne may earne much more than their own mainte-
nance." Less than a decade after Higgeson's rejoicing
at the possibilities of child labor in agriculture, John-
son was praising the people of Rowley who "built a
fulling mill and caused their little ones to be very dili-
gent in spinning cotton wool." The ruling element
was not disposed to allow idleness among the poor. In
Plymouth in 1641 it was ordered "that those that have
relief from the townes and have children and doe not
ymploy them that then it shal be lawful for the Towne-
ship to take order that those children shal be put to
worke in fitting ymployment according to their strength
and abilities or placed out by the Townes." In Massa-
chusetts, 1641, "it is desired and expected that all mas-
ters of families should see that their children and serv-
ants should be industriously implied so as that morn-
ings and evenings and other seasons may not bee lost as
formerly they have bene." In 1642 the orders were
more definite. To keep cattle, alone, was not to be in-
dustrious in the Puritan sense of the word, and such

Children in the New England Family 125

children are also to "bee set to some other impliment
withall as spinning upon the rock, knitting, weveing
tape, etc." The same year it was decreed that all un-
ruly poor children were to be bound out for service. A
law of the general court of 1643 authorizes constables
to whip runaway bound boys. New England's First
Fruits (1642) appeals to Englishmen to stir up "some
well-minded to cloath and transport over poore chil-
dren, boyes and girles, which may be a great mercy to
their bodies and soules."

In 1656 Hull records that "Twenty persons, or about
such a number, did agree to raise a stock to procure a
house and materials to improve the children and youth
of the town of Boston (which want employment) in the
several manufactures." It was considered a public
duty in Massachusetts to provide for the training of
children in learning and in "labor and other employ-
ments which may bee profitable to the commonwealth."
It was probably scarcity of clothing that led to the law ,
"that all hands not necessarily imployed on other occa-
sions as women, girls, and boyes, shall . . . spin )
according to their skill and ability, and that the select- ;
men in every town, do consider the condition and ca-
pacity of every family, and accordingly do assess them
at one or more spinners." The town of Boston in 1672
notified a number of persons to "dispose of their severall
children . . . abroad for servants, to serve by in-
dentures according to their ages and capacities," and if
they neglect so to do "the selectmen will take their said
children from them and place them with such masters
as they shall provide according as the law directs." The
children are both girls and boys from eight years up.
The records of many towns go to show that the practice
of binding out the children of the poor was wide-spread.

126 Tlw American Family -Colonial Period

In Boston, 1682, a workhouse was ordered built to em-
ploy children who "shamefully spend their time in the
streets." Gabriel Harris died in 1684, leaving four
looms; his six children took part in the work. Boston in
1720 appointed a committee which recommended that
twenty spinning-wheels be provided for such children
as should be sent from the almshouse and a Massachu-
setts act of the same year provided that all children of
the poor whose parents, whether receiving alms or not,
were unable to maintain them were to be set to work or
bound out by the selectmen or overseers, the males till
twenty-one, the females till eighteen. Fifty years later
William Molineux, of Boston, asked the legislature for
assistance in his plan for "manufacturing the children's
labor into wearing apparel" and "employing young
females from eight years old and upward."

The Connecticut system of dealing with the children
of the poor was similar to that of Massachusetts.

Probably children were very much over\vorked in
these early days before the factory system. But in do-
mestic industries on isolated farms their condition was
less conspicuous than when, later, children came to be
massed in great factories. The custom of giving all
Saturday as school holiday seems to have grow^n out of
the need of children at home to make Puritanical prep-
aration for Sabbath.

The industries of children were varied and impor-
tant. Some have been already mentioned. There was
much work on the farm even for small children. They
sowed seed, weeded flax fields, hetchelled flax, combed
wool. Girls of six could spin flax. The boy had to
rise early and do chores before he went to school. He
must be diligent in study and in the evening do more
chores. His whole time out of school was occupied

Children in the New England Family 127

with bringing in fuel, cutting feed, feeding pigs, water-
ing horses, picking berries, gathering vegetables, spool-
ing yarn. There was sawing and wood chopping, and
the making of brooms for which he got six cents each.
Splitting shoe pegs was another job; setting card teeth,
etc. Such work provided a phase of education that
modern educators find it hard to replace now that in-
dustry has forsaken the home.

In putting the boys early to some useful handicraft
the Puritans imitated their favorite model, the He-
brews. In Puritan ethics, idleness was a serious sin.
But colonial child labor was fundamentally a response
to a condition rather than to a theory. It was a com-
pliance with the exigencies of the case. The rigor of
the struggle for existence in early New England made
impossible the prolongation of infancy that marks high
civilization. Work was abundant ; but real wages were
low, as prices were comparatively high. Colonial in-
dustry was far from being a poor man's paradise. The
starvation line and the debtors' prison loomed large.
Child labor was, at least seemingly, a colonial neces-
sity, aggravated of course by the existence of an ex-
ploiting aristocracy. The introduction of children
into the early factories was a natural sequence of the
colonial attitude regarding child labor and of the Puri-
tan belief in the sin of idleness.

VII. SEX SIN AND FAMILY FAILURE IN
COLONIAL NEW ENGLAND

Sexual irregularities both before and after marriage
gave considerable concern. Part of the trouble was
associated with bundling, an antique folkway that found
new life in the New World.

Bundling" prevailed to a very great extent in New
England from a very early time. It was originally
confined to the lower classes or to those that were under
the necessity of strict economy in firewood and candle
light. Many of the early dwellings consisted of but
one room. The wayfaring friend must be accommo-
dated, if only with half a bed. The Abbe Robin, who
was in Connecticut in 1788, says, "The Americans of
these parts are very hospitable; they have commonly
but one bed in the house, and the chaste spouse, al-
though she were alone, would divide it with her guest,
without hesitation or fear." If this remarkable asser-
tion be true it is not strange that careful mothers saw
no impropriety in the custom of allowing young men
and women to lie together (without undressing) . Evi-
dently the usage was distinctly an economic phenom-
enon. Harsh economic conditions denied leisure for
more seemly courtship and afforded but inadequate fa-
cilities for keeping houses warm.

Bundling was carried further in Connecticut and

^'' Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, second ser., vol. vi, 503-
510; Low. The American People, vol. i: Planting of a Nation, 346-3+9;
Fisher. Men, JVomen, and Manners in Colonial Times, vol. i, 284-290;
Stiles. Bundling.

130 The American Family -Colonial Period

Massachusetts than elsewhere. In Massachusetts this
trustful innocence did not confine itself to the lower
classes it would seem. The Connecticut forefathers
tolerated it complacently. In early times in New Eng-
land, if we may believe numerous authorities, bun-
dling brought very few unfortunate results. The advo-
cates of the custom maintained that mishaps in connec-
tion with it were rarer than in higher circles with dif-
ferent methods of courtship. But at no time did it win
universal approval. It is easy for those in comfortable
circumstances to reprobate as vices the makeshifts of
penury.

Bundling lingered long in some places. It is de-
scribed in western Massachusetts as late as 1777. It
was said to be in some measure abolished along the
sea-coast but there a like usage called "tarrying" was
practiced. Charles Francis Adams believes that bun-
dling continued even in eastern Massachusetts and the
towns adjoining Boston until after the Revolutionary
disturbance and probably till the beginning of the nine-
teenth century. Mrs. John Adams writes, 1784, of an
ocean voyage: "What should I have thought on shore to
have laid myself down in common with half a dozen
gentlemen? We have curtains it is true, and we only
in part undress -about as much as the Yankee bun-
dlers." It is alleged, indeed, that the practice has not
altogether passed away yet.

The menace of the old usage became apparent after
the French and Indian wars when the young men, hab-
ituated in camp and army to vice and recklessness,
stripped bundling of its innocence. At last the custom
became such a scandal that the church was forced to
proceed to its suppression. Jonathan Edwards attacked
it in the pulpit and other ministers, who had allowed

Sex Sin and Family Failure in New England 131

it to go unnoticed, joined in its suppression. At Ded-
ham, only ten miles from Boston, the reverend Mr.
Haven, alarmed at the number of cases of unlawful
cohabitation, preached at least as late as 1781 "a long
and memorable discourse" in which he dealt with the
"growing sin" publicly from his pulpit attributing "the
frequent recurrence of the fault to the custom then prev-
alent of females admitting young men to their beds
who sought their company with intentions of marriage."
In 1785 the reformers published in an almanac (then
the only method of reaching great numbers of plebe-
ians) some homely verses calculated to influence the
lower classes. This campaign made them self-con-
scious in the matter. They began to think that they
were despised for their conduct. Counter verses were
not permanently effective. But it is easy to imagine the
vividness of the contest from such stanzas as

It shant be so, they rage and storm

And country girls in clusters swarm,
And fly and buzz like angry bees,
And vow they'll bundle when they please.

Some mothers, too, will plead their cause.

And give their daughters great applause,
And tell them, 'tis no sin nor shame,
For we your mothers did the same.

If I wont take my sparks to bed
A laughing stock I shall be made.

But where's the man that fire can

Into his bosom take,
Or go through coals on his foot soles,

And not a blister make?

But last of all, up speaks romp Moll

And pleads to be excused,
For how can she e'er married be

If bundling be refused?

132 The American Family -Colonial Period

The decline of bundling is to be attributed largely to
the increase of wealth which made possible larger
houses and less rigorous conditions of life.

Pre-contract probably tended to fornication. New
England betrothal was a solemnity of moment- a half-
way marriage. Incontinence of betrothed might be
punished as adultery tho if the ofifence was with each
other the penalty was diminished.

The matter of fornication before marriage was given
shameful notoriety. Not even matrimony long pre-
vious to the discovery of the transgression was consid-
ered complete satisfaction. Fear of infant damnation
was a stimulus compelling young married people to
shameful public confession. Groton church records
show that until 1803 whenever a child was born less
than seven months after marriage a public confession
had to be made before the whole congregation. Thus,
at Roxbury, 1678, Hanna Hopkins was censured in the
church for fornication with her husband before mar-
riage and for fleeing from justice into Rhode Island.
The Braintree Records for March 2, 1683 show that

Temperance, the daughter of brother F , now the wife of

John B , having been guilty of the sin of fornication with

him that is now her husband, was called forth in open congre-
gation, and presented a paper containing a full acknowledge-
ment of her great sin and wickedness, publickly bewailed her
disobedience to parents. . . She was solemnly admonished
of her great sin.

In 1728

Joseph P and Lydia his wife made a confession before

the church which was well accepted, for the sin of fornication
committed with each other before marriage.

The cases of premarital fornication by husband and
wife were evidently numerous. The experience of
Braintree was by no means singular among the Massa-

Sex Sin and Family Failure in New England 133

chusetts towns of the eighteenth century. The records
of the Groton church show that of two hundred persons
owning the baptismal covenant there from 1761 to 1775,
no less than sixty-six confessed to fornication before
marriage. From 1789 to 1791 sixteen couples were
admitted to full communion; of these nine had con-
fessed to fornication. The greater part of the Brain-
tree confessions of incontinence were between 1726 and
1744, the period of the Great Awakening. Discipline
probably stiffened about 1725. Perhaps confession in-
creased with the rise of religious enthusiasm. It may
be that sex excitement was concomitant with the reli-
gious frenzy.

Every means was employed to check the evil of in-
continence which even in the earliest days of the Massa-
chusetts colonies was a grievous trouble. In Rhode Is-
land, according to Weeden, "the hardest municipal
task -beyond early theological differences or proprie-
tors' disputes for lands -was in the control of sexual im-
morality." In that colony,

Illegitimacy was a not uncommon offence ... at any «
time in the first century of our colonial history. . . A young
woman's prospect of marrying respectably and of moving there-
after in respectable society, do not seem to have been seriously
impaired by her already having shown herself qualified to dis-
charge the functions of a wife and mother.^®

As regards Rhode Island in 1655 the Lord Protector
"hath lately received complaints against us that we
abound with whoredom" and steps were taken to check
lasciviousness. In 1642 Governor Bradford bewailed
conditions at Plymouth, "not only incontinence between
persons unmarried, for which many both men and
women have been punished sharply ,^|iough but some

58 Field. State of R. I. and Providence Plantations at the End of ihe Cen-
tury, vol. iii, 397.

/..,,

134 ^^'"' American Family - Colonial Period

maried persons also." A reforming synod at Boston,
1679, laments "hainous breeches of the seventh com-
mandment." Numerous cases of church confession
might be cited. At Dedham for twenty-five years be-
fore 1 78 1 twenty-five cases of unlawful cohabitation
were publicly acknowledged. Between 1756 and 1803
the number of cases increased alarmingly. Apparent-
ly the cases of church discipline publicly administered
on the ground of sexual immorality were infrequent in
Roxbury (as in Dedham and Braintree) before 1725.
Lord Dartmouth, secretary for the colonies, referred to
the commonness of illegitimate offspring among the
young people of New England as a thing of accepted
notoriety and Governor Hutchinson did not refute the
charge.

Hawthorne says in The Scarlet Letter:
Morally as well as materially there was a coarser fibre in those
wives and maidens of old English birth and breeding than in
their fair descendants separated from them by a series of six or
seven generations.

Charles Francis Adams wrote regarding New Eng-
land (1883):

The illegitimate child was more commonly met with in the last
than in the present century and bastardy cases furnished a class
of business with which country lawyers seem to have been as
familiar as they are with liquor cases now.^^

In these North Atlantic colonies even sodomy was not
uncommon and buggery occurred and had to be dealt
with.«°

These manifestations of carnality so alien to the tradi-
tional picture of Puritanism demand explanation.
Doubtless the bleak barrenness and economic dearth

5^ Compare Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, second ser., vol.
vi, 477-516.

^° Elliott Newj England History, vol. i, 392-393.

Sex Sin and Family Failure in New England 135

j that oppressed the first settlers helped to reduce life to
elemental levels. As Lamb put it, "Poor men's smoky
cabins are not always porticoes of moral philosophy."
Moreover, where wealth was scant, questions of legiti-
macy and inheritance were less urgent. Besides, the
settlers had brought from England a fund of coarse
sensuality, veneered it might be with modish asceticism,
yet certainly demanding to be heard. The form of sex
indulgence that developed may have been due in part to
the stern morality that did not allow for a class of rec-
ognized prostitutes. Brownist influences are also sug-
gested. In extenuation of the incontinence of eight-
eenth century New England it should be remembered
that much of it was not promiscuous and it is hard to
accept Adams's opinion that "in the matter of sexual
morality, vice in the nineteenth century as compared
with the seventeenth or the eighteenth has lost some
part of its evil in losing much of its grossness." For
whatever surface improvement there has been is prob-
ably due largely to the development of organized pros-
titution and the practice of prevjention and criminal
abortion at which present day society is adept.

It c;an not be doubted that the publicity accorded
to cases of sex errancy was an unwholesome influence
that tended to augment the evil by creating a kind of

'* social hysteria. Such sensationalism was of the nature
of suggestion. Living under terrible repression -en-
vironmental and social -the New Englanders found
morbid satisfaction in conscience-prying and soul-dis-
play. The detailed descriptions of their offences that
adulterers gave in church outwent the wildest flights
of modern sensationalism as an enrichment of the ser-
vice and doubtless brought and held a large audience.
The various civil penalties irnpTosed can not have been

136 The American Family -Colonial Period

much more wholesome. Dunton tells us that there
hardly passed a court day in Massachusetts without
some convictions for fornication and tho the penalty
was fine and whipping, the crime was very frequent. At
Plymouth in several cases of premature birth the hus-
band was publicly whipped while his wife sat in the
stocks as witness. In their zeal for the sanctity of mar-
ried life several codes prescribed capital punishment
for adultery. Plymouth substituted whipping and the
scarlet letter. In Rhode Island the penalty was whip-
ping with payment of costs. It is obvious that the pun-
ishment of such offences involved an unwholesome pub-
licity. Moreover, with the prevalence of extreme pen-
alties there went reluctance to urge conviction for adul-
tery.

In marked contrast to the abnormal stimulation of the
sex function by morbid publicity was the attempt to
suppress like stimulation in the way of social amuse-
ment. In New England, as in the home country, the
Puritans attacked the Maypole. Specific happenings
suggest reason for rigor. A Plymouth court record
shows that one Mary Rosse exercised an "intfiewsiastic-
al power" over a certain married man who pleaded
that "he must doo what shee bade him." The charmer
was publicly whipped and sent home to her mother.
The victim was also whipped. In New Hampshire
Margery Riggs for luring George Palmer was ordered
severely whipped while her avowedly helpless victim
was only pilloried. In New Haven Mrs. Fancies
seemed able to captivate nearly every man with whom
she chanced in contact. She was a sore perplexity to
the magistrates. It were hard to tell how far undue
censorship of sex relations plus pathological publicity
were responsible for the epidemic of sickly sentimen-

Sex Sin and Family Failure in New England 137

tality that for many years seemed to prevail throughout
America with excessive talk on love, matrimony, and
"Platonicks" even between comparative strangers."

Moreover, the remedies tried for sex sin proved rela-
tively unavailing. Church discipline was not always
efficacious even in respect to the person in question.

On one occasion a committee reported that E. M

owned to them that she had had two bastard children
since she confessed fornication. After promising to
make satisfaction to the church she failed to come and
was sentenced to suspension and admonition.

A more successful case of discipline was that of Cap-
tain Underbill. As early as 1638 he was suspected of
incontinency with a neighbor's wife. "The woman
being young and beautiful and withal of a jovial spirit
and behavior, he did daily frequent her house, and was
divers times found there alone with her, the door being
locked on the inside." He said she was in trouble and
temptation and they were praying together. He was
accused "by a godly young woman to have solicited
her chastity under pretence of Christian love [this
smacks of Brownism], and to have confessed to her,
that he had his will oftentimes of the cooper's wife, and
all out of strength of love." In 1640, Underbill
Confessed also in the congregation, that tho he was very fa-
miliar with that woman, and had gained her affections, etc.,
yet she withstood him six months against all his sollicitations
(which he thought no woman could have resisted) before he
could overcome her chastity, but being once overcome, she was
wholly at his will. And to make his peace the more sound, he
went to her husband . . . and fell upon his knees before
him in presence of some of the elders and others, and confessed •
the wrong he had done him, and besought him to forgive him,
which he did very freely, and in testimony thereof he sent the
captain's wife a token.

^^ Earle. Colonial Dames and Goodtvi'ves, 190-191.

138 The American Family -Colonial Period

Discretion was not always mixed with the sentences.
Witness the case of Polly Baker of Connecticut who
w^as seduced and deserted and when her child was born
was punished, various times whipped, fined, and im-
prisoned. Once she spoke to the court:

I cannot conceive my offence to be of so unpardonable a nature
as the law considers it. ,. . I readily consented to the only
offer of marriage that ever was made me. I have deluded no
young man, nor seduced aw^ay any woman's husband.
You have already excluded me from the communion ! You
believe I have offended heaven and shall suffer everlastingly!
Why then will you increase my misery by additional fines and
whippings? Compel [the bachelors] either to marry, or to pay
double fines. What must poor young women do? Custom
forbids their making overtures to men; they cannot, however
heartily they wish it, marry when they please.

The court discharged her without punishment for that
time, the lawyers made her presents, and her seducer
afterwards married her.

• Women were more sternly dealt with than men. In
1707 a woman was sentenced at Plymouth to be set on
the gallows, receive thirty stripes upon her naked back,
and forever after to wear the capital A. The man was
acquitted with no assignment of reason. ^^ We are re-
minded that the man of the Reformation knew no chiv-
alry when we read of a woman condemned to stand in
the market place in Boston and to wear a placard:
"Thus I stand for my adulterous and whorish car-
riage."

It seems from some cases that the offence of unchas-
tity was, after all, a formal one that the civil power
might overlook, provided no burden of supporting il-
legitimate children was imposed on the community."'

^2 Howard. History of Matrimonial Institutiorts, vol. ii, 175. Compare
Gage, Woman, Church, and State, 282.

63 Early Records of the Toivn of Providence, vol. iv, 41 ; Field. State of

Sex Sin and Family Failure in New England 139

The weight of economic considerations is evident in the
law that "the father of a bastard, convict, shall main-
tain it, or allow the mother what the court thinks fit."
The mere oath of the woman makes him liable to this
charge tho not to punishment imposed by law for forni-
cation and adultery. If circumstances throw doubt
the court may acquit him. Forced marriage was one
of the penalties of fornication. In Rhode Island wo-
men with children were ordered off, very likely for the
reason that the community feared expense, for a woman
guilty of bastardy was dismissed on showing her ability
to keep her child.

In Connecticut Chastellux noticed what seems to be
a cognate phenomenon. In one pleasing family a
daughter was confined to her room having been se-
duced and betrayed. She was kindly treated and the
family seemed to have no hesitation in telling her story
to travellers. It might be judged, as the English trans-
lator who had travelled in America said, that "it was
the custom of the country to regard such accidents not
as irretrievable ruin, but as misfortunes which could
be remedied." The translator further said that such
young women lost no social rights; "their mistake was
lamented rather than condemned; and they could after-
wards marry and take as good a position as ever, al-
though their story was neither unknown nor attempted
to be concealed." In the case mentioned the lover re-
turned and all was well.

Later the Frenchman found a similar case in Con-
necticut. Again he was impressed with the complete
innocence and frankness of all concerned and their
willingness to support and take care of a young woman

Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at the End of the Century, vol.
">, 395-

140 The American Family -Colonial Period

that had so gone astray. He suggests a possible explan-
ation of the situation, viz. that citizens are so precious
in a new country that a girl, by rearing her child, seems
to atone for the initial sin. He found such slips among
very young people quite common but the repetition of
them exceedingly rare.

Financial means evidently served to render unchas-
tity less heinous. Stories of scandal in high society can
be found in the histories of all old Nev^ England towns.

Thus the w^idow B , presented for a second offence

in having a child born out of wedlock, the father of
both being a married man, was sentenced to pay the
usual fine of five pounds and also to w^ear on her cap a
paper on which her offence was written, as a warning
to others, or else pay fifteen pounds. The man in the
case, a Harvard alumnus, a man of wealth, found an-
other man of wealth to go on her bond and later mar-
ried the widow. The descendants of the bastards are
now a prominent family.®*

Sir Christopher Gardiner seems to have been a
source of much trouble through his relations with wo-
men. Then there was the notorious case of Sir Harry
Frankland which showed that even social prestige can
not wipe out all standards. In 1741 he was made col-
lector of the port of Boston. (He had with him an il-
legitimate son.) After educating and patronizing a
handsome scrub girl he took her as his concubine in
spite of her religious instructor, the president of Har-
vard. The resultant outburst in Boston society drove
them to move to another town. Later on he w^as caught
in the Lisbon earthquake and vow^ed to marry her.
After doing so he returned with her to Boston.

A common offence was for an immigrant that had

^* Giddings. Natural History of American Morals, 34,

Sex Sin and Family Failure in New England 141

left a spouse in England to attempt a new alliance in
the colonies. A letter dated Bristol, last of August,
1632 tells of a man with two wives who had gone off to
New England with a harlot and lived there. Later,
fearing trouble when news of his doings reached Amer-
ica he tried to escape to the Dutch but was apprehend-
ed and brought back. Later a man married "this
Gardner's wench." Massachusetts in 1647 passed a
law as follows:

Whereas divers persons both men and women, living within
this jurisdiction, whose wives and husbands are in England,
or elsewhere, by means whereof they live under great tempta-
tion here, and some of them committing lewdness and filthiness
here among us, others make love to women and attempt mar-
riage and some have attained it, some of them live under sus-
picion of uncleanness and all to the great dishonor of God. . .
All such married persons . . . shall repaire to their said
relatives by the first opportunity of shipping, upon paine or
penalty of £20, except they can show just cause to the con-
trary to the [court] . . . provided this order doe not ex-
tend to such as are come over to make way for their families, or
are [transient].

New Haven ordered spouses to repair to their partners
in England or elsewhere with similar exception. Win-
throp tells of \Villiam Schooler, an adulterer, who had
left his wife "a handsome, neat woman" in England.
Strictness of marriage law seems to have been aimed
partly at such cases. Thus the Earl of Bellomont
writes (1700) :

The truth is, as I have been informed, some loose people have
sometimes come from England and married in New England,
tho they had left wives behind them in England, and this law
was calculated chiefly for prevention of such marriages. If a
minister of the church of England will be at the pains of
going to any town or place to marry people, nobody will hinder
him.

142 The American Family -Colonial Period

The disposition to illicit cohabitation, which was
treated in a former chapter, is further illustrated in
the case of Richard Bates who appeared, April 25,
1683, having "a woman abiding with you." Both
were ordered off July 25. He with the woman
was cited for contempt and obtained an extension
till October 21. In December the time was extend-
ed to March 31. Thomas Cooper attempted mar-
riage but was forbidden because he had "manifested
himself a person infamous in that he hath forsaken a
sober woman who is his wife." His intended appears
again "entertained by Thos. Cooper." Her time of re-
moval was set; "not to live with Thomas Cooper mean-
while."

In at least one instance the General Court tried to
compel husband and wife to stick together. The rev-
erend S. Batchelder of Lynn, at nearly ninety years of
age married a third wife. Trouble ensued. In 1650
the general court ordered that

Mr. Batchelor and his wife shall lyve together as man and wife,
as in this court they have publiquely professed to do, and if
either desert one another, then hereby the court doth order that
ye marshal shall apprehend both and bring them forthwith to
Boston, here to be kept till the next quarter court.

But he got away, went to England, and remarried.

Family peace and safet}^ were of conspicuous social
interest. A father might be called to account by church
or magistrate. Thus a man is fined for beating his
daughter with a flail and John Veasey is put under
recognizance in the sum of five pounds "for detaining
his child from the public worship of God, said child
being about eleven years old." A number of cases of
court procedure are on record against men that abused
their wives. One man was fined for slandering his
wife.

Sex Sin and Family Failure in New England 143

In October, 1691 Ephraim Pierce of Rhode Island
repeated a warning to all not to have dealings with or to
entertain his wife. At town meeting a complaint had
been entered "made by Hannah Pierce unto the town
that her husband hath locked her out of doors and hath
sold his farm shee desireing the town's assistant." It
was decided to order Ephraim to appear at next quar-
ter day and answer. The record runs:

Whereas there hath been and still is a difference fallen out
betweene Ephram Pierce and his wife whereby themselves,
family and estate is like to fall to ruin and thereby the towne
is like to have charge fall upon them . . . therefore [Eph-
raim contracts with the town not to sell or mortgage within a
specified time house or land without consent of certain men,
previous acts as to mortgaging to be null.] ^^

It is evident from this as from previous evidence that
social control of family relations was in part due to a
desire to avoid possible burdens on the community.

The importance attached to public opinion as a fam-
ily censor is apparent in various advertisements of de-
linquent spouses published in colonial papers."'' Some
of them were introduced by the awesome admonition:
"Cursed be he that parteth man and wife and all the
people shall say Amen." It was alleged of some Con-
necticut wives that they were rude, gay, frivolous, lazy
housewives, poor cooks, fond of dancing and worthless
conversation, unloving consorts.

These libels were not all prosaic or masculine. Some
were in rhyme, and wives presented their grievances.
One, owing to the niggardliness of her husband had to
use "Indian branne for Jonne bred," and never tasted
good food. Another complained that her husband
"cruelly pulled my hair, pinched my flesh, kicked me

'''•'Early Records of the Totjun of Providence, vol. xvii, 139-140.

88 Compare Earle, Customs and Fashions in Old New England, 66-68.

144 -^^''' American Family - Colonial Period

out of bed, dragM me by my arms and heels, flung ashes
upon me to smother me, flung water from the well till
I had not a dry thread on me."

But women were not altogether dependent on law or
public opinion for protection. It was even thought
necessary to legislate for the protection of husbands.
Thus one law provided that no wife dared lift her hand
or use "a curst and shrewish tongue" to her husband
under pain of stocks or pillory. Cotton Mather, who
in March, 1716 wrote in his diary:

Very much inculcate in the children the lessons of thankful-
ness to the glorious God, for having provided so marvellously
for them, when he had made them orphans, and now bestowing
an excellent mother upon them [was compelled to add as a se-
quel about three years later:] The dreadful distresses which a
furious and froward step-mother brings upon my family, as
they oblige me to lay upon the children the most solemn charges
of all possible dutifulness unto her, so, they furnish me with op-
portunities, mightily to press all piety upon them. . . Oh !
my poor, distressed family.

In Maine and New Hampshire women sometimes
smote their husbands. In Plymouth colony Joan Mil-
ler was presented for "beating and reviling her husband
and egging her children to healp her, bidding them
knock him on the head, and wishing his victual might
choake him." One shrew for "vncivill carriages to her
husband" was pilloried. Dorothy Talbye of Salem
was ordered chained to a post. Later she was whipped,
and then hanged for killing her child. (Evidently she
was insane.) In 1683 Daniel Abbot wrote of his wife:

Through her maddness of folly and turbulency of her corrupt
will destroying me root and branch putting out one of her own
eyes to put out both mine. And is since departed takeing away
my children without my consent and plots to rifle my house to
accomplish her divellish resolution against me.

He forbade bargaining and contracting with her.

Sex Sin and Family Failure in New England 145

It is, of course, impossible to tell what proportion the
untoward phenomena bear to the instances of serene
domestic life. But making allowance for the proba-
bility that sensational incidents, as at present, received
more attention than quiet family purity, it seems prob-
able that sexual morality was not appreciably higher in
Puritan times than to-day. As for domestic bliss our
day can no doubt hold its own in comparison with the
colonial centuries.

The harshness of the lines in the colonial family was
as much due to social pressure as to individual perver-
sity. Thus domestic enjoyments were supposed to be
omitted on the Sabbath. Some ministers refused to
baptize children born on the Sabbath, because of a
theory that such infants were conceived on Sabbath.
One of the ministers most strenuous in this line kept up
his rigor till on a Sabbath his wife gave birth to twins.

As compared with Europe the colonial New Eng-
landers were probably relatively free from sex sin.
Chastellux was impressed with American freedom from
infidelities among married people and the Abbe Robin,
who was in Connecticut in 1781, says:

There is such a confidence in the public virtue that, from Bos-
ton to Providence, I have often met young vv^omen travelling
alone on horseback, or in small riding chaises, through the
woods, even when the day was far upon the decline.

The French at Newport undertook intrigues with mar-
ried women (during the Revolution). The Abbe tells
of one husband equal to the occasion.

He became more assiduous and complaisant to her than ever;
with sorrow and despair in his soul, he showed a countenance
serene and satisfied. He received at his house with attention
and civility the very officer who was the author of his misfor-
tune; but by a friend's aid, so contrived matters as to hinder him
from private meetings with her. The repeated disappointments

146 The American Family -Colonial Period

seemed to the Frenchman mere chance mishaps. But he grew
sullen and peevish under the strain, and thus became less at-
tractive to the lady, while her husband became more amiable in
her eyes than ever. Thus her lingering virtue recalled her to
her allegiance. Such a procedure in so delicate an affair exhibits
great knowledge of human nature, and still greater self-control.

New England took the lead in a liberal civil divorce
policy." The Puritans brought English law with them
but parted from it in respect to divorce by adopting, as
they thought, the rules of the New Testament. By fol-
lowing what they construed to be the spirit of the book,
rather than the letter, they spread out from adultery
and desertion as the only causes of divorce and by an-
alogy included certain kindred offences until their leg-
islation became broadly tolerant. The canonical de-
cree of separation from bed and board was practically
tho not entirely, dispensed with. On the other hand
dissolution of the marriage bond was freely granted
for a variety of causes, such as desertion, cruelty, or
breach of the vow. Generally, tho not always, husband
and wife received equal treatment at the hands of the
law. The disposition of some to ignore legal process
and part at will was not favored. Thus Rhode Island
had a law that "if any persons in this colonic shall part
themselves and marry again without the authority of
the Court of Commissioners, or be convicted of carnal
copulation with any other, they shall be punished as in
case of adultery."

In Massachusetts, 1639, James Luxford, being pre-
sented for having two wives, his last marriage was de-
clared void

Or a nullity thereof and to be divorced, not to come to the sight
of her whom he last took, and he to be sent away for England

^^ Compare Woolsey, "Divorce," in Ne^ Englander, vol. xxvii, 519; How-
ard, History of Matrimonial Institutions, vol. ii, 330.

Sex Sin and Family Failure in New England 147

by the first opportunity: and all that he hath is appointed to her
whom he last married, for her and her children ; he is also fined
£100 and to be set in the stocks an hour upon the market day
after the lecture.

He was probably one of the recreant husbands that left
their legal wives in England.

In 1 66 1 in Plymouth Elizabeth Burge was divorced
from Thomas on scriptural grounds. He was severely
whipped twice and soon left the colony.

In 1665 in Rhode Island Peter Tollman applied for a
divorce from his wife on the ground of adultery. She
confessed. The petition was at once granted and she
was arraigned for sentence. The penalty was a fine and
whipping. She was condemned to pay ten pounds and
to receive fifteen stripes at Portsmouth on the following
Monday and the next week fifteen more at Newport.
On her petition for mercy the court, strangely enough,
examined her as to whether she would return to her
husband. She refused and was accordingly remanded
for punishment.

At Plymouth, 1668, Goodwife Tubbs had eloped
from the colony. The court gave her husband a di-
vorce. On one occasion a certain W. Tubbs sought a
divorce and, after patriarchal style, W. Peabody gave
him a writing of divorcement with two witnesses. The
General Court treated the document as a nullity and
fined Peabody five pounds and each witness three
pounds. In 1670 in Connecticut Hannah Huitt "hav-
ing declared that she had not heard from her late hus-
band, Thomas Huitt, for eight years and better, was
declared to be at liberty to marry again as God shall
grant her opportunity." In Plymouth colony, 1675, a
peculiar decision was rendered. Edward Jenkins had
petitioned for a divorce for his daughter because her

148 The American Family -Colonial Period

husband had been out of the colony and made no pro-
vision for her during seven years or more. The de-
cision was : The court "sees no cause to grant a divorce,
yet they do apprehend her to be no longer bound, but
do leave her to her liberty to marry if she please."

In one of the colonies in 1676, Elizabeth Rogers ob-
tained a divorce from John. She was also "permetted
to have her two children with her, because the said
John R. had renounced all visible worship of New
England, and declared against the Christian Sabbath."
Some property that he owned was appropriated to the
benefit of his children. In 1678 Hope Ambrose ob-
tained a divorce from Daniel Ambrose for desertion,
non-support of herself and children, and keeping a
woman in Jamaica. Ambrose's mistresses appear in
the record in unminced terms. When James Shift's
wife went off with another man, tho the deserted hus-
band was not in Plymouth jurisdiction, the general
court of that colony certified to his having a divorce
from his own court. In 1683 John Warner, a deputy
from Warwick, was divorced on petition of his wife for
adultery and criminal violence to her and expelled
from the Rhode Island Assembly.

When Sara Knight made her journey between Boston
and New York in 1704 she found divorces plentiful in
Connecticut. She writes:

These uncomely standaways are too much in vogue among the
English in this indulgent colony as their records plentifully
prove, and that on very trivial matters of which some have been
told me but are not proper to be related by a female pen.

Various conditions contributed to liberal divorce in
the colonies: rejection of the sacramental theory of
marriage, the establishment of marriage as a civil rite,
assimilated to a business contract, the numerous cases

Sex Sin and Family Failure in New England 149

of men that had left their wives in the old country, the
great difficulty of leading the new life without wives
and husbands, probably the feeling that population
ought to be increased and family life promoted.

But not all applications for divorce were granted.
The civil power aimed also to forestall the necessity
for divorce. Thus in Plymouth colony on one occa-
sion the court warned Edward Holman not to frequent
the house of Thomas Shrieve and that Goodwife
Shrieve should not frequent the house or company of
Holman at their peril. This warning proved ineffec-
tual and the next year they were ordered to avoid each
other or be whipped. This threat seems to have suf-
ficed. John Robinson, grandson of the Leyden pastor,
was bound over once to carry himself properly toward
Thomas Crippen's wife.

Sexual irregularity occasioned by slavery was suf-
ficiently noteworthy. A Massachusetts law of 1705
condemns negroes and mulattoes guilty of improper in-
tercourse with whites to be sold out of the province.
The presence of the Indian race was also a temptation.
Morton, in his "New England Canaan" tells of an In-
dian infant with gray "eies" whose

Father shewed him to us and said they were English mens eies,
I tould the father that his sonne was . . . bastard, hee re-
plied . . . hee could not tell; his wife might play the
whore and this child the father desired might have an English
name, because of the likeness of his eies which his father had in
admiration, because of novelty amongst their nation.

The servant problem had already begun to be a
source of family troubles. All the early travelers note
the lack of good servants. Some resorted to Indians.
The reverend Peter Thatcher of Milton, Massachusetts
bought an Indian girl in 1674. One duty was to care

150 The American Family -Colonial Period

for the baby. "Came home," he writes, "and found
my Indian girl had liked to have knocked my Theo-
dorah on the head by letting her fall. Whereupon I
took a good walnut stick and beat the Indian to purpose
till she promised to do so no more." We find sad ac-
counts of the desertion of aged colonists by their Indian
servants. One tells that he took his "Pecod girle" as
a "chilld of death" when but two years of age, reared
her kindly, cared for her when she was sick, and finally
was deserted by her in his time of need. Sewall had a
free negro man -a devoted, faithful servant. By 1687
a French refugee wrote: "There is not a house in Bos-
ton however small may be its means, that has not one or
two" negroes.

Some "help" was early hireable. Children of well-
to-do citizens worked in domestic service.*'* Roger
Williams writes of his daughter's desiring to spend
some time in service. Members of the rich Sewall's
family lived out. Sons of Downing and Hooke went
with their relative, Governor Winthrop, as servants.
Children were bound out at eight, so that people could
rear their own servants. The pious colonists felt great
responsibility for their servants' souls.

But the problem was vexatious in spite of native,
negro, and apprentice service. Downing wrote home
to England to try to get good servant girls. Mary
Dudley, daughter of Winthrop, writes of a very re-
fractory bad maid. Reverend Ezekiel Rogers wrote
in 1657, when extreme Puritanism was fading:

Hard to get a servant that is glad of catechizing or family
duties. I had a rare blessing of servants in Yorkshire, and
those that I brought over were a blessing, but the young brood
doth much afflict me. Even the children of the godly here,
and elsewhere make a woful proof.

^^Earle. Customs and Fashions in Old Neiu England, 86-87.

Sex Sin and Family Failure in New England 151
In Hartford

Susan Coles for her rebellious cariedge towards her mistres is
to be sent to the house of correction, and be kept to hard labour
and coarse dyet, to be brought forth the next lecture day to be
publicquely corrected and so to be corrected weekly until order
be given to the contrary.

There are many like records. The head agent of a
London company at a settlement in Maine defended his
wife to the powers at home for beating a worthless, idle
maid. Thus it is evident that, as now, the servant p rob- /f , ^-
lem was an apple of discord in family life, as indeed it *■ ". )i^ h
will continue to be so long as a part of the population /^ ^^
demands personal, menial attention from others in the V-^ v^)*^
capacity of house servants. ^

n

VIIL SEX AND MARRIAGE IN COLONIAL

NEW YORK

The middle colonies were startlingly heterogeneous
in population. Owing to diversity in respect to nation-
ality and religion each colony possessed an individual-
ity that makes it inadvisable to study them as a unit.
Only a few large generalities are in order.

Slighter attention was given there than in New Eng-
land to the regulation of domestic life. Greater ampli-
tude and fertility of soil and geniality of climate tended
to soften the rigor of life and to make family life more
kindly. Diversity of population and multiplicity of
minor sects tended to clannishness but forced broad
tolerance inasmuch as it was hard for any one group to
gain unrestrained expression in the form of law. In-
troduction of continental blood and customs worked
toward the softening of the hard lines of life. The
Huguenots, for instance, coming from a land more ad-
vanced in some ways than Holland or England, estab-
lished a home life different from that of the other col-
onists. Their home life was pleasant in contrast to
much of the severer life around. Children were in-
structed with more gentleness and consideration than
among the English and Dutch. Warfield notes the
"esprit of the Huguenot women." There were Hu-
guenots in both the middle and the northern colonies.
They were numerous in New York, where Dutch in-
fluence was also strong. The Dutch were a milder

154 ^^^^' American Family -Colonial Period

species of the genus to which the Puritans belonged."®
New York, like New England, recalls the fact that
the racial endowment of sex is more than sufficient for
race perpetuity when relatively civilized conditions ob-
tain. In Dutch days "improper conduct" with women
was a frequent occurrence, ranging from the darkest
crimes to words and acts that are not now subjects of
law. In the later years of the Old Dutch rule, "sins of
sensuality" were frequent. One case was hushed up in-
asmuch as the woman was an unmarried daughter of
Dominie Schaats of Albany. Her paramour was a
married man. Stuyvesant wrote bitter words about the
afifair. In the early English days his half-sister Mar-
griet had a child by a rich bachelor to whom she was
affianced but whose sudden demise forestalled the mar-
riage. This incident does not seem to have disgraced
her, for she soon found a husband. It may be that a
less happy event is indicated in the complaint of a farm
wife in 171 6 at Court of Sessions at Westchester that
"a travelling woman who came out of ye Jerseys who
kept school at several places in Rye parish, hath left
with her a child eleven months old, for which she de-
sires relief from the parish."

The Dutch custom of long betrothal seems to have
had evil results. Some persons had delayed the cere-
mony even for months after banns. Apparently couples
had been living together after banns without marriage.
It was accordingly ordered in 1658 that no man and
woman should keep house together as man and wife
until they were legally married; and a fine was to be
the penalty for any violation of the order. The Dutch
passed a law requiring the consummation of marriage
within a month after publication had been completed

69 A review of the closing pages of Chapter II will prepare the reader
for a study of this colony.

Sex and Marriage in New York 155

unless there was legal opposition. Bundling was prac-
ticed but finally came under prohibition of the au-
thorities. Accounts of scandal in high society can be
found in the histories of all old New York towns.^°
Tho strict regulation of marital relations was attempted
by the Dutch colonists and severe sentences were pro-
vided for adultery, sexual transgressions were not treat-
ed with so great rigor as in New England. Neither
death nor the scarlet letter was inflicted.

We have noted the custom of civil marriage in the
low countries. Marriage by justice of the peace was
made lawful by the States General of Holland from
1590. The laws of the Netherlands were, indeed, not
uniform and in the Dutch American colony it would
seem that the ceremony had to be performed by a min-
ister with religious rites tho there is difiference of
opinion on this point. An authorized celebrant, at
least, was essential: the principle of English common
law marriage did not obtain.

In the Netherlands, usually parental consent and
often publication of banns was made essential. A ma-
jority of the early settlers of New Netherlands hailed
from Guilderland and the marriage laws of that prov-
ince naturally prevailed. There a marriage was void
if the express consent of the father, or if he were dead,
the mother, had not been obtained before the marriage
of a son. With regard to daughters the law was still
more rigorous; even marriage with parental consent
did not release a girl from parental authority in case
her husband died while she was still under age. Gov-
ernor Stuyvesant of New Netherlands was strict in his
application of the law of parental consent and due no-
tice. Proper forms had to be observed.

In violation of the law as to banns, etc., a sheriff of

■'o Giddings. Natural History of American Morals, 34.

156 The American Family - Colonial Period

Flushing married a widower to a girl against her pa-
rents' consent and contrary to law. On April 3, 1648,
the officer was fined, dismissed from office, and the mar-
riage annulled. The groom was fined and required to
have the marriage again solemnized after three proc-
lamations.

In 1654 the court of Gravesend had set up and af-
fixed banns between Johann van Beeck and Maria Ver-
leth of New Amsterdam. The action of Gravesend
was thought to prepare

A way whereby hereafter some sons and daughters unwilling to
obey parents and guardians will, contrary to their wishes,
secretly go and get married in such villages or elsewhere. . .
It is usual according to the custom of our Fatherland, that
every one shall have three publications at the place where his
domicile is, and then he may go and be married wherever he
pleases.

The magistrates of Gravesend appealed to their charter
by which they were guaranteed against "molestation
from any magistrate or minister that may extend juris-
diction over them." Van Beeck appeared to urge his
case. The New Amsterdam council noted

Who in the beginning instituted marriage ; also what the apostle
of the Gentiles teaches therein. . . The proper and at-
tained ages of Johannes van Beeck and Marya Verlith. . .
The consent of the father and mother on the daughter's
side. . . The distance and remoteness of places between this
and our fatherland together with the dififerences between Hol-
land and England. . . The danger that in such circum-
stances matters by long delay might come to be disclosed be-
tween these aforesaid young people, which would bring dis-
grace on both families, i . We think . . . that by a
proper solemnization of marriage (for the Apostle to the
Hebrews calls the marriage bed honorable) the lesser and
greater sins are prevented.

Accordingly banns should be proclaimed. But some

Sex and Marriage in New York 157

trouble arose and the young people, eloping to New
England, were married by a farmer in Connecticut.
This marriage was of course unlawful. Stuyvesant
writes :

Johannes van Beeck had affixed a poster that his marriage con-
tracted contrary to his father's prohibition to marry abroad
has been declared lawful and proper by the council of New
Amsterdam, we want information.

Finally the marriage was recognized as legal.

In 1674, the year of the Dutch Restoration, Ralph
Doxy was indicted for unlawfully entering

Into the married state with Mary van Harris, making use, for
that purpose, of a forged certificate, and that Deft, hath still a
wife alive who resides in New England; therefore, [the pros-
ecution] concludes that the Deft, ought to be conveyed to the
place where justice is usually executed, severely whipped, and,
furthermore, banished the country forever, with costs. Deft,
denies ever having been married to a woman before; acknowl-
edges his guilt as regards the forged certificate; says, that
through love for Mary Harris he had allowed it to be executed
by a certain Englishman now gone to the Barbadoes and there-
fore prays forgiveness. Whereas parties, on both sides, are ex-
pecting further proofs, the Governor General and Council or-
der the case . . . continued.

Later the marriage was declared

Unlawful, inasmuch as it was solemnized by Jacobus Fabricius,
who had no legal power so to act, and without his engagement
having been published three several times according to the laws
and customs of the government; but finding the charge against
him of having a second wife in New England unfounded, he is
therefore permitted to confirm himself in wedlock with the
above-named Mary, according to the laws of the government;
in regard to the forged certificate . . . he is pardoned for
this time on his promise of improvement, and request for for-
giveness; and finally, they condemn the Deft, in the costs in-
curred herein.

The celebrant, Fabricius, a "late" Lutheran minister,

158 The American Family -Colonial Period

was suspended from office of the ministry for one year
for performing the ceremony without legal authority.

The same year in case of a man requesting leave of
marriage with "Jane Rause, widow of Edward Rause,
who died about two and a half years ago at Carolina"
it was "ordered: that the magistrates of Rustdorp in-
quire as to the certainty of said Edward Rause's death
and report their conclusions." This incident recalls
New England experience with deserting spouses. Big-
amists were not uncommon at New Amsterdam.

The English conquest did not much disturb the
smooth run of life. Dutch household customs were re-
tained as far as practicable. But contract de presenfi
proved by witnesses and followed by cohabitation now
constituted a legal marriage. Ceremonial marriage
was at first celebrated by justice of the peace (as al-
lowed by "the Duke's Laws") or clergy, on the gov-
ernor's license or publication of banns thrice in some
place of worship. Clergy of all denominations offici-
ated. In 1678 Governor Andros reported that "minis-
ters have been so scarce and religions so many that no
acct. cann be given of children's births or christenings."
"Scarcity of ministers and law admitting marriages by
justices no acct. cann be given of the number marryed."

In some cases the minister gave a certificate of per-
mission for marriage. Thus at Flatbush:

Isaac Hasselburg and Elizabeth Baylis have had their procla-
mation in our church as commonly our manner and custom is,
and no opposition or hindrance came against them, so as that
they may be confirmed in ye banns of Matrimony, whereto we
wish them blessing. , . March 17th, 1689, Rudolph Var-
rick, minister.

This voucher was probably in order to authorize the
performance of the ceremony in another parish. Se-
vere penalties were fixed during the British regime for

Sex and Marriage in New York 159

ministers violating the law requiring license or pub-
lication.

Marriage fees in colonial days were not very large
and it seems that they were not always kept by the min-
ister. In one pastor's account we find him paying over
to the consistory seventy-eight guilders and ten stuyvers
for fourteen marriage fees. This was in the Dutch
regime.

After the conquest the Church of England tried to
gain headway. In numerous governors' commissions
we find such instructions as:

You are to take especial care, that a table of marriages estab-
lished by ye canons of the Church of England, bee hung up in
all orthodox churches and duly observed.

Governor Hunter is urged to try to get a law passed if
not already done for the strict observance of said table.
An English clergyman writing in 1695 complains of
the performance of many marriages by justices. In
1748 through Episcopal influence the wording of the
license which previously had run "to all Protestant
ministers" was altered to "all Protestant ministers of
the gospel." Smith in the History of New York says:
The Episcopal missionaries ^ . . not many years ago, at-
tempted by a petition to the late governor Clinton, to engross
the privilege of solemnizing all marriages. A great clamor
ensued and the attempt was abortive. Before that time the
ceremony was even performed by justices of the peace, and the
judge at law determined such marriages to be legal. The
governor's licenses now run to "all Protestant ministers of the
gospel." Whether the justices act still when the banns are
published in our churches, which is customary only with the
poor, I have not been informed. [As a matter of fact, justices
no longer meddled except in counties where clergy were
scarce.] Marriages in a new country ought to have the highest
encouragements, and it is on this account, perhaps, that we
have no provincial law against such as are clandestine, tho they

i6o The American Family -Colonial Period

often happen, and in some cases, are attended with consequences
equally melancholy and mischievous.

The Quakers had some trouble with marriage regula-
tions and on one occasion petitioned for remission of
fine imposed ''for suffering our daughters to marrie
contrary to their law." Later Quakers were permitted
to use their own marriage ceremony.

In 1679 a lamentable irregularity occurred, as re-
corded in a letter of Luke Wattson against Captain
John Avery, a magistrate:

He tooke upon himselfe to marry the widdow Clament to one
Bryant Rowles, without publiquecation notwithstanding she was
out aske at least a month to another man, namely Edward
Cocke; the which when the said Cocke heard that she was
marryed to another man said that it would be his death and
presently went home, fell sick, and in fortyeight hours after
dyed, he left it on his death that her marrying was the cause
of his dyeing. . . Hee took upon him to grant a licence to
Marry Daniel Browne to Sussan Garland widdow, without
any publiqueation, which marriage was effected, notwithstand-
ing it is generally known or at least the said Daniel confesses
that he knows no other but that he have a wife living in Eng-
land.^i

As already suggested, license from the governor was
an aristocratic resort for people that could afford thus
to purchase exemption from publication of banns. It
offered a convenient loophole for corruption. The
Earl of Bellomont wrote in 1700 to the Secretary of the
Board that during his absence in Boston

Mr. Smith the chaplain . . . comes to the lieutenant gov-
ernor and desires him to sign a blank licence, pretending the per-
sons to be married were desirous to have their names concealed.
The lieutenant governor suspecting Smith's knavery refuses to
sign the blank licence. Afterward Smith brings a licence filled
up with the names of Adam Ball and the maiden name of a

71 Documents relating to Colonial History of the State of New York, vol.
xii, 624-625.

Sex and Marriage in New York i6i

married woman ; he afterwards adds a sillable to the mans name
in the licence (after the lieutenant governor had signed it)
and then it was Baldridge the pirate. . . and the woman
was the wife of Buckmaster a pirate. , . Being askt why he
married Baldridge to another man's wife, he answered she had
made oath to him that she was never married to Buckmas-
ter. . . It appears Buckmaster was married to the woman
by a justice of the peace in one of the Jerseys which is their
way of marrying there.'^^

It is easy to see the possibilities of evil in the administra-
tions of the less scrupulous governors.

During the century between the British conquest and
the war of the Revolution most marriages of genteel
folks were performed by executive license. It was con-
sidered very plebeian, almost vulgar, to be married
under publication or posting of banns as was done in
New England without violence to fashionable stan-
dards. An item from a New York paper of 1765 shows
the prevalence of aversion to the publication of banns:

We are creditly informed that there was married on last Sun-
day evening ... a very respectable couple that had pub-
lished three different times in Trinity church. A laudable
example and worthy to be followed. If this decent and for
many reasons proper method of publication was once generally
to take place, we should have no more of clandestine marriages ;
and save the expense of licenses, no inconsiderable sum these
hard and depressing times.

A copy of the New York Gazette and Postboy of about
the same time contains this item:

As no licenses for marriage could be obtained since the first of
November for want of stamped paper, we can assure the public
several genteel couples were published in the different churches
of this city last week ; and we hear that the young ladies of this
place are determined to join hands with none but such as will to
the utmost endeavor to abolish the custom of marriage with
license which amounts to many hundred f)er annum which
might be saved.

^2 Documents relating to Colonial History of the State of Neiv York, vol.
iv, 766.

i62 The American Family - Colonial Period

It will be remembered also that the governor's income
from this source made the colonial expedient of with-
holding the salary of refractory governors less potent
in New York.

The marriage ceremony in old New York usually
took place at the home of the bride's parents. Wed-
dings were great events. They furnished occasions to
take collections or subscriptions for worthy purposes."
In some towns the pastor required written consent of
the parents on both sides before the words were said.
A riotous charivari followed the wedding. On Long
Island the groom's parents often kept open house on the
day after the bride's. There was no bridal tour but
sometimes the bridal party was entertained successive
days by friends for miles around. In New York the
groom's friends called for several days to drink punch.
It was customary in this colony, as in New England,
for the new couple to appear in church on the Sabbath
following the marriage. Often they entered late for
display.

Such ostentatious recognitions of the importance of
marriage as these customs furnish seem normal to us.
They are a survival of the struggle for tribal existence
which puts such a premium on fecundit\'. An almost
grewsomely contrasting relic, outlandish to us, betokens
more vividly the importance of every man as a sire in
the hazardous days of tribal struggle. The episode re-
calling this primitive urgency occurred in New York
in 1784. A condemned malefactor about to be exe-
cuted was reprieved and set free by his marriage on the
gallows to a woman clad only in a shift.'*

The same conditions as furthered marriage and
fecundity in New England were operative in this

"3 Earle. Colonial Days in Old Ne<w York, 63-64.

"* Earle. Customs and Fashions in Old A'e<w England, 79.

Sex and Marriage in New York 163

neighbor colony. Men and women married early and
remarried promptly and repeatedly. The great lack
of hired service that rendered a fatherless or mother-
less home well-nigh impossible magnified the marital
relation. Family life was honored as the only fit con-
dition. Second and third marriages were sufficiently*
common among the early New Netherlanders. At
Gravesend a desolate widower became enamored of a
milkmaid on first sight as she milked her father's cows.
He proposed on the spot, posted to town for a license,
and carried off the fair Grietje. The first of the New
York Livingstons came in obscure poverty to the bed-
side of a Rensellaer in Albany to prepare his will.
"Send him away," said the dying man to his beautiful
wife, "he will be your second husband." And the
prophecy was fulfilled." One man, a German, appears
in the chronicles as the fourth husband of his first wife
and the third husband of his second wife who had been
previously married to a Dane and to a Dutchman.^"

Nearly all the first settlers at New Amsterdam were
young married people. Their children grew up to
marriageable years and in the latter part of the Dutch
regime the place was celebrated for its marriageable
folk and its betrothals. Early mating was facilitated
by the innocent simplicity of society that dispensed
with chaperons. Travelers sought good wives here and
found them.

Emigrant wives brought with them maids to serve
three years for their passage. The numerous girls of
marriageable age that came over were soon appropri-
ated by young Dutchmen and housewives had to bewail
the maids snatched away before their time was up. In
1642 the patroon of Staten Island sued the parents of a

^^' Earle. Colonial Days in Old Netu York, 6i.

""^ Van Rensellaer. History of the City of New York, vol. ii, 142.

164 The American Family -Colonial Period

girl for the loss of her services through her marriage.
The bride told the magistrates that her first acquaint-
ance with the young man was when her mother and an-
other person brought him to see her. After rejecting
him several times she had eloped with him in a boat.
She offered to render as compensation the handkerchief
that her husband had presented as wedding gift. In
1656 Hans Fromer demanded that Madame Van der
Douck "give lawful reason why she forbid the bond of
matrimony between him and Maeyken Huybertson."
The defendant's son showed the maid's service contract,
but the authorities released the girl and let her marry,
which laxity encouraged all maids to rebel. Service
contracts proved less sacred than the social need of in-
crease in population. Madame Judith Varlith next
had to release her maid and pay her much wampum
and linen. The wives of the councillors rebelled at
such outrage; so arrangements had to be made to im-
port cargoes of young women from Holland under
rigid contracts which the dignitaries had pledged them-
selves in private to hold sacred."

Breach of promise cases sometimes marred the calm
of Old New York. Stuyvesant himself intervened in
the case of a maid deceived by promise of marriage. In
1654 Grietje Waemans produced a marriage ring and
letters promising marriage as grounds on which Daniel
de Silla be "condemned to legally marry her." It was
vain for him to plead intoxication as defense. Frangois
Soleil swore he would rather cast in his lot with the
Indians than marry his abandoned Rose. Pieter Koch
and Anna van Voorst were unwilling to carry out an
agreement to marry. The burgomasters and schepens

^^ Van Rensellaer. The Goede Vrouio of Mana-ha-ta, 16-17; Earle. Co-
lonial Days in Old Netu York, 52-53.

Sex and Marriage in New York 165

decided that the promise held and forbade either to
marry another person without permission of the be-
trothed and the court. Anna flagrantly married an-
other man without asking any one's leave. A young
widow, plaintiff in a breach of promise suit, offered as
proof a shilling, her second lover's gift. (Untying the
marriage knot in which a piece of money was tied and
presented signified consent to speedy marriage.)

In New York the economic element in marriage re-
ceived due attention. As the Dutch women were as
keen traders as the men the bargaining was on a more
equal footing than in other colonies, where ladies usu-
ally got the worst of the deal. This equality of bargain-
ing power between the sexes in New York may have
covered some of the sordidness of economic marriage.

Bachelors were not in good standing among the
Dutch, at least in Albany. The colony had no laws, as
in New England, to regulate these misfits and they
shared in the benefit of Dutch tolerance toward mis-
guided folk. But where marriage was so spontaneous,
bachelors were almost pariahs. They did manage to find
shelter but not home. Mrs. Grant describes them as
passing in and out like silent ghosts and seeming to feel
themselves superior to the world. Their association was
almost exclusively with one another tho sometimes one
took part in the affairs of the family with which he
lived. Fisher is reminded by them of rogue elephants.
'Tn colonial times," he says, "we often find the people
living such a simple life that they instinctively fol-
lowed some of the primitive laws which have peopled
the earth."

The different strains of continental blood blended by
marriage into one predominantly Dutch. Then inter-
marriage preserved such racial integrity that many

i66 The American Fatnily- Colonial Period

rural families and many notable city families continued
till recent times with little or no infusion of British
blood/'^

At the hejjinning of the i8th century the little isolated
community of New Harlem consisted of half a hundred
homes. , . "Intermarriage," says Rilcer, "among the resi-
dent families was the rule, and he was thought a bold swain
truly who ventured beyond the pale of the community to woo a
mate." . . Fifty years after the village was settled, or about
the end of the first quarter of the eighteenth century, there was
scarcely one of the families of the patentees that was not re-
lated to every other of the twenty-five or thirty families that
first settled the village.''^

Doctor Douglass, in colonial days, had a visionary
scheme for affiliation with the Indians. He said :

Our young missionaries may procure a perpetual alliance and
commercial advantage with the Indians, which the Roman
Catholic clergy cannot do, because they are forbid to marry. I
mean our missionaries may intermarry with the daughters of
the sachems and other considerable Indians, and their progeny
will forever be a certain cement between us and the Indians.

William Johnson married a German girl by whom
he had several children. After her death he had sev-
eral mistresses of whom the favorite was a beautiful
Indian girl, Molly Brant, sister of Joseph Brant. She
bore him eight children and he lived with her until his
death.'"'

The presence of the negroes also suggested mis-
cegenation. But in some regions at least this practice
must have been tabooed by the colonists if we are to
believe the assertion that after the Revolution the path
of the British army could be traced by the presence of
mulattoes.'^

^^ Van Rensellaer. History of the City of Neiu York, vol. ii, 142.
^» Pierce. Ne<w Harlem Past and Present, 313.

80 Fisher. Men, Women, and Manners in Colonial Times, vol. ii, 96.
"— Idem, 118.

IX. FAMILY LIFE AND PROBLEMS IN
COLONIAL NEW YORK

The marriage ritual among the Dutch was full of
realism. The groom was told to lead, instruct, com-
fort, protect, and love his wife and maintain his home
honestly. The bride was warned against lording it
over her spouse. Domestic life in the colony was in
the main quiet and commonplace. Family troubles
seldom came to court. Mrs. Grant testifies to the hap-
piness of marital life in Albany:

Inconstancy or even indifference among married couples was un-
heard of. . . The extreme affection they bore their mutual
offspring was a bond that forever endeared them to each other.
Marriage in this colony was always early, very often happy,
and very seldom, indeed "interested."

The Dutch women were strongly influential, active
in affairs, and respected by their husbands. In Dutch
neither party is married to the other: bride or groom
marries with the other. In New Netherlands both
sexes received education and men and women were
more equal than later under the English fashion. (In
New York, 1780, the men monopolized the seats on the
mall leaving the ladies to stand. )^^ To the end of the
colonial period the enjoyment by women of greater in-
dependence than in communities of English origin at-
tested the Dutch sources of New York."'' The wife was
her husband's equal in the eyes of the law which rec-

^2 Earle. Colonial Dames and Goodiuives, 200.

83 Van Rensellaer. History of the City of Neiv York, vol. ii, 157.

i68 The American Family -Colonial Period

ognized a community in possessions if there was no
ante-nuptial contract.'' Such a contract often provided
that tlic wife and husband should inherit absolutely
from each other. Often joint wills of like tenor were
made. This was a distinctively Dutch usage. Such
wills are significant of the mutuality that characterized
married life in the New York colony. But in church
the seats of husband and wife were ordinarily separate.
Women's high ambition was to be able housewives.
Married women were distinguished from maidens by
their dress. They stayed at home, read their Bibles
and managed. Every good housewife made the ap-
parel of her family. The wife was the head of the
household, the sovereign of domestic affairs. Smith,
writing after nearly a century of the English regime,
says:

The ladies . . . are comely and dress well, and scarce any
of them have distorted shapes. Tinctured with a Dutch edu-
cation, they manage their families with becoming parsimony,
good providence, and singular neatness.

Marriage had a sedative effect on men. In Albany
when a man married he was supposed to lose two pleas-
ures, coasting and pig- and turkey-stealing. Nothing
was allowed to disturb the serenity of Dutch house-
keeping or the spotless order of the parlor. For a time
New Netherlands experienced lack of servants; so wife
and daughters performed the work of house and dairy.
Mrs. Grant says: "A woman in very easy circum-
stances, and abundantly gentle in form and manners,
would sow, and plant, and rake incessantly." Home
w^as home. Irving says: "Dinner was invariably a
private meal, and the fat old burghers showed incon-
testable signs of disapprobation and uneasiness at being

8* Van Rensellaer. History of the City of Neiu York, vol. i, 480.

Family Life and Problems in New York 169

surprised by a visit from a neighbor on such occasions."
Especially did wives resent the visits of fire-prevention
inspectors to their homes, and abuse these men. Sol-
diers, often billeted in private homes, were a nuisance.
One citizen wrote that "they made him weary."

It was in the home and in business that woman shone
rather than in intellectual afifairs. Women teachers'
and girl-scholars were not eminent in New York in
early days. But women were active as shop-keepers,
merchants, ship-owners, Indian traders. It was com-
mon for a wife to hold her husband's power of attorney
in his absence, to help him in business, or to carry on
the business after his death. It is said that widows in
New Amsterdam often assumed the management of
considerable estates. Widow DeVries carried on her
deceased husband's Dutch trade making repeated trips
to Holland as supercargo on her own ships. She mar-
ried Frederick Phillipse and by her keenness, thrift,
and profitable business helped to make him the richest
man in the colony. Widow Provoost enjoyed equal
success at the beginning of the eighteenth century. She
had a huge business correspondence. New York re-
cords other noteworthy examples of woman's ability.
Jane Colden was a distinguished botanist and "She
makes the best cheese I ever ate in America." ^'^ Sev-
eral women in New Amsterdam were tavern-keepers
and tapsters.

The court records of Brooklyn contain a scandalous
instance of female militancy: Mistress Jonica Schampf
and Widow Rachel Luguer assaulted Peter Praa, the
captain of the militia, when he was at the head of his
troops on training day in 1690. They pulled his hair
and beat him and their "Ivill Tnormities" brought him

85 Earle. Colonial Dames and GoodivweSy 86-87.

lyo The American Family -Colonial Period

within an inch of his life.'" Among the Dutch, people
were brought before the court for saying of another
such uncomplimentary things as "He hath not half a
wife." One couple sued a woman for saying that the
wife in crossing a muddy street raised her petticoats too
high.

Pioneer conditions- the emptiness of the country and
the shortage of hands -put a premium on large fam-
ilies. Besides in 1650 the West India Company ofifered
one year's exemption from tenths for each child con-
veyed to or born in New Netherlands. There was no
"race suicide" among the colonists tho children seem
to have been less numerous than in New England. We
are told that in New Harlem at the beginning of the
eighteenth century ''the small two-story Dutch homes
generally sheltered each a half-score or more of sturdy
youngsters." But this was a small isolated community.
At Albany the Dutch had fewer children than had the
people in Massachusetts and Connecticut. The Dutch
kept a record of births in the family Bible and also a
church register. But by the time of the English regime
the heterogeneity of the population left gaps in the
record. In 171 2, Governor Hunter reported to the
Lords of Trade: "As to births and burials has never
been any register kept that I can hear of."

It may be that the absence of Puritan rigor allowed
a larger proportion of children to survive and that ac-
cordingly the Dutch had settled to a lower fecundity.
But the repeated marriages guaranteed a sufficient pos-
terity. Dongan had heard of one woman "yet alive"
who had "upwards of 360 living descendants." Small
families were rare. Mothers nursed their offspring
and they flourished. Irving says:

8^ Fisher. Men, IVomen, and Manners in Colonial Times, vol. ii, 57.

Family Life and Problems in New York 171

To have seen a numerous household assembled around the fire,
one would have imagined that he was transported back to happy
days of primeval simplicity. The fire places were of a truly
patriarchal magnitude.

The midwife's calling was much respected. The
New Amsterdam midwife had a house provided by the
government. The profession was licensed. Some of
the less capable had been refusing to aid the poor; so rn
Albany one good woman who helped the poor free of
charge was appointed along with one other to have a
monopoly save in emergency.^^ Births were announced
by hanging pincushions on the door-knockers. These
cushions were generally handsome ones and handed on
as heirlooms. As soon as the mother was strong enough
there was a grand reception to women friends.

The sources from which we may learn of the life of
children in colonial New York are meager tho chil-
dren were an important factor in colonial calculations
and life. In the plan for the colonization of New
Netherlands we read:

Permission should be obtained from the magistrates of some
province and cities, to take from the almshouses or orphan
asylums 300 @ 400 boys and girls of 10, 12, to 15 years of age
with their consent, however. . . It must be, further, de-
clared that said children shall not remain bound to their mas-
ters for a longer term than 6 or 7 years, unless being girls, they
come, meanwhile, to marry, in which event they should have
the option of hiring again with their masters or mistresses, or
of remaining wholly at liberty and of settling there, on condi-
tion that they be allowed so much land as the director shall
consider it proper each should have for the support of [a fam-
ily] free from all rents and exemptions for the term of 10 years
after entering on such land.

In Stuyvesant's time several cargoes of children from
the Dutch almshouses were sent to America to enter

^^ Earle. Colonial Days in Old New York, 91.

172 The American Family -Colonial Period

service."' The official correspondence shows much
kindiv thought and interest in them. Vice-director
Al ricks wrote to the commissioners of the colony on
the Delaware River:

The children sent over from the almshouses have safely arrived
and were in sufficient request, so that all are bound out with one
and the other; the oldest for two years, the others, and the
major portion for three years, and the youngest for four years,
earning 40, 60, and 80 guilders during the above period, and at
the end of the term will be fitted out in the same manner as
they are at present. . . Please to continue sending others
from time to time; but, if possible, none ought to come less
than fifteen years of age and somewhat strong, as little profit
is to be expected here without labor; but from people with
large families or many small children, little is to be expected.
When the men die they do not leave a stiver behind. The pub-
lic must provide the coffin, pay all the debts, and feed, or main-
tain, those who survive.

In New Netherlands servitude was not considered
demeaning. The servant was often from a family of
station equal to that of the mistress. ^^ In case of inden-
ture the chief parental rights passed to the employer
but if the children were mistreated, parents or guar-
dians would take the matter to court. If the child ab-
sented himself without leave from the master, even to
visit home, the act constituted a breach of the engage-
ment.

There was much binding out of children and youth
in old New York. Children of paupers were sold as
apprentices. That the ruling class wanted hands rather
than souls is suggested by the slowness to provide care
for orphans and schools for youth. In a remonstrance
by people of New Netherlands Of the Reason and
Cause of the Great Decay of New Netherlands we find

88 Earle. Colonial Days in Old Nenu York, 84.

89 Singleton. Dutch Netv York, 143-147.

Family Life and Problems in New York 173

complaint that there is no asylum for aged and orphans.
And there ought to be a public school

So that the youth, in so wild a country, where there are so
many dissolute people, may, first of all, be well instructed and
indoctrinated not only in reading and writing, but also in the
knowledge and fear of the Lord. . . There ought to be,
likewise. Asylums for aged men, for orphans, and similar in-
stitutions.

The next year the West India Company directed that
the governor and council should have jurisdiction of
matters pertaining to minors, widows, and orphans.
Secretary Van Tienhoven wrote in answer to the Re-
monstrance :

'Tis also denied and cannot be proved, that any of the inhabit-
ants of New Netherlands have, either voluntarily nor when
requested, contributed or given anything for the building of an
asylum for orphans, or for the aged. . . If the people re-
quire institutions as above stated, they must contribute towards
them as is the custom in this country.

New Netherlands was no more than other colonies
in the interest of the general welfare. It is of interest
to note the assertion that the slave children of the
negroes emancipated by the company in return for long
service were "treated the same as Christians." Colonial
days witnessed the practice of binding children, with-
out parent's consent into a servitude that made them the
cattle of their owners. Such was the fate of the Pala-
tines. Whether the Dutch had in mind any such prac-
tices when they explained the case of the negro children
is hard to say. Perhaps such rigors belong exclusively
to the degenerate English days. In at least one of the
settlements nearly every Dutch family of any means
had negro house-servants, who were treated kindly,
brought up in the family religion, and often as attached
to their masters as sons or daughters were. When the

174 The American Family -Colonial Period

negro child was tliree years old it was given to one of
the children of the family. This child presented it a
coin and a pair of shoes and thereafter they were mas-
ter and servant. Every member of a respectable fam-
ily was supposed to have a personal servant.

As early as 1585 Holland had schools for children of
all classes. The charter of New Netherlands patroons,
1 630- 1 635, provided for education. In 1642 marriage
contracts included the promise "to bring up their chil-
dren decently, according to their ability, to keep them
at school, and to let them learn reading, writing, and a
good trade." For a while the establishment of public
schools lagged. Then came a forward movement and
before the end of Dutch rule common schools flour-
ished, supported by the towns and state aid. Under
English rule these non-conformist agencies were suf-
fered to decline. A Church of England school started
in New York City (1704) did not appeal to the Dutch,
who clung to the mother tongue and their own rude
schools. Just before the Revolution Burnaby found in
New York "a very handsome charity school for sixty
poor boys and girls."

In spite of artificial restrictions and curtailment of
opportunity new-world conditions afforded opportuni-
ties for children to rise above their parents' social level.
Lieutenant-governor Colden wrote in 1765 here "the
most opulent families, in our own memory have risen
from the lowest rank of the people."

The tradition of paternal authority was as strong as
in New England. Dutch children were respectful and
subdued in their manner toward their parents and filial
obedience was impressed by ministers and magistrates.
In English days came the New England sternness of
law. But the Dutch were less stringent than the New

Family Life and Problems in New York 175

Englanders in the matter of paternal sovereignty. In
Holland, as Bradford tells us, the "great licentiousness
of youth" was one of the things that led to the Pilgrim
migration, and, as Blok, writing of the middle years of
the century, notes, all foreign observers were amazed
at the freedom of children and servants. In the new
world the Dutch retained the old ways in large meas-
ure. The ordinances of Stuyvesant'S and of early Eng-
lish days show that on Manhattan children were not
subject to stricter discipline than in Holland. Chil-
dren in Dutch New York were not held under such
stern restraint as among the Puritans. They were on
more familiar terms with their parents and had ample
amusement. Schoolmasters complained of youthful
insubordination and of maternal complicity in the chil-
dren's mischief; also that boys were taken from school
too soon in order to learn an occupation.

The magistrates found it necessary to censor youthful
sports. In New Orange in 1673,

If any children be caught in the street playing, racing, and
shouting previous to the termination of the last preaching, the
officers of justice may take their hat or upper garment, which
shall not be restored to the parents until they have paid a fine
of two guilders.

In New Amsterdam the boys plagued the patrol at
night, setting dogs on him, etc. In 1713 the Albany
legislators passed this act:

Whereas ye children of ye sd city do very unorderly to ye
shame and scandall of their parents ryde down ye hills in ye
streets of the sd city with small and great slees on the lord day
and in the week by which many accidents may come, now for
pventing ye same it is hereby published and declard yt it shall
and may be lawful for any constable in this city or any other
person or persons to take any slee or slees from all and every
such boys and girls rydeing or offering to ryde down any hill
within ye sd city and breake any slee or slees in pieces.

176 The American Family -Colonial Period

In 1728 Albany children were still pestered and fined
tor slidini^ down on ''sleds, small boards, or otherwise."

Mrs. Grant tells of a peculiar usage in Albany. The
children were divided into groups, each containing as
many boys as girls and obeying a boy and a girl as
"heads." Brothers and sisters of different ages be-
longed to difTferent groups. The function of these com-
panies was social amusement. Each child had the priv-
ilege of entertaining his group on his birthday and one
other day. The parents went away and left them un-
der the eye of some old servant. Good things to eat
were abundant and the children amused themselves as
they pleased. Albany seems to have been unique
among the towns in this grant of freedom.

The Dutch did not recognize the rights of primo-
geniture and daughters inherited equally with sons.
Says Irving: Around the fire

The whole family, old and young, master and servant, black and
white . . . enjoyed a community of privilege. [But at
tea-parties] the young ladies seated themselves demurely in their
rush bottom chairs and knit their own woolen stockings; nor
ever opened their lips except to say "yah Mynheer" or "yah
yah Vrow" . . . behaving in all things like decent well-
educated damsels.

Chatteldom of women still prevailed in spite of
Dutch liberalism. The old Dutch wills seem distrust-
ful of a widow with regard to second marriage. Usu-
ally, in this colony, attempts were made to restrain
wives by wills ordering forfeiture of property in case of
remarriage. Nearly all the wills are more favorable
to the children than to the wife. Restraints placed by
wills on remarriage were commonly in behalf of chil-
dren of the first marriage. Even in a joint will one
husband enjoined loss of property if his wife married
again. Perhaps he had reason for this precaution as

Family Life and Problems in New York 177

she had had three husbands, a Dane, a Frieslander, and
a German. His first wife had had four. John Bur-
rows in a will of 1678 expressed the general feeling of
husbands : "If my wife marry again, then her husband
must provide for her as I have." One old Dutchman
who died in 1726 left his estate to his wife with the
proviso that

If she happen to marry again, then I geff her nothing of my
estate. . . But my wife can be master of all by bringing up
to good learning my two children. But if she come to marry
again, then her husband can take her away from the farm.

In 1674 a woman of Hempstead represented that her
deceased husband had made over his entire estate to
children by a former marriage and that these left noth-
ing for her necessary support. In response to her re-
quest for relief it was ordered "That the Magistrates
of the town of Hempstead be recommended strictly to
examine . . . and on finding it founded, to extend
good right and justice to her." Thus the living of
widows was safeguarded. But for some strange reason
a hundred years later a bill providing for inheritance
by posthumous children was held up by Governor
Tryon.

A strange feature of the Dutch law of inheritance,
established in New York, was that a widow's own prop-
erty was liable for her husband's debts (tho she could
escape liability by renouncing her dower). Perhaps
this fact is a mark of the great equalization of men and
women, the wife being assigned burdens as well as
privileges.

The settlements in New Netherlands and early New
York seem to have had a reasonable share of domestic
troubles but not many cases occurred of absolute di-
vorce or even of permanent separation. There was a

ijS The American Family -Colonial Period

system of friendly arbitration and the kindly paternal-
ism of the Dutch magistrates tended to ward ofif serious
issues. In 1665 a difference was patched up between
a New Amsterdammer, Lantsman, and his wife. A
curious feature of the case is that while he was so
anxious to keep his wife he had been tardy in marrying
her. His only excuse for not appearing on the ap-
pointed day was that his clothes were not ready. One
woman asked a court order for her husband to vacate
her home with a view to final separation. The arbi-
trators decided that no legal steps should be taken but
that the two should "comport themselves as they ought,
in order that they win back each other's affections, leav-
ing each other in meanwhile unmolested."

A most interesting case showing the reluctance to
sanction final separation developed in 1665 and ran for
years. L. Pos tried to secure a separation for his
daughter on the ground of insufferable treatment, stat-
ing that it was their third appearance in court. The
husband denied that he had treated her improperly and
blamed the trouble on his wife's father, who claimed
that the husband had promised each time amendment
but never fulfilled his promise. The council postponed
decision, "and meanwhile their worships shall author-
ize some honorable and fitting person to reconcile if
possible, the parties to love and friendship." The quar-
rel was referred to two ministers for reconciliation. If
either husband or wife would not give in "then pro-
ceedings may be expected according to the style and
custom of law as an example to other evil housekeep-
ers." The wife's parents would not listen to the min-
isters, the husband claimed and requested the court to
order his wife to return to him "as he could not any
longer live without his wife, promising again to live

Family Life and Problems in Neiv York 179

with her as an honest man ought to do;" but she refused
to go with him. The council considered the parents
the chief cause of the trouble, and ordered them not to
detain her over fourteen days within which time the
pair were to be reconciled, or make joint application
again. If any more complaints were made against the
husband, he was to be delivered over for punishment.
Later it was reported that the wife still held off; also
that her father was entertaining her contrary to order.
The jury decided that she should return to her husband.

In 1667 the father of the woman complained that his
son-in-law had severely beaten his wife contrary to
promise. He asked leave to take his daughter under
his protection. The court ordered the husband to give
security for good behavior and the father was allowed
to keep his daughter under his care until further order.
Later the sheriff complained against the man for wife-
beating. It was ordered that if they again agreed to
separation the court would permit it, the husband to
pay four guilders weekly to his wife for the main-
tenance of the children. He wished, however, to live
with her again, stating that she was inclined thereto,
and he promised to be more considerate.

In 1669 complaint was again made of his bad treat-
ment of his wife "so that the neighbors suffer great dis-
turbance by the noise and uproar." The court ordered
him to behave himself properly. In 1671 complaints
arose anew. The court, in hope of amendment, once
more pardoned the man, for the last time, warning him
to let his wife be unmolested, that if another complaint
came, he was to be banished. In 1673 the husband pe-
titioned that his wife be ordered to live again with him
or else that a divorce be granted. "Petitioner is noti-
fied to conduct himself in future ... so civilly,

l8o The American Family -Colonial Period

peaceably, and friendly toward his wife, that by his
good behavior his wife may be induced to dwell again
with him as she ought." Thus the case had dragged
out eight years.

In 1 68 1, there was trouble in Fort Orange about the
preachers daughter Anneke who refused to go to New
York to her husband. The man, however, promised to
treat her rightly, and to support the family duly; so
they were reconciled, "and for better assurance of his
real intention and good resolution to observe the same,
he requests that two good men be named to oversee his
conduct . . . subjecting himself willingly to the
rule and censure of the sd. men." She agreed to con-
duct herself well and to be a true wife and asked that
bygones be bygones. The appointment of "two good
men" as arbitrators or supervisors of conduct in such
cases was a means of obviating the necessity for settle-
ment in open court and helps to explain why family
troubles of a violent sort were relatively inconspicuous
or rare among the Dutch. Even the complaint of a
man whose father-in-law refused to give him what he
had promised was referred by the council to arbitration.

Loving parents, as we have noted, could not unduly
shelter their daughter if she left her husband. In 1697
a certain man petitioned that his wife be "ordyred to go
and live with him, where he thinks convenient." The
magistrates promptly notified her father that he was
"discharged to shelter her in his home or elsewhere,
upon penalty as he will answer at his perill." She re-
turned to her husband. Such episodes show how
largely the conception of the wife as a chattel lingered
even amid the liberality of this colony. The husband
was entitled to a court order for the return of his wife,
as if she were a thing rather than a person. The court

Family Life and Problems in New York i8i

had a strong bias toward the husband's side in such
cases.

In regard to divorce the middle colonies were much
nearer to the extreme conservatism of the South than to
the broad and liberal policy of New England.^" The
civil courts possessed in New Netherlands "full power
to dissolve the nuptial bond." As early as 1655 John
Hicks by reason of his wife's adultery obtained a divorce
with leave to remarry. In 1659 Nicholas Vellhuyzen
was called to account for turning his wife out of doors
and was asked why he would not live with her. He
answered that he had not done as charged but had given
her a blow because she had taken his money that he had
laid in his chest; and that she had removed her bed and
goods while he was away. The wife denied having
taken the money. He said that "she gave her child
money to buy one thing or another to eat, as the child
would not eat of what was cooked and served up to
table." He wished separation, and agreed to maintain
the child that was to be born. The wife declared he
struck her with the tongs in the presence of Thomas
Wandel and that burgher Jones was by when he said
"Bride for the Devil !" and "Get out the house." Nich-
olas was asked whether he could not resolve to live
again in love with her, but was not so disposed. The
court decided that he should supply her with certain
goods according to his offer and further disposition was
made for maintenance of her and her child.

The same year Nicasius de Sille requested divorce
on account of his wife's unbecoming and careless life,
wasting property without his knowledge, and her pub-
lic habitual drunkenness. Eleven years later all efforts
to reconcile Mr. Sille and his wife had failed and the

80 Howard. History of Matrimonial Institutions, vol. ii, 376 ff.

82 The American Family -Colonial Period

commissioners saw no hope of reconciling them. The
commission feared that even should they agree to live
together, to which he seemed more inclined than she,
it would not last long. The matter was finally settled
by paying the bills and dividing the property equally
between them.

In 1664 a woman was released from her husband on
the ground of bigamy. A couple was divorced in Al-
bany in 1670 "because strife and difference hath arisen
between them." Daniel Denton was divorced from his
wife, and she was allowed to remarry, under the new
provincial divorce law, in 1672. A few other cases
occur from 1670 to 1672. In 1674 under the restored
Dutch regime

Catrina Lane, requesting by petition, letters of divorce and
separation from her husband, Daniel Lane, as her said husband
has been accused of, and arrested for having committed and
perpetrated incest with his own daughter, and without clearing
himself thereof, hath broken jail and absconded; which being
taken into consideration by the Governor-general and the coun-
cil of New Netherland, they have ordered as follows: In case
Daniel Lane .... do not present himself in court within
the space of six months from the date hereof and purge him-
self of the crime of incest with which he is accused, letters of
divorce shall be granted to the petitioner.

The same year, "Abigail Mersenjer, the deserted wife
of Richard Darlin, requesting by petition an act of
divorce . . . with permission to remarry, on ac-
count that her husband, according to his own acknowl-
edgement, hath broken the marriage ties by committing
adultery, and . . . has absconded . . . ordered"
that the case be postponed six months. If the man in
that time did not come and clear himself the petitioner
had the right to prosecute her suit. It should be noted

Family Life and Problems in New York 183

that the population of the province at this time was only
about seven thousand.

Chancellor Kent says: "For more than one hundred
years preceding the Revolution no divorce took place
in the colony of New York" and the only way to dis-
solve marriage was by special act of the legislature.
In 1773, royal instructions were issued as follows:

We have thought fit ... to disallow certain laws passed
in some of our colonies ... in America . . . for di-
vorsing persons who have been legally joined together in holy
marriage. . . It is our expressed will . . . that you
do not upon any pretense whatever give your assent to any bill
for the divorce of persons joined together in holy matrimony.

Thus the intruding feudal spirit of the English church
and the English monarchy seem to have checked the
freedom that tended to assimilate New York to New
England in the matter of divorce.

Tho on the whole the New York family does not
appear basally different from that of New England, the
reader must have noted the liberalizing influence of
bourgeois Holland as contrasted with the sharper lines
in English life where Tory feudalism and bourgeois
radicalism by their feud injected extremism into af-
fairs. The more genial spirit of Dutch Protestantism
as contrasted with the harsh lines of British Calvinism
appears to the advantage of women and children. If
one were to trace this contrast back, the source could
doubtless be found in the narrowness of Dutch terri-
tories, which insured the early preponderance of com-
mercialism and the feebleness of landlordism, as a po-
litical power. In addition to the resulting placidity of
Dutch life, the better soil and less rigorous climate of
the Hudson Valley contributed to make life smoother
and more genial in New York than in New England.

X. COLONIAL NEW JERSEY AND
DELAWARE

In New Jersey the great mass of the people were
Scotch Presbyterians and New England Congregation-
alists, so that family laws give marked evidence of
Puritan influence. Circumstances, however, encour-
aged liberality and New Jersey matrimonial institu-
tions developed along the broader lines of New York.

Tho neither Calvinist nor Quaker regarded marriage
as a divine sacrament yet both insisted that so impor-
tant a civil contract should not be lightly entered and
that the record should be carefully preserved. An
East Jersey legislative act of 1668 directed that "no
person or persons, son, daughter, maid, or servant"
should be married without consent of parents or mas-
ters. Banns had to be published. Ministers, justices,
etc. were authorized to perform the ceremony. The
Quakers wanted a liberal law. The "Constitutions" of
1683 rnade concession to Quaker conscience by provid-
ing that all marriages not forbidden in scripture should
be counted lawful when solemnized before credible
witnesses by taking one another as husband and wife, a
certificate being properly registered. Others than Qua-
kers claimed to be exempt from prescribed forms. An
act of 1693 imposed a penalty of ten pounds upon min-
isters and justices who joined parties without publica-
tion of banns or governor's license.

By far the most important statute regulating mar-
riages in New Jersey was one of March, 1719, which
stood unchanged for over eighty years. It was due to

i86 The American Family -Colonial Period

the fact that ''young persons have been . . . en-
ticed, inveigled, led away and clandestinely married"
to the ruin of the parties and sorrow of parents and rel-
atives. The act provided that no person under the age
of rvventy-one should be married without the written
consent of parents or guardians. Heavy penalties were
fixed for non-observance of the act. These penalties
restrained men from taking away young girls, a prac-
tice which, owing to the proximity of the Hudson and
the Delaware, had early become common.

It w^as a Friends' rule to marry in meeting; i.e.^ the
union of a Quaker with an outsider was forbidden to
the extent of religious and social ostracism. West Jer-
sey, owing to the taking up of large tracts, the consolida-
tion of interests through the intermarriage of Friends,
and the general observance of primogeniture, passed
into the control of comparatively few families.

In 1668 East Jersey decreed divorce, whipping, or
banishment as the penalty for adultery. In 1683 adul-
tery was specified as disqualification for membership in
the Great Council. In 1682 in one of the Jerseys a
man and woman, paramours, were ordered "whipd on
their naked bodies," the man to receive thirty stripes
and the woman to receive thirty-five and to be sent
home; he was to be kept in jail one day after she left
and to pay costs.

It is not certain whether divorces were actually
granted in New Jersey. If they were, it must have
been by the authority of the legislature or of the gov-
ernor. West Jersey, largely Quaker, had small need
of legislation. The courts there sought to unite the
couple at variance rather than to effect a permanent
separation. Some time before 1694 Thomas Peaches
and Mary his wife had agreed upon separation. Quak-

New Jersey and Delaware 187

er justices summoned them into court and asked if they
were not willing to live together. Both agreed, Thom-
as stipulating that Mary ''will acknowledge shee hath
scandalized him wrongfully." She consents "but saith
shee will not owne that she hath told lies of him to her
knowledge." This answer brought things to a stand-
still

But after some good admonitions from the bench, they both
promise they will forget and never mention what unkind speech-
es or actions they have formerly passed between them or con-
cerning each other. . . Hee . . . p'mises shee behav-
ing herself, with tenderness and love to him, hee will remain
as a loveing and a carefull husband to her and make ye best
p'vision for her and ye child that hee can.

In East Jersey the right of complaining against a
child that smote or cursed father or mother belonged to
both parents and the prescribed penalty was death.
Among the Friends in Jersey many sons of wealthy
plantation owners were indentured owing to an econom-
ic aspect of their religious teachings, which was to the
effect that every man should have and follow a trade
or other occupation. It is not surprising, therefore, to
find that bond servitude was no stigma, and under some
circumstances a bound boy or girl became one of the
family, and sometimes redemptioners' sons married
daughters of the former masters.^^

The education of women was distinctly domestic.
Now and then a girl had to be disciplined because she
preferred to be an independent old maid (which she
became at twenty-five) rather than marry at sixteen or
seventeen. ^^ In newspapers of the middle of the eigh-
teenth century we find a letter now and then in which
a Jersey farmer complains that the young women go

^'^ Lee. New Jersey, vol. i, 201.
®2— Idem, 196-198.

88 The American Family -Colonial Period

after fashion and ease to the neglect of butter-making,
weaving, spinning, and cooking. Some even w^ere act-
ually negligent in the matter of preparing with their
own hands the sheets, blankets, and spreads necessary
to marriage.

The sentiment was abroad that too much education was not
beneficial for women, that a knowledge of books weaned them
from the domestic circle, and that their place was in the kitchen
caring for the children. The selfishness of this view, and the
generally subordinate place occupied by women, according to
the custom of the time, retarded any great intellectual develop-
ment. Only among the society of Friends, were women given
public position - and then only as approved ministers.^^

In view of such facts it is a surprise to learn that the
early New Jersey constitution was so carelessly framed
as to allow women to vote. The clause "all inhabitants
of this colony of full age" gave the ballot to women ^*
and aliens. Women were allowed to vote, or were re-
jected, according to the views of the election officers.
Griffith in a tract published 1799 says that

Women, generally, are neither by nature, nor habit, nor educa-
tion, nor by their necessary condition in society fitted to per-
form this duty with credit to themselves or advantage to the
public. . . It is perfectly disgusting to witness the manner
in which women are polled at our elections. Nothing can be a
greater mockery of this invaluable and sacred right than to
suffer it to be exercised by i>ersons who do not even pretend to
any judgment on the subject.

Early Delaware wrestled with clandestine and irreg-
ular marriage. A prominent Swede had an altercation
with the authorities on this score, "because," says the
magistrate, "I suspected him that he, without being au-
thorized, had arrogated to himself to qualify the priest
to marry a young couple without the usual proclamation

^^ Lee. Neijj Jersey, vol. i, 358-359.

'^^On woman suffrage, see idem, vol. iii, 266-267.

New Jersey and Delaware 1 89

and against the will of the parents, on which I con-
demned the priest in a fine of fifty guilders."

Old Swede church ruled in 1714 "that betrothals and
marriage proceed in an orderly manner according to
the ordinances of our church." Also that espousals and
marriages are not allowable according to church law
before mature age, and not without consent of parents,
and must be without compulsion or secrecy, and not be-
fore being well instructed in Christian doctrines.

William Beckett, a missionary, wrote in 1737:

Our government is under the influence of the Quakers. . .
Our president has taken it upon him to grant marriage licenses
(and) contrary to former usage lodged them in the hands of
laymen of his own kidney or under his immediate influence, to
whom we are obliged to apply with much ceremony and no
small charge to our parishioners to obtain a marriage license.

In 1750 the pastor of Old Swede tells that

A woman once came to me asking to wed her anew, or as it is
termed here, wed her over again with her husband, altho she
had been living with him for seven years. The reason for this
was that they were married by a Catholic priest, and therefore
the marriage was not so lawful, but I dismissed her with a
severe reprimand.

In 1790, Delaware abolished civil marriage.

Intermarriage tended to produce homogeneity in
Delaware. Among the Swedes there seems to have
been an excess of women. At least there were many
marriages of Swedish women with men of other na-
tionalities. Thus the Swedish blood spread through
the old families of Wilmington, except (principally)
the Quakers, tho occasionally a Friend so far forgot the
faith as to marry a Swede. Such blending of the
younger elements operated to allay antipathies among
the older people. In 1693, thirty-eight years after the
surrender of the Swedes, we find in a census list of their

I90 The American Family -Colonial Period

families several of the parents bearing Dutch names.
(Dutchmen, however, had been in the Swedish enter-
prise from the start.) By the beginning of the eigh-
teenth century the welding of Swedes, Dutch, and Eng-
lish was under way. The fusion of blood opened the
door, of course, to fusion of customs. Thus, the agri-
cultural population of Sweden had no surnames at the
time of emigration.'' After mingling with other na-
tionalities in America they adopted the father's name as
family name.

By the middle of the eighteenth century the pastor
of Old Swxde thought it necessary "to show the Swedish
wives of English husbands that they must hereafter do
their duty if they expect to remain members." In 1759
some of the congregation complained because their chil-
dren married to strangers had to pay as strangers for
burial places in the churchyard. It was resolved that
if they retained membership they were entitled to a
place, but not for husband or children without payment.
Thus occurred the tragedy so often repeated since -a
dwindling handful in the midst of engulfing alien ways.

The Delaw^are country presented at first the usual
difficulties in the way of family settlement. In 1659
Alricks wrote to Holland regarding the settlers at New
Amstel among whom was a preponderance of women
and children. He desired that "the women and chil-
dren be omitted for the present, as agriculture could
not be advanced without good farmers and strong labor-
ing men." Even in later days family support was not
always a simple problem. Citizens of "the lower coun-
ties" importing infants and lunatics were to assume re-
sponsibility for these visitors. The reverend Mr. Ross

^^ Records of Holy Trinity, 1697-1773, 4.

New Jersey and Delaware 191

wrote in 1708: "New Castle is a place where every-
thing is extraordinary dear, and a man that has a family
can not subsist upon the society's bounty of £50 per
annum." He moved to Upland in the hope of getting
a better living for his family by keeping a boarding-
school. In such emergencies clan loyalty was a valu-
able asset. In 1706, the pastor of Old Swede complains
that paucity of support makes him an incumbrance on
his wife's relatives.

There was a decided disposition to develop a sort of
familism on an economic basis. Thus in the pew as-
signment at Old Swede (1699)

The heads of families, and they that have now paid the first
cost, and have worked for them, are to have their room, and if
there be room to spare in a pew, or some of the parents are ab-
sent, the unmarried children may take seats, but otherwise take
the room farther down in the church, and the small children
stand in the aisle in front of their parents pews, and after the
death of a parent, only the children who remain attached to the
home and land which have now contributed to the building,
but they who have married away must look out for other places
as opportunity may offer.

This identification of family with land is akin to the
attempt to establish manorial estates, as for instance
Bohemia Manor. The inheritance of a given name as
well as surname comes in the same category.

Oftentimes a child of each succeeding generation has received
the name of its father or grandfather, and so it has been handed
down, until many of our citizens bear the same name as their
first ancestor, who emigrated here more than 200 years ago.°°

Delaware enjoyed something of the serene Dutch
influence that tempered the life of this middle group of
colonies and made it more to our modern liking than
the colder ways of New England. The Dutch cared

'"' Vincent. History of Delaivare, vol. i, 460.

192 The American Family -Colonial Period

less for education than did the New Englanders but
they introduced comforts and amenities into life with-
out neglecting family protection.

The Swedes likewise gave due attention to family
welfare. The church was very insistent on prompt
baptism of infants. Thus a church ruling in 1714 says
that parents should not, as often happens, let their babes
remain at home a whole month or many months, yes
even half a year. Most of the children were baptized
before they were a week old, many by the third day,
and if a child was growing up unchristened it became
a matter of public concern. The pastor of Old Swede
kept a record of baptisms.

Swedish women seem to have enjoyed something of
the same eminence as was accorded to the Dutch vrows.
Thus about 1750 the pastor of Old Swede, being under
necessity of raising money, wrote:

I found it best to avail myself of some Sunday when . .
there was a full congregation, to request that all should remain
in their seats, so that the women folk, who in many houses rule
more than the men, might have opportunity to hear what was
presented, and thereafter for their part both agree and direct
for the best.

That Delaware was not ungenial to prolific increase
is suggested by the following item:

Died in peace in 1771, at Wilmington, Delaware, a pious, elder-
ly matron, who had been mother of 16 children, all married
and comfortable; 68 grandchildren, 166 great-grandchildren,
and 4 great-great-grandchildren - in all 238 living offspring
survived her. The generation of the just shall be blessed.

With the first body of immigrants from Amsterdam
to New Amstel, in 1656, came Evert Pietersen. Au-
gust 19, 1657, ^^ wrote:

We arrived here at the South River on the 25th of April and
found twenty families there, mostly Swedes, not more than five

New Jersey and Delaware 193

or six families belonging to our nation. . . I already begin
to keep school and have twenty five children, etc.

In the Dutch settlements, as in Holland, education
reached the youth through the church and the clergy-
man, a rather unreliable route.

Schools were encouraged by the Swedish govern-
ment. But Biork writes: "We hardly found here a
Swedish book but they were so anxious for the improve-
ment of their children that they lent them to one an-
other, so that they can all read tolerably well." He
complained also that the ministers were too old and in-
firm to "pay proper attention to the education of youth."
After the coming of the English in 1682 it became cus-
tomary for Swedish children first to learn to read Eng-
lish and then their mother tongue. The records of Old
Swede church show interest in the starting of school.
On one occasion the record tells of the employment of
a school-master "and agree to gather for him 18 or 20
children." In 1700 occurs this entry:

Early in May the schoolkeeping in Boktin was discontinued,
partly on account of the above mentioned sickness and some
other causes, particularly that some inconsiderate persons neg-
lected to keep their children steadily at school, tho they were
diligently and thoroly taught.

House instruction by the pastor was the last glimmer
of Swedish education.

Among the laws of the Duke of York in 1676 was one
to this effect:

The constable and overseers are strictly required frequently to
admonish the inhabitants of instructing their children and serv-
ants, in matters of religion and the lawes of the country, and
that the parents and masters do bring up their children and ap-
prentices in some honest lawfuU calling labour or employment.
And if any children or servants become rude, stuborne, or un-
ruly refusing to hearken to the voice of their parents or mas-

194 ^^^ American Family -Colonial Period

tcrs, the constables and overseers (where no justice of the peace
shall happen to dweW within ten miles of the said town or
parish) have power upon the complaint of their parents or mas-
ters to call before them such an offender and to inflict such
corporal punishment as the merit of their fact in their judgment
shall deserve, not excepting ten stripes, provided that such chil-
dren and servants be of sixteen years of age.

The provisions of Penn's frame of government may be
found in the following chapter on Pennsylvania.

Mr. Ross in a sketch of the church at New Castle de-
scribes education in 1727:

There are some private schools within my reputed district which
are put very often into the hands of those who are brought into
the country and sold for servants. Some schoolmasters are
hired by the year, by a knot of families who, in their turn enter-
tain him monthly and the poor man lives in their houses like
one that begged an alms, more than like a person in credit and
authority. When a ship arrives in the river it is a common
expression among them who stand in need of an instructor for
their children Let us go and buy a Schoolmaster. The truth
is, the office and character of such a person is generally very
mean and contemptible here, and it cannot be othervvays 'til the
public takes the education of children into their mature con-
sideration.

A letter by Beckett, a missionary, in 1728 says:

There is no public school in all the county, the general custom
being, for what they call a neighborhood (which lies sometimes
four or five miles distant) to hire a person ... to teach
their children to read and write English, for whose accommoda-
tion they meet together at a place agreed upon, cut down . . .
trees and build a log house in a few hours . . . whither
they send their children every day during the term for it ought
to be observed by way of commendation of the American plant-
ters nowadays, that whatever pains or charge it may cost, they
seldom omit to have their children instructed in reading and
writing the English tongue.

The Presbyterians came in the years from 171 8 to

New Jersey and Delaware 195

1740. The Shorter Catechism was learned in their
homes and recited at school. Psalms were the lulla-
bies. On Sabbath parents, children, and servants went
through the catechism. Sermons were read and points
of doctrine compared with the Bible.

The reverend Mr. Hacket writes of Delaware in
1732:

The people . . . frequently bring negroe children to
church, and after being instructed, their Masters become their
sureties.

Education in Delaware was obviously very imperfect.
Even late in the eighteenth century children were ex-
posed to the influence of immoral teachers. Nor was
family morality always high.
In 1660

Among the Finns is a married couple who live together in con-
stant strife. The wife receives daily a severe drubbing, and is
expelled from the house as a dog. This treatment she suffered
a number of years; not a word is said in blame of the wife,
whereas he, on the contrary, is an adulterer. On all which the
priest, the neighbors, the sheriff appeal to [an official] at the
solicitation of man and wife, that a divorce might take place,
and the small property and stock be divided between them.

The official asked for orders. This is the first mention
of a divorce case in Delaware.

In 1 66 1 the South River folk were stirred by the first
recorded elopement. The wife of a Finnish priest ran
off with another man and the couple eluded arrest.
The husband was indignant but not inconsolable, for in
less than a month he applied for permission to marry a
young girl. The answer was deferred till Stuyvesant
could be heard from. Two months after the bereave-
ment the priest again asked permission to marry, as the
situation of his family, he said, imperiously required it.
A month later he received a divorce, and a few weeks

196 The American Family -Colonial Period

after this release, married himself, "a transaction in my
opinion, under execution, entirely unlawful," wrote the
local official in quest of orders from higher authority.
The marriage was shortly declared void. Conditions in
Delaware corresponded to the account of Maryland by
an Episcopal rector (1676) : "All notorious vices are
committed; so that it is become a Sodom of unclean-
ness, and a pest house of iniquity.""

Fabritius, a Lutheran minister, came to New Castle
in 1 67 1 having gotten into hot water in Albany for not
baptizing several children on application, etc. Soon
he was suspended from the ministry for one year for
having performed a marriage "without having any law-
ful authority thereto, and without publication of banns."
His wife remained at Albany, and he managed to keep
in trouble at both places.

Tienhoven, at one time secretary of the colony on
South River, seduced in Holland on promise of mar-
riage a girl of Amsterdam. She came and found him
already married and took her case into court. In 1709
Thomas Crawford, a missionary, wrote of uncleanness:
[Mr. Mfddleton, a vile man, sent me word of the disappear-
ance of Elizabeth Watson. Some] believed it was done by a
fellow that was in the house with her whom all say she ad-
mitted to her embraces. But what I have to say of her un-
cleanness, that on earth I can get proved, and other villany to
obtain her lust, and gratify her unclean desires as also a certifi-
cate of her former husband's death whom she trapanned and
sent to sea, and then removed under the name of a maid to a
strange place, and things worse than that I shall not men-
tion. . . With all the last money I sent Elizabeth Watson,
she laid it out to pay the boarding of a gentleman's children,
to whom she had been valet de chambre many a night till all

^^ Holcomb. Sketch of Early Ecclesiastical Affairs in Ne^ Castle, Dela-
ware, and History of Immanuel Church, 29.

New Jersey and Delaware 197

the world took notice of her base carriage with him, and then
when she had lost her fame she came after me.

The records of the Welsh Tract Baptist Meeting con-
tain numerous records of church censorship of sex mor-
als. In 1714 Evan Edmunds and Catherine Edwards
were excommunicated for conducting themselves scan-
dalously and unseemly and withstanding the advice of
the church not to keep company till they cleared them-
selves of the scandal. In 1717 Richard Lewis was
turned out for keeping unseemly company with his
neighbor's wife and withstanding the counsel of the
church. Mary Rees was "dismembered" in 1723 for
withstanding the advice of the church and marrying a
man against the warning of the brethren and of her
father. Besides there was no proof of her former hus-
band's death. The sentence was to stand so long as both
parties were alive. In the previous cases the sentences
were really only suspension until satisfaction should be
given. Thomas Jones and wife were excommunicated
for improper conduct with regard to the obligation of
the marriage vow, etc., and for disregard of the call of
the church. Numerous others cases of excommunica-
tion, etc., occured for such causes as bastardy, bigamy,
disorderly marriage -without advising with the church
and without parental consent- fornication, excessive
drinking to the hurt of the culprit's family, adultery.
These cases, however, are spread over half a century,
namely from 1736-1786. The church undertook also to
adjust differences between husband and wife.

In the eighteenth century the Delaware assembly
made sodomy, buggery, and rape capital offences.
Death without benefit of clergy was fixed as the penalty
for the killing of bastards.

198 The American Family -Colonial Period

Perhaps the most outstanding fact in the history of
the New Jersey and Delaware colonial families is the
unsettling influence of heterogeneity of population.
This factor is visible in the liberalization of the New
Jersey marriage law, in irregularities of marriage in
Delaware, in family division due to cross-marriages,
and in the variety of petty groups, each censoring the
affairs of its members.

XI. THE FAMILY IN COLONIAL
PENNSYLVANIA

Pennsylvania was cosmopolitan, hence tended to
breadth and tolerance. Here we must study varied in-
fluences, particularly Quaker, German, and Scotch-
Irish.

In the early days the Quaker element was dominant.
They always held marriage and the family in great
esteem. The records of the colonial Pennsylvania
Quaker meetings are full of instances of discipline ad-
ministered to young people for fornication. Penn
claims that wedlock should grow only out of reciprocal
inclination. "Never marry but for love," he says, "but
see that thou lovest what is lovely."

Tho holding, like the Puritans, that the regulation of
marriage belongs to the civil power, the Quakers,"^ as a
sect, imposed restrictions of their own. The Meeting
exercised constant surveillance over family discipline
and private life. As it was impossible properly to dis-
cipline the family of a mixed marriage a Quaker mar-
rying one of another sect was dismissed from the society
even tho their numbers were thus greatly depleted. If
a Friend sought a wife elsewhere than in his home com-
munity he carried a letter from the Meeting.

In the first half of the eighteenth century perplexing
questions were rife as to forbidden degrees, marriage by
justice of the peace, mixed marriages, young couples'
keeping company without parental consent. Adverse

88 See Index for Quakers in England.

200 The American Family -Colonial Period

decisions were rendered on every question. A tendency
to recognize the validity of common law marriages ap-
pears. The following are illustrations of the problems
that confronted the Friends in Pennsylvania: many
young Friends, impatient of the slow and troublesome
process of passing meeting, would hasten off to the
priest or to a magistrate and be married without delay
or formality. Refusal to confess fault meant expulsion.
At Warrington, 1767, Sarah Delap acknowledged
"keeping company with a young man not of our society
and attempting marriage with him by a priest to the
great grief of my tender parents." She was reinstated.

While Quaker discipline was, on the whole, rather
Puritanlike the home life was charming. The families
were often large. The Friends were especially appre-
ciative of the aged. Hospitality was a genial virtue.
In American Quaker homes there were spare rooms,
and Quaker visitors, no matter how numerous, never
went to a hotel.

The Diary of Christopher Marshall, a well-to-do
Quaker of Philadelphia, kept during the year 1778, de-
scribes his wife's activities: "From early . . .
morning till late at night she is constantly employed in
the affairs of the family, which for four months has
been very large. . . It is a constant resort of comers
and goers." Moreover she did the baking and cooking;
made twenty large cheeses from one cow; was gar-
dener and butter-maker; kept the house clean; cut and
dried apples; made cider without tools "for the con-
stant drink of the family;" attended to the washing and
ironing. She also sewed, knit, etc. "I think she hath not
been above four times since her residence here to visit
her neighbors." In sickness furthermore he stated that
she was a faithful nurse day and night. She was ever

The Family in Pennsylvania 201

ready to supply poor neighbors with milk, always had
cream to spare for her dairy. She rose at daybreak,
tho aged, and went to the wharves to buy wood. Her
hearty old husband records complacently that the horse
would have died had not the energetic woman skir-
mished for hay in the barren city. Besides she endured
Poll, a pestiferous bound girl. Such was the life of the
Revolutionary housewife. Yet the Quakers went far
toward a recognition of woman's equality.

Penn's frame of government contains provision for
education in the New World:

The governor and provincial council shall erect and order
all publick schools and encourage and reward the authors of
useful sciences and laudable inventions. . . And [there
shall be] a committee of manners, education and arts, that all
wicked and scandalous living may be prevented, and that youth
may be successively trained up in virtue and useful knowledge
and arts. . . All children within the province of the age of
twelve years shall be taught some useful trade or skill, to the
end none may be idle, but the poor may work to live, and the
rich, if they become poor, may not want.

The first General Assembly (Chester, 1682) accepted
the provisions. The Assembly of the next year ordered
that "persons having charge of children should have
them instructed in reading and writing before they were
twelve years of age, or pay a fine of five pounds for
every sound child." Children were to be taught "some
useful trade or skill." Force, if necessary, was to be
used to execute the law. The insistence on industrial
training recalls Puritan devotion to child labor.

Penn did away with the old laws that gave to the state
the estates of murderers and suicides. He also abol-
ished primogeniture. But a huge estate became vested
in the Penn family thus producing a strange contrast to
his liberalism. This estate was the source of great mis-

202 The American Family -Colonial Period

chief. Penn's heirs, or proprietaries, made claim to all
the soil within the bounds of the original charter. In
1779 the Pennsylvania legislature denounced the man-
ner in which the Penn family had perverted and abused
the terms of Penn's charter. Thus the opportunity to
ground a family aristocracy in landlordism reversed the
characteristic trend of Quakerism toward "democratic"
capitalism.

From Maine to Georgia the Germans were hinter-
landers occupying the best farm acreage. They were
numerous in the middle states and have left their im-
print on that section. In the fatherland marriage was
held to be of divine appointment. Some of the immi-
grants did, indeed, form communities with sex segrega-
tion but the bulk of the German immigrants settled by
families.

The Germans are a domestic people. The middle-
class German is fond of home life and joins with his
family in the pursuit of simple pleasures. The Ger-
mans gave to America a domestic type of woman. To
this fact can be attributed much of the vigor of the pop-
ulation and the solid quality that comes from home
training. They laid great emphasis on the household
arts, excelling in thoroness and efficiency. A writer of
the eighteenth century says :

When a young man asks the consent of his father to marry a
girl of his choice, the latter does not so much inquire whether
she be rich or poor, but whether she is industrious and acquaint-
ed with the duties of a good housewife. ^^

The pioneer, of course, did not care for an intellectual
wife but preferred a woman of sound industry. The
industry of the German women was indeed marvelous.
The men loved their homes; they were home-makers -

^9 In Kuhns, German and Siviss Settlements of Pennsylvania, loi.

The Family in Pennsylvania 203

industrious and frugal. The children were trained to
industry. The Pennsylvania Germans had very few
slaves. Often their farms descended from father to
son for more than a hundred years, in many cases with-
out a mortgage.

Pastors' baptismal records and the entries in family
Bibles show that Pennsylvania Germans often had nu-
merous children. The pioneer did not murmur when
his family grew. Penn found the kindred race, the
Swedes, on the Delaware likewise fertile.

They have fine children, and almost every house full: rare to

find one of them without three or four boys and as many girls;

some six, seven, and eight sons. And I must do them that right,

I see few young men more sober and laborious.

Rush writes in 1789:

The favorable influence of agriculture, as conducted by the Ger-
mans ... is manifested by the joy they express upon the
birth of a child. No dread of poverty or distrust of Provi-
dence, from an increasing family, depresses the spirits of these
industrious and frugal people. Upon the birth of a son, they
exult in the gift of a plowman or a waggoner; and upon the
birth of a daughter they rejoice in the addition of another spin-
ster or milkmaid to the family.

Home discipline was rigid. When necessary the rod
was used. Children received diligent home-training.
They were taught early in life to work. The practice
of binding children out to service so that they might
learn trades or because the home family was so large as
to render their services superfluous was followed quite
generally in old Germantown. The Pennsylvania Ger-
mans thought it no disgrace for a daughter to work in
another family, where she might add to her knowledge
of good housekeeping. Servants ate with the family on
ordinary occasions and were well cared for. The serv-
ant and the master and mistress frequently were to

204 The American Family -Colonial Period

each other as child and parents. Parents loved their
home and their children and made the home attractive
with proper games and privileges. Children also loved
home and parents and other members of the family.
Part of the home, sometimes a separate dwelling, was
provided for aged parents or grandparents. Often an
unmarried daughter held it her duty to remain with the
aged parents to the end of their days.

The old church records are honest in mentioning the
illemtimate birth of children. But the smallness of this
unfortunate number as compared with the number born
in wedlock shows the esteem of matrimony. Adultery
was a grievous sin to the pioneers. Divorces were
viewed with abhorrence. Parents counselled their chil-
dren to live in purity and gave good advice regarding
the choice of husband or wife.

Many German immigrants met with unfortunate ex-
periences. A letter dated March i6, 1684, says: "If
any one come here in this land at his own expense, and
reaches here in good health, he will be rich enough,
especially if he can bring his family or some man serv-
ants, because servants are here dear." For the man
that could not come at his own expense, the outlook was
not so good. "It often happens that whole families,
husband, wife, and children are separated by being sold
to different purchasers." Ships brought hordes of Ger-
mans to America. Children seldom survived the jour-
ney. "Many a time parents are compelled to see their
children die of hunger, thirst, or sickness, and then see
them cast into the water. Few women in confinement
escaped with their lives; many a mother is cast into the
water with her child." When the ships reached Phila-
delphia unmarried people of both sexes found ready
sale. Old married people, widows, and the feeble.

The Family in Pennsylvania 205

were a drug on the market unless they had children to
assume the debts of the parents, thereby extending their
own period of servitude. "Parents must sell and trade
away their children like so many cattle." Thus the ex-
ploiting element that dominated here as in all the colo-
nies subordinated moral considerations, as always, to
profits.^°°

An important continental sect, the Moravians, were
not unlike the Quakers. They had their system of cen-
sorship and administration of discipline over families.
Tho tending to communal life (for they were successors
to the revolutionary Taborite communists of Bohemia) ,
they did not believe in celibacy. Marriage they ele-
vated into a very sacred duty. All souls were in es-
sence feminine and the male was a mere temporary
function for the probation period on earth.'"' It might
be supposed that this feministic theory would give su-
premacy to woman, but not so. Man's duties were ex-
alted, clear, and positive. As Christ was the true hus-
band of each woman so the man was his representative
and the wife's Savior. Thus marriage was highly
idealized and, naturally, subject to very strict regula-
tion. The church often acted as match-maker, helping
in the choice of a wife and conveying the proposal.
Divorce is said to have been practically unknown among
them.

Their communal tendency took shape at Bethlehem,
where the land belonged to the church, which took into
its treasury the fruits of the joint labor of the com-
munity and gave to each member the necessaries of life,
instruction for his children, and care in sickness and

^o°On slavery of whites in the colonies see Oneal, If'orkers in American
History, chapters iii and iv. A rather amateurish work, but, to the ordinary
reader, indispensable.

101 On the sect see Fisher, The Making of Pennsylvania, 138.

2o6 The Afnerican Family -Colonial Period

old age. Separate quarters were provided for bach-
elors as also for widows and for single women.

The cohesion of the Pennsylvania Moravians out-
lasted the colonial period. A historian in 1819 writes
thus of them :

The young man who has an inclination to marry makes appli-
cation to the priest, who presents a young woman designated
by the superintendent as the next in rotation for marriage.
Having left the parties together for an hour, the priest returns,
and if they mutually consent to live together, they are married
the next day; if otherwise, each is put at the bottom of the list,
containing perhaps sixty or seventy names, and on the part of
the girl there is no chance of marriage, unless the same young
man should again feel disposed for matrimony. When united,
a neat habitation, with a pleasant garden, is provided, and their
children, at the age of six, are placed in the seminary. If eith-
er of the parents die, the other returns to the apartment of the
single people.^"^

The Dunkers, also, are worthy of special mention.
The Brethren church has distinctly stood for the exalta-
tion of the home and family life. Among the early
settlers of this sect was found a high type of Christian
home. The typical home was a sanctuary for the
preaching of the word: for forty-seven years the Breth-
ren had no church nor meeting-house. The Dunkers
developed sex-segregation. In 18 19 we are told that
"the women live separate from the men, and never asso-
ciate except for the purpose of public worship or public
business." ^°^

The Schwenkfelders were also noteworthy. Among
them mixed marriages were discouraged. During the
period before marriage the minister met the young peo-
ple several times and gave them instruction in Christian

i<'2 Mackenzie. Historical Topographical and Descriptive Vieiv of the
United States, 379.
103 _ i^gjn^ 3go.

The Family in Pennsylvania 207

doctrine and especially in the duties of married life.
Entrance into the marriage relation was a most sacred
step. The bride had, perhaps for years, been getting
things ready in preparation for her duties as wife and
mistress of a home. Children were objects of pious
solicitude. They were not allowed to frequent places of
public resort.

In 1 720- 1 740 thousands of Ulster Scots came to
America and peopled the hills and valleys of the Penn-
sylvania frontier. Clannish by nature and tradition
they held together in small communities of forty or
more families, a majority of them akin by blood or by
marriage. The Scotch-Irish are comparable to the
Puritans but coming from a less central people were of
freer and less sombre type. Their matrimonial customs
were simple as befits a frontier people. Men seldom
went far afield for wives. In the preliminaries of a
marriage there was great deliberation and thoroness.
The girl's outfit had been prepared from her birth. On
two successive Sabbaths before the wedding after the
benediction one of the clerks would announce the banns.
Marriage took place at the bride's home. On the fol-
lowing Sabbath they made their appearance in state at
church. The race was marked by family loyalty. The
women led hard lives but were patient and submissive.
(The person familiar with the back country of western
Pennsylvania to-day will note apparent survivals of the
last two primitive features.) Divorce was practically
unknown.

Pennsylvania presented the usual pioneer hardships,
in juxtaposition with city luxury. For instance John
and Rebecca Head arrived in Philadelphia early in the
eighteenth century with a flock of children and various
household utensils. In default of other means of trans-

2o8 The American Family -Colonial Period

portation they put the two younger girls in a tub and
each parent took a handle. The older children, aged
three and four, walked in front carrying as much as
they could. A surprising counter item is found in the
correspondence of Mrs. John Adams:

Philadelphia must be an infertile soil or it would not produce
so many unfruitful women. I always conceive of these persons
as wanting one addition to their happiness; but in these perilous
times, I know not whether it ought to be considered as an in-
felicity.

Children in Pennsylvania schools were sometimes the
victims of "drunken, dirty, careless, and cruel teach-
ers." Slight attempt was made by the English in early
Pennsylvania toward popular education outside the cap-
ital. Penn Charter School, opened at Philadelphia in
1698, was for fifty years the only public school in the
province. The Germans and Moravians had some good
private schools in the larger towns but educational facil-
ities in the country were usually wretched or lacking.
A Pennsylvania pedagog of 1765 advertising for pupils
urges young ladies not to be discouraged on account of
age or through fear of not obtaining a spouse, as he has
had "the honour to give the finishing stroke in educa-
tion to several of the reputed fine accomplished ladies
in New York, some of which were married within two,
three, and four years afterwards." ^°*

Pennsylvania had notable women. In the days of
settlement one woman took up a tract of twenty-five
hundred acres in what is now Lancaster County. There
are instances of prominent business women in the col-
ony. Benjamin Franklin both respected and admired
his wife. But the subordination of woman was still
manifest. One old law in Pennsylvania (1690) pro-

10* Wharton. Colonial Days and Dames, 126.

The Family in Pennsylvania 209

vided that a widow could not marry till a year after her
husband's death.

Pennsylvania was not staidly Puritan. In 1741 a
Grand Jury notes that whites in markets, etc., strive "to
excell in all lewdness and obsenity which must produce
a generall corruption of such youth (apprentices, etc.)
if not timely remedied." Stories of scandal in high
society can be found in histories of all old Pennsyl-
vania towns."^"^ Sarah Eve writes of unrestrained kiss-
ing of girls by men in Philadelphia (1722). In Phila-
delphia the groom's friends called for several days after
a wedding to drink punch.

Quakers and Moravians did not legislate about di-
vorce and the Scotch-Irish had no use for it. The
Great Law of 1682 for Pennsylvania permits divorce
for the scriptural cause. A penalty was prescribed for
adultery.

[One convicted] shall for the first offence be publicly whipped
and suffer one whole year's imprisonment in the house of cor-
rection at hard labor, to the behoof of the publick and longer if
the magistrate see meet. And both he and the woman shall be
liable to a Bill of Divorcement, if required by the grieved hus-
band or wife within the said term of one whole year after
conviction.
For a second ofifence the penalty is "imprisonment in
manner aforesaid during life." Gordon in a summary
of the laws of the colony says that these "made no gen-
eral provision for the dissolution of marriage; and di-
vorce from bed and board was allowed in case of big-
amy only, on request of first wife or husband, made in
one year after conviction."'"" Legislative authority,
however, granted absolute divorces. But there is no

^05 Giddings. Natural History of American Morals, 34.

i"** Howard. History of Matrimonial Institutions, vol. ii, 386-387.

2IO The American Family -Colonial Period

evidence to show that divorces either absolute or partial
were at all common in Pennsylvania.

Servitude and slavery marred morality in this as in
the other colonies.'"' Reference has already been made
to the dissolution of families by white servitude. The
pathos of such a system was brought home to a Phila-
delphia gentleman who wanted an old couple for house
servants. After purchasing an old couple and their
daughter he found that he had bought his own father,
mother, and sister.'"^ If members of a family died on
the ocean the survivors were held responsible.

Servants were not allowed to marry without master's
consent and a severe penalty was attached to this in-
fringement of property rights. Women having ille-
gitimate children (and thereby, of course, impairing
the value of their services) were punished by a pro-
longation of their term of bondage.

Miscegenation doubtless took place from the first.
In 1677 a white servant was indicted for intercourse
with a negro. In 1698 the Chester County Court as-
serted the principle that mingling of the races was to be
tabooed. Court records run as follows:

For that hee . . . contrary to the lawes of the govern-
ment and contrary to his masters consent hath . . . got
with child a certain molato wooman called swart Anna.

David Lewis Constable of Haverford returned a negro man
of his and a white woman for haveing a baster childe .
the negro said she intised him and promised him to marry him;
she being examined, confest the same . . . the court or-
dered that she shall receive twenty-one lashes on her beare
backe . . . and the court ordered the negroe man never to
meddle with any white woman more uppon paine of his life.

A law of 1700, for negroes, provided that buggery or

1""^ See Turner, History of Slavery in Pennsylvania.
108 Oneal. Workers in American History, 67.

The Family in Pennsylvania 211

rape of a white woman was to incur the penalty of
death. The penalty for attempted rape was to be cas-
tration.

In 1722 a woman was punished for complicity in a
clandestine marriage of a white woman to a negro.
Shortly after a petition came up to the Assembly at-
tacking the wicked and scandalous practice of negroes'
cohabiting with white people. The Assembly proceed-
ed to the framing of a law. The law of 1725-1726 pro-
vided that no negro was to be married to any white per-
son on any pretense whatever. A white person violat-
ing this law was to forfeit thirty pounds or be sold as a
servant for a period not over seven years. A clergy-
man abetting such a union was to be fined one hundred
pounds. The law was not able to check cohabitation
tho there is almost no record of marriages of slaves with
white people.

Advertisements for runaway slaves indicate that mu-
lattoes were very numerous. The Chester County slave
register for 1780 shows that they made up twenty per
cent of the slave population in that locality. It would
seem that it was not, in general, the masters that were
guilty of illicit intercourse but rather servants, outcasts,
and the lower class of whites'"^ The records of 1766
contain an instance of a white woman prostitute to ne-
groes and those of the following decade give evidence
as to mulatto bastards by pauper white women. One
case was noted in 171 5 where the guilty white man was
probably not a servant. Benjamin Franklin was openly
accused of having colored mistresses.""

Children of negro slaves became, of course, the mas-
ter's property. Owners considered the rearing of slave

^^" Turner. History of Slavery in Pennsylvania, 31.
110— Idem.

212 The American Family -Colonial Period

children a burden. One writer affirmed that in Penn-
sylvania "negros just born are considered an incum-
brance only, and if humanity did not forbid it, they
would be instantly given away" (1780). A likely
wench was sold because of her fecundity. In 1732 the
Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas ordered a man to
take back a negress that he had sold that proved to
be with child. He was to return the price and pay the
money spent "for phisic and attendance of the said
negroe in her miserable condition." In the Pennsyl-
vania Gazette occurs an advertisement of an exemplary
young negress for sale. '^She has ... a fine,
hearty young child, not quite a year old, which is the
only reason for selling her, because her mistress is very
sickly, and cant bear the trouble of it." The child of a
free mother and a slave father was a servant for a term
of years.

Slavery in Pennsylvania was mild. The chattels gen-
erally lived in the master's house. Some had cabins for
their families. Negroes were often allowed to visit
members of their families living in other households.
Something was done toward the maintenance of slave
family life. Penn's conscientious attempt in 1700 to
secure a law for the regulation of slave marriage was
defeated. One writer attributes this result to the wan-
ing of Quaker influence, the lower tone of the later in-
flux, and temporary hostility to the executive. But the
universal incompatibility of property rights in men
with stable marriage is sufficient to account for the vote.

Slaves came under the law forbidding servants to
marry without the master's consent. It is said that
many masters permitted their human cattle to marry as
they pleased save that the owner would try to prevent
marriage off the place. (In conflict with the alleged

The Family in Pennsylvania 213

unprofitableness of slave raising, Kalm adds that it was
considered an advantage to own negro women, since
otherwise the offspring of one's negroes belonged to an-
other master.) The marriage ceremony was frequently
performed as for white people. The records of Christ
Church show many such instances. Among the Friends
there are very few records of such marriages. But
Joshua Brown's Journal kept during the year 1774 con-
tains this item:

I rode to Philadelphia . . . and lodged that night at Wm.
Browns and fifth day of the Moth I spent in town and was at
a negro wedding in the eving when several per mett and had a
setting with them, and they took each other and the love of God
seemd to be extended to them.

A negro marriage in Friends' fashion is recorded for
West Chester. Mittleberger said: "The blacks are
likewise married in the English fashion." But Benezet
wrote: "They are suffered, with impunity, to cohabit
together, without being married and to part, when sol-
emnly engaged to one another as man and wife." It
would be absurd to attribute to the negroes all the blame
for family laxity. But in Pennsylvania there was no
active trade in negroes and when they were bought or
sold there was some attempt to keep families together.

It is said that negro children were taught submission
to their parents and that these were suffered to train,
cherish, and chasten them. Many slaves were treated
like members of the master's family: nursed and cared
for in sickness, provided for when past work, and in
some instances remembered in the master's will. Often
members of a negro family bought freedom for other
members.^"

Opposition to slavery took into account its influence

"1 Turner. History of Slavery in Pennsylvariia, 46, 51, 62.

214 The American Family -Colonial Period

on family relations. The Quakers of Germantown in
1688 indicted slavery as follows: "Some do commit
adultery in others, separating wives from their husbands
and giving them to others . . . and some sell the
children of these poor creatures to other men." In
1780 an act for gradual abolition was passed. It pro-
vided that no child thereafter born in Pennsylvania
should be a slave; but it held in servitude till the age of
twenty-eight children born of a slave mother.

After the passage of this act some masters sent negro
children into other states there to be sold. Others sent
their pregnant women into another state that the chil-
dren might not be free. An act of 1788 provided that
births of children of slaves should be registered; that
husband and wife were not to be separated more than
ten miles without their consent; that pregnant females
were not to be sent out of the state pending delivery.
In 1816 it was decided that in certain cases if a fugitive
slave bore a child in Pennsylvania the child was free.

XII. THE FAMILY MOTIVE IN SOUTHERN
COLONIZATION

In the first settlement of Virginia no regard was •
given to family and no appeal was made to the family
motive. The settlement was a camp rather than a
colony. The early voyagers did not expect to tarry
long in the new country and did not bring their families
or establish their homes. Their intention was to make
a fortune and then return to England. It is natural,
therefore, that the settlement did not thrive. Byrd
thinks it a pity that the adventurers looked askance at
marriage with the Indians. Intermarriage, he thought,
would have been a good means for the conversion of the
natives and for the reconciliation of them to the loss of
lands. ^^^ The natives were not averse to such unions"^
but it is to be feared that the Indian damsels would not
have been adept at scouring dishes, darning hose, and
the like.

A Spanish representative in England wrote in 1609
to Philip III. informing him that the English were
about to send a few women to Virginia. He enclosed
an advertisement inviting men and women of occupa-
tion "who wish to go out in the voyage for colonizing
the country with people." In Virginia they would
have houses, gardens, orchards, food, and clothing, a
share of products, and a share in the division of the land
for themselves and their heirs forever.

112 Goodwin. The Colonial Cavalier, 45-46.
^'^^ Letters from Virginia, 167.

2i6 The American Family -Colonial Period

A letter of Gabriel Archer, on a voyage to Virginia
in 1609, says: "We had twenty women and children."
A minute of a letter of Philip III. to Don Caspar de
Pereda, from Madrid, February 20, 161 1 indicates that
the Ambassador in England had written the previous
December that ships with three hundred men and a few
women were to leave for Virginia. Toward the end
of May, 161 1 Sir Thomas Gates was sent with, three
ships and three caravels containing in all two hundred
eighty men and two hundred women. The minutes of
the meeting of the directors of the Virginia Company,
November 3, 1619 record the need

That a fitt hundreth might be sent of woemen, maids young
and vncorrupt to make wives to the inhabitants and by that
means to make the men there more settled and lesse moueable
who by defect thereof (as is credibly reported) stay there but
to get something and then to return for England, wch will breed
a dissolucon, and so an overthrow of the Plantacon. These
woemen if they marry to the publiq ffarmers, to be transported
at the charges of the company; if otherwise, then those that
takes them to wife to pay the said company their charges of
transportacon, and it was never fitter time to send them then
nowe.

The "liberals," the business class, with business sense,
had by this time captured the corporation; hence the
saner economic judgment displayed. Sir Edwin Sandys
of the company was able to see that the possibility of
business success depended on making Virginia a country
of homes. It was clear to him that the best way to make
it a place of homes was to provide wives for the men.
If they had wives and children depending on them they
would work with better cheer and not pine for England
when they should be giving all their energies to the
work. With wife and children, home in Virginia
would replace the English home in the affections of the

The Family Motive in Southern Colonization 217

emigrants. He arranged, accordingly, the plan of
sending out young women as companions to the Vir-
ginia adventurers. Ninety came in the first installment.
They were girls of good character, willing to become
new-world wives. The would-be husbands each had to ,
pay one hundred twenty pounds of tobacco which was
the price of the passage over (about ninety dollars).

The purity of the imported wives was carefully
guarded. Two transgressors were deported. Every
precaution was taken to secure the happiness of the new
wives."* It was ordered that

In case they cannot be presently married, we desire that they
may be put with several householders that have wives until they
can be supplied with husbands. . . We desire that the mar-
riages be free, according to nature and we would not have these
maids deceived and married to servants, but only such freemen
or tenants as have means to maintain them . , . not en-
forcing them to marry against their wills.

The results were most happy. So kindly were the
maidens received that they wrote back and induced
sixty more "young, handsome, and chaste" to come over
for the same purpose. It was in connection with such
a shipment that the company minutes note that if any
died the charge was to be added to the rest.

Regarding the girls shipped over as wives old writers
alleged that some were seized by fraud, trapanned in
England; that unprincipled spirits "took up rich yeo-
mans' daughters to serve his Majesty as breeders in
Virginia unless they paid money for their release." "°
This is scarcely probable so far as the company's car-
goes above mentioned are concerned. Those invoiced
maidens seem to have had a square deal and the com-
pany was not interested in the prosperity of his Majesty.

^'* Cooke. Virginia, 120-122.

^^^ Earle. Colonial Dames and Good<wi<ves, 4.

2i8 The American Family -Colonial Period

Yet Bacon (a member of the royal council for the Vir-
ginia Company) did recognize the worth of such a move
as the company made. In his Essay on Plantations
(seemingly revised between 1620 and 1624, tho prob-
ably written earlier) he says: "When the plantation
grows to strength, then it is time to plant with women
as well as with men, that the plantation may spread into
generations, and not be ever priced from without."

The scarcity of women naturally hastened the mar-
riage of any that were available. Some families in-
vited female relatives from England. These, of course,
were soon married. The company discriminated in
favor of married men. As an incentive to marriage
married men were given preference in the selection of
officers for the colony. Men with families began to
come out from England. Their advent together with
the shipment of wives and the previous abolition of
communist living served to establish Virginia as a land
of homes. The colony became settled and well-ordered.
The careless adventurers were metamorphosed into re-
sponsible fathers of families anxious for the prosperity
of a country that now seemed their own.

It was not necessary to continue permanently the im-
portation of wives. It seems that a number of women
of "the better class" came to Virginia with their hus-
bands between 1617 and 1624. Immigrants presently
sought marriage into the families of the older colonists.
The English patrons encouraged this intermarriage as
well as family migration as means of increasing the im-
portance of the colony and thus enlarging dividends.
Men of later generations wooed and won their wives in
conventional fashion. By 1688 children, grandchil-
dren, and great-grandchildren called Virginia their
home and looked to England as the motherland.

The Family Motive in Southern Colonization 219

The great bulk of the population of early Virginia
was pure English. Almost always, persons of foreign
origin took partners of Virginian or English birth.
Thus the foreign blood was lost. The majority of the
Virginia settlers were from the humbler ranks of life,
including numbers of the stalwart yeomanry. Few
men of rank ever came to the "wilderness of Virginia"
and the planters were generally of bourgeois stock.
Even cavaliers were not necessarily of noble blood.
The leading families of Virginia had exactly the same
origin as those of New England. The Virginia mid-
dle class sprang from free families of immigrants of
humble means and origin, which migration began early
and continued through the seventeenth century. The
law allowing settlers fifty acres of land for each mem-
ber of the family was an inducement. Many men bare-
ly able to pay their way came. The number of small
grants in the first half of the seventeenth century was
large. After the execution of Charles a host of royal-
ists sought shelter in America and the immigration of
this class continued even after the Restoration. The ■
influx of well-to-do is marked by a sudden rise in the
size of land grants and in the number of slaves."®

Enthusiasts in eugenics catch eagerly at this straw.
For the eddies of chafif that swirled to Virginia were
considerable. We find the council of Virginia early
complaining that

It hurteth to suffer parents to disburden themselves of lascivious
sonnes, masters of bad servants and wives of ill husbands, and so
clogge the business with such an idle crue, as did thrust them-

ii"^ See Bruce, Social Life of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, 250-251;
Wertenbaker, Patrician and Plebeian in Virginia, vol. v, 4-5, 28, 143, i6o;
Yonge, Site of Old "James Toiune," 139; Ross, Origins of the American
People, 712-713.

220 The American Family - Colonial Period

selves in the last voiaj^e, that will rather starve for hunger than
lay their hands to labor/^^

In 1618 Bridget Gray informed the Privy Council that
her grandson, John Throckmorton, was in Newgate for
stealing and begged that he might be delivered to Sir
Thomas Smith and be deported beyond the seas. In
1637 the collector of the port of London affirmed that
''most of those that go thither [to Virginia] ordinarily
have no habitation . . . and are better out than
within the kingdom.""^ From the beginning of the
plantation in Virginia, it had been the policy of the
company to send thither poor children. For fifty years
indentured servants came -from one thousand to sixteen
hundred a year. Slum and alley sewage fertilized the
plantations. Men sold dependent kindred to the col-
onies. Boys and girls were spirited from English
streets for "the plantations can not be maintained with-
out a considerable number of white servants." And
America was a convenient dump for criminals.

Sponsors of Virginia's aristocracy console themselves
with the thought that a large proportion of these seem-
ingly "undesirable citizens" were unfortunate rather
than depraved, and with the belief that natural selec-
tion eliminated or reduced the worst strains. The scarc-
\ty of women "made it impossible for the degraded lab-
* orer, even tho he ultimately secured his freedom, to
leave descendants to perpetuate his lowly instincts.""^
The wilder spirits took to the woods where death-rate
was high. Thus the alleged blue-blood had an easier
task in its breeding of "a germ plasm which easily de-
veloped such traits as good manners, high culture and
the ability to lead in all social affairs -traits combined

^^"Ross, op. cii., 712.

118 — Idem.

119 Wertenbaker. Patrician and Plebeian in Virginia, 176.

The Family Motive in Southern Colonization 221

in a remarkable degree in the first families of Vir-
ginia." ^^'^

The dearth of careers in England, especially for
younger sons, contributed to the peopling of Virginia
and also of Maryland. The settlers of Maryland were
for a long time of a sort very desirable in a new colony.
Able and industrious young men whose purpose was to
work, to secure homesteads, and to rear families
strengthened the colony. There were also men of
means, who came with wives and children. The col-
ony encouraged family migration. A man bringing
over his wife and children was allowed one hundred
acres each for self and wife and fifty for each child. A
woman coming with children received land for herself
and them. For every woman servant brought, the mas- •
ter could claim sixty acres.

There was opportunity in Maryland. The young
fellow that came penniless in 1634 n^ight by 1660 be a
prosperous country gentleman surrounded by broad
acres belonging to himself and sons, their farms gir-
dling his, and his family related by marriage with the
neighbors for miles around.

The author of Leah and Rachel [Virginia and Mary-
land], (1655) gives this advice to prospective immi-
grants :

[It it better for any one going over free, but poor, to hire for
wages the first year if he strikes an honest home] where the
mistresse is noted for a good housewife, of which there are very
many (notwithstanding the cry to the contrary) for by that
means he will live free of disbursement, have something to help
him the next year and be carefully looked to in [sickness].
Now for those that carry over families and estates with a deter-
mination to inhabit, my advice is that they neither sojourn, for
that will be chargeable; nor on the sudden purchase . . .

120 Davenport. Heredity in Relation to Eugenics, 207.

222 The American Family -Colonial Period

but that they for the first year hire a house (for seats are al-
ways to be hired) and by that means they will not only find
content and learn the worth and goodness of the plantation they
mean to purchase.

The Carolina project made direct appeal to the fam-
ily motive. Robert Home writing in 1664 of the Cape
Fear country says that younger brothers can come over
there and found families. Among the privileges grant-
ed to Carolina settlers in 1666 were the following:
Every free man and free woman, that transport themselves and
servants by the 25th of March . . . 1667, shall have for
himself, wife, children, and men-servants, for each lOO acres
of land for him and his heirs forever, and for every woman serv-
ant and slave, 50 acres paying at most 5^d. per acre per annum
in lieu of all demands, to the lords proprietors.

After 1667 in South Carolina the allotment to immi-
grants was : to each free person fifty acres ; to every man
servant and marriageable woman servant whom he
brought, the same. In 1671 an allowance of land was
made for every person in each family settling on a cer-
tain creek. Again there was promised to every free-
man settler before March 25, 1672, one hundred acres,
one hundred for every man servant, seventy for a woman
servant or a man under sixteen, and seventy to every
servant when his time was up. Families in groups of
eight might settle in such places as they chose. Thomas
Ashe, clerk on the ship Richmond, 1682, wrote:

His majesty to improve so hopeful a design [wine culture]
gave the French we carried over, their passage free for them-
selves, their wives, children, goods, and servants.

The moderate allowances made to real family settlers
were insufficient to suit would-be exploiters. In 1755
there came before the king a representation from Gov-
ernor Dobbs of North Carolina to the effect that
wealthy settlers wanted to come but were not satisfied

The Family Motive in Southern Colonization 223

with the one hundred acres for master or mistress and
fifty for each child. It was thought desirable that not
over six hundred forty acres should be given to each
person able to cultivate the same. Doubtless this rec-
ommendation was too meager to satisfy the prospective
plutocrats.

South Carolina, in her zeal for population, offered
bounties that must have been very attractive to persons
with families. Milligan in 1763 gave the schedule as
follows: For children under two years, one pound;
two to twelve years, two pounds; persons over twelve
years, four pounds. Royal land offers were still in
force.

Carolina drew a motley population -English, Scotch,
Scotch-Irish, German, Irish, Swiss, Huguenot. All
these strains merged into one in the process of time.
The Huguenots for a time were treated meanly, doubt-
less from envy of their superior economic qualities. In
South Carolina in 1693 ^^ey were threatened with the
loss of their estates at death because they were foreign-
ers.^^^ The proprietors reassured them on this point.
The Huguenots wished to forget France. In Charles-
ton the children of the refugees were not appreciably
different from the English. Successful Huguenots
tended to intermarry in English families for the sake of
social prestige. Moreover Huguenot names were
anglicized thus obscuring the history of families. For
a long while the Santee Huguenots intermarried mainly
among themselves. Not before the end of the second
generation did the French on the Santee merge with the
English. Even then the blending was not complete.
At the end of the colonial period the Carolinas con-

^21 Huguenot Society of South Carolina, Transactions, 61-62, 67-68.

224 ilw American Family - Colonial Period

tained many villages whose inhabitants were all Hugue-
nots or all Highlanders.

In Georgia, as elsewhere, the strongest appeals were
made to the family interest. Oglethorpe in 1732 set
forth that a family of father, mother, and child over
seven, able to earn in England say ten pounds per year,
all told, while it cost them twenty pounds to live, could
in Georgia produce a gross value (including land
yield) of sixty pounds per year. This beautiful pros-
pect for a man with only one-fourth of normal earning
power is figured out thus: He will be assigned a lot
of about fifty acres. The usual wage of common labor
in Carolina is three shillings per day.

Our poor man ... at about gd. per day earns about £12
per annum, his care of stock on his land in his hours of resting
from labor (amount to 3^ of each day) is worth also £12 per
annum. His wife and eldest child may easily between them
earn as much as the man.

Provisions will be cheap.

Benjamin Martyn wrote booming the Georgia set-
tlement and picturing the Georgia that was to be:
"Women and children feeding and nursing the silk-
worms, winding ofif the silk, or gathering the olives;"
men "in content and affluence, and masters of little
possessions which they can leave their children." The
picture is an attractive contrast to their condition in
England, a prey to want and "hunger, and seeing their
wives and children in the same distress."

In addition to very liberal food allowances, provi-
sion was made for sending to Georgia on charity "such
as have numerous families of children, if assisted by
their respective parishes, and recommended by the min-
ister, church-warden, and overseers thereof." On the
voyage to America the German dissenters were given

The Family Motive in Southern Colonization 225

spaces according to families. The single men were
located by themselves. The women were given thread,
worsted, and knitting needles, and they were required
to employ their ''leisure time in making stockings and
caps for their family, or in mending their cloaths and
linnen."

"The difficulties of the southern settlement" were con-
sidered "almost insuperable to women and children.''
But new settlers, after consulting their wives and fami-
lies, resolved to go on to Frederica, as brothers, sons,
and servants were gone before and it would be base to
forsake them.

The True Narration of Georgia published at Charles-
ton in 1741 purports to expose the fraudulence of claims
made for the new colony. The author quotes the cal-
culation as to the "poor man's" magnified earning pow-
ers in Georgia and asserts that very soon after the settle-
ment numbers of people left the province being unable
to support their families there. Among the causes of
the "Ruin of Georgia" he cites the restricting of land
tenure so as to cut ofif daughters and other relatives from
succession in default of male heirs. In that case land
reverted to the trustees. It was urged also that "the
extent of possessions" was too much restricted, "it being
impossible that fifty acres of good land, much less pine
barren, could maintain a white family." Finding it
hard to support their families settlers hesitated to re-
main in the colony. Alarmed at the prospect of de-
population the magistrates joined the free-holders in
and about Savannah in petitioning the trustees for title
in fee simple and the use of negroes. ^^^ Right of inher-
itance in lieu of male heirs was presently granted to

^22 Arthur and Carpenter. History of Georgia, 41, 47.

226 The American Family -Colonial Period

daughters as will appear in a later chapter; moreover
provision was made for grants larger than fifty acres.

The trustees showed a willingness to make concessions
to the family interest. The minutes of the trustees for
July 26, 1742, show a petition of Christian Steinharrel,
Theobald Keifer, etc., in behalf of the German servants
in Savannah indented to the trustees. Their term was
about to expire but their sons were bound to serve till
twenty-five, and the girls till eighteen. The parents
wanted to settle in Georgia and had some cattle but
"they must unavoidably labor under great difficulties
by being deprived of the freedom of their children,
without whose assistance it will be impossible for them
to make any progress in cultivating the land, being most
of them advanced in years." They prayed for the free-
dom of their children to take efifect at the time when
their own indentures should expire. The trustees re-
solved to recommend to the council to grant the petition.

As previously observed English primogeniture drove
younger sons across the ocean. In Georgia gentle stock
and serf lineage dressed alike, married and intermar-
ried.

As indicated in the account of Virginia the failure of
the family interest was a factor also in the peopling of
the South. Recreant husbands and wives could escape
justice by coming to America. The Mayor of Bristol
in 1662 said: "Among these who repair to Bristol"
for America "some are husbands that have forsaken
their wives, others wives who have abandoned their
husbands, some are children and apprentices run away
from their parents and masters." Bishop Spangenberg
(Moravian) in his Journal of Travels in North Caro-
lina (1752) noted that some of the people "have left a
wife and children elsew^here." Some involuntary im-

The Family Motive in Southern Colonization 227

migrants to America were persons whose marital part-
ners or other relatives, for reasons of their own, con-
trived to have them deported. ^^^ New World settlers
removed thus from all restraints of family were exposed
to divers temptations. Yet such cases as these do not
obscure the eminence of the family motive in American
colonization.

The family interest was prominent in migration to
the frontier. At the beginning of the eighteenth cen- •
tury as inducement to settlers to migrate to Western
Virginia every male or female coming into the frontier
colony was to have fifty acres. Families were to have
fifty for each member. Villages did not spring up as
had been expected. Presbyterians and others did come
as settlers. The Presbyterian congregations in Vir-
ginia sought wilderness homes "where every man's
cabin might stand upon his own acres." Pioneer fam-
ilies moved in companies or fixed their abodes in neigh-
borhoods for defence and for social and religious priv-
ileges. In some places intermarriage merged groups
of different sects. Thus the family appears as the
shaper of the new people.

As the hunter penetrated the western wilds and found
game abundant he thought to himself, "Well now, if I
had the old woman and babies here, I should be fixed."
Special inducements were offered to draw population
westward. In 1776 Virginia offered each family set-
tling vacant lands on waters of the Mississippi four
hundred acres and to families who, for greater safety,
had settled together and worked the land in common a
town site of six hundred forty acres was given and a
further grant of four hundred acres contiguous to town
to each family on consideration of such settlement.

123 Morton. History of Highland County, 44-4S-

XIII. FAMILISM AND HOME LIFE IN THE
COLONIAL SOUTH

The life of the Southern family, at least on the coastal
plain, was very different from that of the North Atlan-
tic section. Especially in Maryland and tidewater Vir-
ginia did plantation life prevail. The plantations tend-
ed to isolation and self-support. They were isolated
because tobacco soon sapped the fertility of the soil and
made it necessary to seek fresh fields. Old grounds
were left to revert to wilderness. Thus plantations
were often separated by belts of forest. The estates
had to be independent, for roads were poor and com-
munication was often directly with England by means
of vessels coming up the streams to the plantation docks.

Domestic industry was a matter of course. In old
Virginia female slaves and white servants wove coarse
cloth and fashioned it into suits. Cotton spinning was
a home industry. Artisans were to be found among the
indentured servants. Washington's plantation at Mt.
Vernon was a specimen of the self-sufficing estate. He
had a smithy, charcoal-burners, brickmakers, carpen-
ters, masons, a flour-mill, coopers, and a vessel to carry
produce to market. He also employed shoemakers and
operated a weaving establishment.

The importation of white slaves was promoted by the
fact that the immigrant to the South might secure for
himself additional land for every servant brought over.

The condition and treatment of bond-servants was
variable. Redemptioners were often separated from

230 The American Family -Colonial Period

their family. Alsop, a redemptioner who came in 1658,
paints the position of a servant in Maryland in the
brightest colors as far better than that of an apprentice
or young craftsman in London. He argues in favor of
the indenture of children as a means of giving them a
place in the world. It has been suggested that his work
is perhaps a paid-for puff of Maryland in the interest
of the proprietor and merchant adventurers. Opinion
differs on this point.

The author of Leah and Rachel reports that in Vir-
ginia

The women are not (as is reported) put into the ground to
worke, but occupie such domestique imployments and house-
wifery as in England, that is dressing victuals, righting up the
house, milking, imployed about dayries, washing, sewing, etc.,
and both men and women have times of recreation, as much or
more than in any part of the world besides, yet some wenches
that are nasty, beastly, and not fit to be so imployed are put into
the ground, for reason tells us, they must not at charge be
transported and then maintained for nothing, but those that
prove so aukward are rather burdensome then servants desira-
ble or useful.

In Maryland of 1679,

The servants and negros, after they have worn themselves down
the whole day . . . have yet to grind and pound the
grain . . . for their masters and all their families, as well
as themselves and all the negros.

A letter from Savannah dated 1741 reads:

The trustees German servants in general behave well and are
industrious: of these, eight or ten families are more remarkably
so, and have this last year purchased a good stock of cattle,
some having six cows, the least two ; and each having a garden,
where they raise some corn, peas, pumpkins, potatoes, etc., which
with the milk of their cows is the chief part of their food ; they
are at little expense for clothing.

On the St. Johns River in Florida was placed, during
the English regime following 1763, a colony of people

Home Life in the South 231

from the Mediterranean. They were "obliged to in-
dent themselves, their wives and children for many
years." They were given

A pitiful portion of land for ten years . . . this being
improved and just rendered fit for cultivation, at the end of
that time it reverts to the original grantor, and the grantee
may, if he chooses, begin a new state of vassalage for ten years
more. Many were denied even such grants as these, and were
obliged to work in the manner of negroes, a task in the
field . . . instead of allowing each family to do with their
homely fare as they pleased, they were forced to join altogether
in one mess, and at the beat of a vile drum, to come to one
common copper, from whence their hominy was ladled out to
them.

In Virginia all servants and apprentices were to be
taught along with their master's children every Sun-
day "just before evening prayer" by the minister of the
parish. In view of the shady character of many serv-
ants in the South such a measure was perhaps appro-
priate. The shortage of good servants constituted a
Southern household problem.

Geniality of climate worked against frugality. The
appearance of opulence on the large plantation is illus-
trated in the following entry in 1772 by a southern gen-
tleman:

This day I went to see my plantations under John E.
Beale. . . Jack lives well; but I was sorry to see his wife
act the part of a fine lady in all her wearing aparell, with at
least two maids besides her own girl to get the dinner and wait
upon her; but this I do suppose she did to show her respect;
however, I had rather have seen the diligent, industrious woman.

It was intended to make Georgia a colony of home
industry.

A man with his son, or a servant, may, without much trouble,
gather leaves sufficient for as many worms as he can keep.
His wife and daughter or a servant maid may feed and attend
the worms as they are within doors.

232 The American Family -Colonial Period

The southern planter could turn only to his family for
regular companionship. Conditions promoted that
patriarchal regime with strong feeling for family ties
so typical of Maryland and tidal Virginia and indeed
of the plantation South in general.

The ''family" might assume large proportions. An
• act of the Virginia Assembly, 1640, held every master
of family responsible for the military service of each
of its members, the "family" including servants but not
blacks. Of North Carolina in 1752 Bishop Spangen-
berg wrote:

If a man of family . . . does not appear before a jus-
tice . . . once a year, and render an account of all taxa-
ble propert}'^ . . . also the names and ages of all persons of
his household who are taxable, be they white or black, shall
pay a fine of forty shillings, and for every month that it is neg-
lected, twenty shillings more.

A Georgia letter of 1740 runs thus:

I have this day . . . inquired at Mr. Whitefields (who
has by far the largest family of any in this colony consisting of
nearly 150 persons) and received the following account . . .
that their family consists of 60 persons, including bond serv-
ants, 61 orphans and other poor children, 25 working trades-
men, and others, in all 146, exclusive of many others, who have
remained at their house a month, two or three months at a
time (and have been accounted to be of their family) and that
all the family are in good health.

The influence of family connection was strong in all
the old colonies. Virginia saw the rise of families of
gentry who intermarried for generations and built up a
landed aristocracy. Family life and ties reached
strong development in Virginia. Every person de-
sired to found a family or spread the influence of the
one he had. Relationship was noted to a degree that
made the term "Virginia cousin" a symbol for remote
kinship. A strong caste spirit grew up. The leading

Home Life in the South 233

Virginians of a later day were proud to trace their pedi-
gree. Coats of arms were esteemed. The vastness of
available lands held in abeyance during the seventeenth
century the disposition to magnify the social standing
of a family by the cult of primogeniture but there was
a potent desire to promote family distinction by monop-
oly of as many public offices as possible. From 1670
to 1691 every official position in Henrico County was
filled by a member of the Randolph family or of two
other families. Four families got most of the military
offices of the county. Similar conditions prevailed in
all the older counties where certain families had been
long enough to establish powerful social and political
connections. Thus colonial Virginia developed a priv-
ileged hereditary bureaucracy so that offices were hand-
ed from father to son and the social system became fos-
silized with the impedimenta of lineage.

It was inevitable that as soon as untaken land began
to be relatively scarce, a tendency toward soil engross-
ment within the family would develop. This trend was
not altogether due to direct economic considerations.
It was in some degree an inheritance of the English idea
that the ownership of large lands was the surest foun-
dation of family aristocracy. Jefiferson in his Memoirs
wrote :

At the time of the first settlement of the English in Virginia,
when land was had for little or nothing, some provident per-
sons having obtained large grants of it, and being desirous of
maintaining the splendor of their families, entailed their prop-
erty on their descendants. The transmission of these estates
from generation to generation, to men who bore the same name,
had the effect of raising up a distinct class of families, who,
possessing by law the privilege of perpetuating their wealth,
formed by these means a sort of patrician order, distinguished
by the grandeur and luxury of their establishments.

234 ^^'^' ■^'i'^ii'f'ican Family - Colonial Period

Nearly all the extensive Virginia estates were ob-
tained by corrupt means. On one occasion Fairfax as
proprietor made a grant of three hundred thousand
acres to his nephew who promptly and fraudulently
reconveyed it to Fairfax as his own. Thus was laid in
fraud the basis of family prestige and fortunes in the
colonies -a factor of great influence on later American
affairs.^=*

English primogeniture does not appear to have been
in general operation in the seventeenth century. Real
estate was not yet sufficiently valuable to constitute a rare
distinction and there was a dearth of mechanical trades
for younger sons. Generally sons shared equally. Of-
ten the oldest son was allowed first voice in the division
of the estate.^" Among the early Eastern-Shoremen
the practice of dividing estates among children before
decease was common. They did not greatly favor the
doctrine of primogeniture. The first entail mentioned
as occurring in that region took place in 1653 and en-
tails were relatively rare.^^^

But the illiberal spirit took strong hold of Virginia.
A York County man in 1688 bequeathed all lands and
tenements to his eldest son in ventre^ the living children
being daughters. In England the courts could cut off
entails; but an old Virginia law of 1705 forbade this
course except by express act of the legislature.'" Thus
Virginia feudalism outdistanced that of England. Vir-
ginia in the eighteenth century continued patriarchal.
No creditor could touch the great estate. It was en-
tailed on the eldest son. This system of artificial aris-
tocracy prevailed until the American Revolution. But

124 Myers. History of the Supreme Court, 22-27.

^25 Bruce. Social Life of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, 126-127

126 Wise. Ye Kingdom of Accaivmacke, 319.

127 Cooke. Virginia, 445.

Home Life in the South 235

in case of intestates the law in force at the middle of the
eighteenth century gave one third to the widow and
divided the rest equally among the children with special
privilege to the heir-at-law. Moreover most of the dis-
tinguished families of the colony degenerated.'^®

In Maryland from the first settlement until Ameri-
can independence lands followed, in case of intestacy,
the English law of primogeniture but parents common-
ly devised tracts of land to their younger sons and often
to their daughters. Men of large estate not infrequent-
ly gave property to a "beloved son-in-law," thus be-
stowing a marriage portion on a daughter. But gen-
erally fathers bequeathed the home plantation to the
oldest son. In the absence of.a will he inherited every-
thing. The widow received one third of the land and
a dower house which she occupied when the heir came
of age or married and took possession of the mansion.
English entail kept lands for many generations in the
straight male line inalienable save by payment of a fine
to the proprietary.

The homestead of the small Maryland farmer was, •
in its way, what his rich neighbor's plantation was on a
larger scale. It too was largely independent- a little
community. On both, interest and devotion centered
in the family. The children grew up and spread the
area of cultivation and when they married settled on
the land. But the manors were soon divided among the
different descendants of the original proprietors. The
last one was broken up by the death of Charles Carroll
of Carrollton at the end of the first third of the nine-
teenth century. Thus schemes for medieval aristocracy
came to naught.

The failure of feudal principles in Maryland and

128 YVertenbaker. Patrician and Plebeian in Virginia, 139-141.

236 The Aiuerican Family -Colonial Period

Virginia and the noteworthy collapse of the medieval
project for feudalism in the Carolinas illustrate the
futility of dreaming the establishment of social struc-
tures without the requisite economic base or their per-
petuation after that base is gone. One can not create
feudalism with a sparse population in a limitless land;
nor can primogeniture persist when land is too plentiful
to be a great prize, and when there is lack of soft open-
ings for younger sons.

North Carolina developed on more uncouth lines
than its neighbors. The people lived in isolated inde-
pendence, each family apart on its small farm in the
midst of dense swamps and wilds, responsible only to
itself. The living came largely from hunting, with a
little agriculture, a large part of which was performed
by the women. German settlers began settling western
North Carolina about 1750. Among them the paternal
abode generally passed to one child; other children
built near by. Land seldom passed from family to
family. In many instances the descendants of the pio-
neers continued on the ancestral homesteads at least un-
til recent times.

In none of the southern colonies was city life impor-
tant save in South Carolina. At Charleston lived the
wealthiest planters. They were more prosperous and
in^epelident than those in the colonies farther north,
who in spite of their apparent wealth were generally
deep in debt and frequently fell into bankruptcy due to
wasteful agricultural methods, speculative disposition,
reckless habits, and expensive tastes."® The unhealth-
ful climate in the rice lands of South Carolina forced
the planters to live in town. Even then exposure to
disease and hard living killed off the men so rapidly

129 xhwaites. The Colonies, 98, 107.

Home Life in the South 237

that it was common for a woman to have several suc-
cessive husbands.

Fraud was present in the acquisition of great Caro-
lina and Georgia estates. Governor Wright wrote from
Savannah to the Lords of Trade, 1763, referring to the
"very extraordinary procedure of the Governor of
South Carolina" in allowing a few to monopolize the
most valuable areas.

I say, my lords, this procedure has struck a general damp and
dispirited the whole province. . . An extension of the lim-
its to the southward, if the lands were properly parcelled out
to people who would really cultivate and improve them, would
draw some thousand inhabitants here; whereas, by this step
taken in Carolina, great part of the lands, my lords, are or-
dered in large tracts to some wealthy settlers in Carolina, who
probably will never see it themselves, and some of whom, it is
said, have already more lands in that province than they can
cultivate or improve. This, my lords, is pretty well known on
this side of the water; and who, having a great number of
slaves, claim what they call their family right, that is, fifty acres
of land for each slave, although it is highly probable that their
ancestors had land for those very slaves, and it is well under-
stood here that many of those persons, especially those who have
the largest tracts, have no intention to remove here or settle
them; but probably some years hence, when it begins to get
valuable, will sell it, and in the meantime those vast tracts of
land are to lie waste and unimproved, as very great bodies yet
do in Carolina, and if they should do anything at all with those
lands, it is expected that it will only be by sending an overseer
and a few negros [as a technical occupation of the land].

The problem of family interest in land tenure and
the question of primogeniture caused great concern in
the Georgia colony, especially as it was a military out-
post against Spain. Four of the colonists before going
asked that daughters might inherit as well as sons and
that widows' dower be considered. It was

Agreed that the persons who now go over, and desire the same,

238 The American Family - Colonial Period

shall have the priviledge of naming a successor to the lands
granted them, who in case they die without issue male, shall
enjoy the same to them and their heirs male for ever. Agreed
that the widows shall have their thirds as in England.

The Trustees in a later account of the colony give as the
reason for first ''making it tail male^'' the need of sol-
diers.

Moore in his Voyage to Georgia (his trip began in
1735 and he published his account in 1744), wrote:
All lots are granted in tail male, and descend to the heirs male
of their bodies forever. . . [In default of male heirs, lands
revert to the Trust to be granted as seems best.] They will
have a special regard to the daughters of freeholders who have
made improvements on their lots, not already provided for, by
having married, or marrying persons in possessions, or entitled
to lands in the province of Georgia, in possession or remain-
der. . . The wives of the freeholders, in case they should sur-
vive their husbands, are, during their lives, entitled to the
mansion house, and one half of the lands improved by their
husbands. . . In order to maintain many people, it was
proper that the land should be divided into small portions, and
to prevent uniting them by marriage or purchase. . . They
suffered the moiety of the lots to descend to the widows during
their lives: those who remarried to men who had lots of their
own by uniting two lots made one to be neglected. . . These
uncleared lots are a nuisance to their neighbors. . . The
quantity of land by experience seems rather too much (50 acres)
since it is impossible that one poor family can tend so much
land. . . The trustees grant the land in tail male, that on
the expiring of a male line they may regrant it to such man,
having no other lot, as shall be married to the next female heir
of the deceased, as is of good character.

The restrictions, as noted previously, aroused resent-
ment. In a letter to Oglethorpe, "the Plain-dealer"
wrote :

I shall suppose that, were full and ample rights given, that
some idle persons, who had no judgment to value, or inclina-

Home Life in the South 239

tion to improve their properties, no affections for their families
or relations, might dispose of their rights for a glass of rum;
but I absolutely deny, that the colony could lose by such an
exchange. I own such persons were much safer if bound than
at liberty; but where the affection of the parent and the reason
of the man die, the person is a fitter inhabitant for Moorfields
than Georgia. I must notice further, that not only are parents
incapable for want of credit, to provide for themselves, being
necessitated to dispose of their servants for want of provisions;
but if they could, only their eldest son could reap the benefit;
their younger children, however numerous, are left to be fed
by Him who feeds the ravens; and if they have no children,
their labor and substance descends to strangers. How, sir,
could you, or indeed any free-born spirit, brook such a tenor?
Are not our younger children and daughters equally entitled to
our bowels and affections? And does human nature end with
our first, and not extend itself to the rest of our progeny and
more distant relations? And is it not inverting the order of na-
ture, that the eldest son should not only enjoy a double portion,
but exclude all the younger children? and having an interest
independent of the parents', how natural is it he should with-
draw that obedience and subjection which proceeds from pater-
nal authority and filial dependence !

This remonstrance was included in the True and His-
torical Narration by several landholders in Georgia
printed in Charleston, 1741.

In 1739 the trustees had revised the law so as to allow
the widow to enjoy, if there were children, a moiety of
the property during her life and, if no children, all of it.
This grant was to be void if she remarried, unless the
new husband would give security to keep the property
in good condition, and then it was to go to her heirs.
Further if any tenant died without male heirs, any
daughter might hold all (in tail male), if not over
eighty acres, and if there was more than that amount, it
might be held by one or more daughters designated by
will. In default of such apportionment the eldest

240 The American Family -Colonial Period

daughter was to hold in tail male. If there was no

issue the man might will the land in tail. In case of

intestacy the property went to the heir at law. No

devise was to be made of over eighty acres or less than

fifty to one person. No person could enjoy a devise if

it increased his estate to over five hundred acres.

Martyn in the Impartial Inquiry^ written in 1741, said:

The daughter of a freeholder, or any other person, is made

capable of enjoying by inheritance a devise of lands, provided

that it does not increase her or his possessions to more than

2000 acres.

These changes had not come about without consider-
able agitation. When concessions were made they were
alleged to be too complex to be understood. The ani-
mus of the campaign can be gathered from the com-
plaint that "several of the houses which were built by
freeholders, for want of heirs male, are fallen to the
trustees."

The scope and influence of family relationship was
great in the South. Sometimes several brothers came
together to America. In many cases men of wealth
brought over their young kinsmen and friends, for each
of whom, in Maryland, they received fifty acres of land.
(There the larger the family group the better. Poor
kinsfolk were welcome assets.) There it was customary
for such a "servant" to receive the fifty acres on reach-
ing freedom. Redemptioners signed in Europe con-
tracts that surviving members of a family must make
good the loss of ones dying en voyage. So a wife that
lost her husband or her children would be sold for five
years for her own voyage and additional years for the
fare of her dead husband or children tho they had died
at the very start of the voyage.

Ties persisted between English and American branch-

Home Life in the South 241

es of families. In seventeenth century Virginia there
were numerous bequests from the colonial branch of a
family to the English. Often Virginia children were
commended to the care of their kindred oversea while
pursuing education at an English school. These trans-
oceanic relations were hard to maintain in that day of
slow transit. In Maryland false claims to property
were frequently made in the absence of the rightful
heirs abroad.

The dominance of familism in the colonial South
was promoted by rural isolation as has been seen.
Landed gentry had family burying-grounds on their
own estates. Hugh Jones wrote regretfully of this in-
dividualism: "It is customary to bury in garden, or
orchards, where whole families lye interred togeth-
er .. . the graves kept decently." Some of the
German settlers in western North Carolina had family
graveyards. It could scarcely be expected that planta-
tion dwellers on widely separated estates and remote
pioneers would observe the institution of burial in
church grounds.

Early Virginia legislation showed a disposition to
promote familism. By acts of 1623- 1624

All the old planters that were here before or came in at the last
coming of Sir Thomas Gates they and their posterity shall be
exempted from their personal service to the warrs and any pub-
lic charge (church duties excepted) that belong particularly to
their persons (not exempting their families) except such as shall
be employed to command in chief.

In 1 63 1 the phrase "they and their posterity" was struck
out.

About the time that Puritanism was getting hold in
Massachusetts, Virginia enacted blue laws: Men were
to dress according to rank and the law of 1619 provided
Against excesse in apparel 1 that every man be cesscd in the

242 The American Family -Colonial Period

church for all publique contributions, if he be unmarried ac-
cording to his owne apparell, if he be married according to his
owne and his wives, or either of their apparell.

We read of charming family relations in the colonial
South. Life at the South was grander, shabbier, and
more genial than in the Puritan commonwealths. Home
rather than church was the shrine of the colonial cav-
alier, notwithstanding his nominal reverence for "moth-
er church." It was at home that most christenings and
funerals occurred and Hugh Jones complained that "in
houses they most commonly marry."

The Virginia planter on his manor surrounded by his
family and retainers was a feudal lord. At the great
Christmas festival around the huge log fires gathered
the family clan. It was a time of joy for high and low.
This plantation life in a mild climate and cut ofif from
the great world gave rise to the greater geniality of
southern family relations and to the deep attachment
to the soil, so proverbial in those regions. Coaches of
four rolled from the doors of the aristocracy. Profu-
sion of gold and silver plate shone on the boards even
while the Declaration of Independence in high-sound-
ing phrase voiced the stage-play theories of make-be-
lieve "democracy." More than a hundred years earlier
the English people had been informed:

Your ordinary houses in England are not so handsome [as the
houses in Virginia] for usually the rooms are large, daubed
and white-washed, glazed and flowered, and if not glazed win-
dows, shutters which are made very pretty and convenient.

Soil engrossment was a means to that isolation of
dwelling that has always appealed to the Englishman.
No hedge or walls were needed in Virginia. Hill and
grove furnished natural screens. The secluded life in-
tensified hospitality as well as family affection. As
houses were small and families large, bed-rooms were

Home Life in the South 243

overcrowded in early colonial days/^° Governor
Berkeley's home at Green Spring had only six rooms
and a hall. The planters found it necessary to put beds
in every room save the kitchen. In the parlor might be
found not only beds but chests of clothing and linen.
An account of the eastern shore of Virginia (seven-
teenth century) says that there seem to have been few
homes at that time without musical instruments. The
James River mansions and others that survive were
erected in the eighteenth century.

Rude tenant huts about the southern mansions formed
sharp contrast to the relative grandeur of aristocratic
life. But for many years in Virginia wages were high ;
so that laborers could accumulate means to buy a
farm."^ Squatters were sometimes driven from homes
and farms.

Colonial Virginia was well supplied with taverns, or
grog shops. The use of liquor was general. The de-
velopment of high class hotels was retarded by the fact
that the presence of strangers was a welcome break in
the montony of plantation life and hence the traveler
need not pay for accommodations. A Virginia act of
1663 throws interesting side-light on the entertainment
of strangers:

Whereas it is frequent with divers inhabitants of this country
to entertain strangers into their home without making any
agreement with the party what he shall pay for his accomoda-
tions, which (if the party live) causes many litigous suites, and
if the stranger dye lays a gap open to many avaricious persons
to injure the estate of the person deceased, f¥or remedy whereof
for the future, be it enacted that noe person not making a
positive agreement with any one he shall entertayne into his
home for diet or storeage shall recover anything against any

i3o\Yertenbaker. Patrician and Plebeian in Virginia, 113; Yonge. Site
of Old "James Toinne," 141.

:3i Wertenbaker, op. cit., 183-184.

244 The American Family -Colonial Period

one soe eiitertayned, or against his estate, but that every one
shall be reputed to entertayne those of curtesie with whom they
make not a certain agreement.

Early Maryland did not differ from Virginia in pride
of birth and family. There are strong proofs of family
affection. Deeds of gift of large lands to sons and
daughters for "natural love and affection" show us the
human side of remote forbears. Sons were not ex-
pected to wait till their parents' death before having a
home of their own. Fathers encouraged sons to marry
early; this was easy with a good plantation. Daugh-
ters were endowed with land at the time of marriage.
Many homes originating thus are still the foundation
of family pride after nine generations. Hospitality to
friends ran high. Home life was fuller in those early
days, the days on which ideals of home life ground.
Yet no modern town could equal Annapolis in the pro-
portion of club life."^

The Huguenots embellished society with the cour-
tesies and graces of domestic life. J. A. Johnson says:

When the writer on the South wants characters for a story of
domestic joy and content, and that cause life to run smoothly
into a green old age - an age crowned with the glory of chil-
dren's children - he can turn to old Huguenot life at Bor-
deaux in Abbeville County.

In the later eighteenth century wealthy families of
Charleston kept open house. One merchant had "guests
almost every day at one or more of the four meals."
He had to entertain ship captains and the like. Per-
haps Huguenot influence cherishing French usage had
something to do with society standards. On the eve of
the Revolution marriages were formal affairs requiring
consultation of parents and guardians, and approbation
of the family.

132 Fisher. Men, fVomen, and Manners in Colonial Times, vol. ii, 207.

XIV. SOUTHERN COLONIAL COURTSHIP

AND MARRIAGE AS SOCIAL

INSTITUTIONS

As commonly in new countries so in the American
South marriage was highly esteemed. The foundation
was early laid for that conservatism that even yet char-
acterizes southern marriage.

The exigencies and opportunities of pioneer life op-
erated to produce universal, early, and repeated mar-
riage. The colonial maiden came into society and
married with astonishing precocity. In seventeenth
century Virginia if the father made a gift to his daugh-
ter it was customary to insert a proviso in case she mar-
ried before sixteen. In one clandestine marriage in
Northhampton County the wife was not past her twelfth
year. Chief Justice Marshall met and fell in love with
his wife when she was fourteen and married her at six-
teen. In North Carolina cheap lands and large fami-
lies promoted early marriage of the children. Mar-
riage at thirteen was not very unusual and at fifteen
was most common. Doctor Brickell, who practised in
North Carolina at Edenton about 173 1, wrote: "They
marry generally very young, some at thirteen or four-
teen, and she that continues unmarried until twenty,
is reckoned a stale maid, which is a very indifferent
character in that country." A colonial spinster of over
twenty-five was regarded as a hopeless and confirmed
old maid.

Men also married at an early age. But marriage was

246 The American Family - Colonial Period

less essential to a man and some males began to see ad-
vantages in single life. Colonial Maryland was marked
• by the number of adult unmarried sons living at home.
Bachelors, along with light wines and billiard tables,
were taxed for the French war. There were many to
pay the tax. Between 1755 and 1763 there were in the
parish of St. Thomas thirty-nine recorded bachelors.
St. Anne's parish vestry books show thirty-four bach-
elors subject to the colony tax on unmarried men over
twenty-five. The tax was scarcely heavy enough to
promote marriage: five shillings on estates under three
hundred pounds sterling and twenty shillings on larger
estates. This burden was a small one compared to the
cares of a household.

It may be that celibacy indicated inability to meet
the growing demands of luxury. The Abbe Robin at a
later date says of Annapolis: "Female luxury here
exceeds what is known in the provinces of France. A
French hair-dresser is a man of importance, it is said a
certain dame here, hires one of that craft at a thousand
crowns a year salary." George Grieve, an Englishman,
writing of the Revolutionary period, said:

The rage for dress amongst the women in America, in the very
height of the miseries of the war, was beyond all bounds; nor
was it confined to the great towns, it prevailed equally on the
sea-coasts, and in the woods and solitudes of the vast extent of
country from Florida to New Hampshire. . . In travel-
ling into the interior parts of Virginia I spent a delicious day
at an inn, at the ferry of the Shenandoah . . . with the
most engaging, accomplished and voluptuous girls, the daugh-
ters of the landlord, a native of Boston transplanted thither;
who with all the gifts of nature possessed the arts of dress not
unworthy of Parisian milliners, and went regularly three times
a week . . . seven miles, to attend the lessons of one De
Grace, a French dancing master, who was making a fortune
in the country.

Southern Courtship and Marriage 247

There is a suggestion that women, as well as men
were supposed to be in danger of perverse neglect to
marry. It must have been a feeling that unmarried .
females were anomalous that led to the early Maryland
law:

That it may be prevented that noe woman here vow chastity
in the world, unless she marry within seven years after land
fall to her, she must either dispose away of hir land, or else
she shall forfeite it to the next of kinne, and if she have but
one manner, whereas she cannot alienate it, it is gonne unless
she git a husband.

Thomas Copley wrote to Lord Baltimore:

To what purpose this ole law is maid your lorpe perhaps will
see better than I for my part I see great dilficultys in it, but to
what purpose I well see not.

He must have been very obtuse in view of the fact that
celibacy was out of place in a new country needing peo-
ple. In 1642 there were four female householders
numbered among taxable citizens.

The precocity of colonial marriage allowed time for
repetitions of the act. Many of the Virginia girls that
married in childhood and assumed the burdens of fam-
ily at so immature an age became broken in health and
after bearing a dozen children died leaving their hus-
bands to marry again and beget new broods perhaps as
large as the first. On the eastern shore of Virginia in
the seventeenth century it was not remarkable for a man
to have three or four successive wives. There were in-
stances of Virginians married six times. It is not un-
usual to find a colonial dame that was married four
times. Few conspicuous colonial men in Virginia, at
least, lived beyond middle life; most died short of it.
The malarial climate, exposure, and reckless habits cut
them off. The young and attractive widows need not

248 The American Family- Colonial Period

remain long forlorn in a country with a preponderance
of males, at least if the feminine charms were supple-
mented by a fine plantation. Sometimes the relay was
so close that the second husband was granted the pro-
bate of the will of the first. In one case funeral baked
meats furnished the marriage table. One husband left
all the estate to his wife's children by her next marriage.
Quickness of remarriage does not indicate callousness
but rather the woman's need of protection on the plan-
tation and of an overseer for the work.'^^

A noticeable feature of colonial Virginia was the
belleship of widows. ^^* Maidens seem not to have been
"in it." As we come toward the Revolution the widows
still reign supreme. It may be that the larger social
experience of the widows magnified their charms or
made them more adept at handling bashful lovers.
Washington belonged in this class if we may trust the
sentimental poems that he wrote to the unknown maiden
that he loved when he was fifteen. After several un-
successful afifairs he probably was sufficiently experi-
enced not to dally in his wooing of Mrs. Custis. Pat-
rick Henry's father married a widow; so did Jefiferson
and James Madison.

The charms of a widow were likely to be largely
economic. The second husband counted himself the
real successor of the first, entitled to demand whatever
was due to his predecessor. In 1692 the governor and
council of Maryland were thus petitioned:

James Brown of St. Mary's who married the widow . . .
of Thomas Pew ... by his petition humbly prays allow-

133 On remarriage, see Wise, Ye Kingdom of Accaiamacke, 319; Bruce,
Social Life of Virgima in the Seventeenth Century, 224, 226; Barton, Vir-
ginia Colonial Decisions, vol. i, 226.

134 Goodwin. The Colonial Cavalier, 51; Earle. Colonial Dames and
Goodivives, 34-39.

Southern Courtship and Marriage 249

ance for two years sallary due to his predecessor as publick
post ... as also for the use of a horse, and the loss of a
servant wholly, by the said Pew deputed in his sickness to offi-
ciate; and ran clear away with his horse, some clothes, etc., and
for several months after not heard of.

Often seemingly insoluble tangles arose from the re-
peated marriages of widows, often to widowers. Some-
times, especially when three or more sets of children
were involved, the labyrinth of property rights was a
puzzle.

The colonists were naturally delighted with the high
marriage rate. The South Carolina Gazette of March
2, 1734 remarks:

We have by the last advice from Purrysburg an account of the
noble effects the climate of that colony has produced: there is
six couples embarked thence for Savannah in Georgia to be
joyned in the holy state of matrimony, and half a dozen pair
more are preparing themselves for the same.

In the early plantation of Maryland there was no ,
official wife market. Yet the trade was as brisk as in
Virginia. Many of the women that came as servants
to Maryland between 1634 and 1670 married well and'
gained wealth and distinction. Thus "Helenor Steph-
enson, who came out from England with Sir Edmund
Plouden as his servant, was lawfully joined in matri-
mony with Mr. Wm. Braithwaite of St. Marie's."
Anne Bolton of St. Martin in the Fields was sold to
Mr. Francis Brooke for his wife. These servants were
often innocent country girls that had been kidnapped. '
Women that went to Maryland as servants had "the
best luck in the world," they were courted as soon as
they landed. "As for women," says Alsop (a redemp-
tioner of 1658), "they no sooner arrive than they are
besieged with offers of matrimony, husbands being
ready soon for those whom nature had apparently

250 The American Family - Colonial Period

marked out and predestined for lives of single blessed-
ness."

One of the most notable of the female immigrants
was a niece of Daniel Defoe, who, crossed in love in
England, ran away to America as a redemptioner. She
afterwards married her owner's son. Governor Charles
Calvert wrote to Lord Baltimore in 1672: "Before
William Brooks died, he had a great inclination for a
young woman here who is my servant to whom upon his
death-bed he gave 3000^* of Tobacco." In the Sotweed
Factor the author narrates a quarrel over cards, in
which the planters' wives abuse each other. One says:

Tho now so brave

I knew you late a four years' slave,

What if for planter's wife you go,

Nature designed you for the hoe.

A maid is represented as saying:

Kidnapt and fooled, I hither fled.
To shun a hated nuptial bed.

To which is attached this note : "These are the general
excuses made by English Women, which are sold, or
sell themselves to Maryland."

In numbers of cases sisters that came to Maryland as
housekeepers for brothers soon found husbands. An
act for pillory and ducking-stools exempted Baltimore
and Talbot Counties "because they are not sufficiently
settled." One wonders whether this exemption was
• designed to attract women. But men, also, found in
Maryland matches above their station. Many trans-
ported persons and some servants had married within a
few years, perhaps the daughters of councillors.

Bullock advises English fathers to send daughters
rather than sons to Virginia and promises that they

Will receive instead of give portions for them. . . Maid
servants of good honest stock may choose their husbands out

Southern Courtship and Marriage 251

of the better sort of people. Have sent over many but never •
could keep one at my plantation three months except a poor filly
wench made fit to foille to set of beauty and yet a proper young
fellow served twelve months for her. [He tells men servants
how they may prosper and lay up a competence] and then if he
look to God, he may see himself fit to wed a good man's daugh-
ter.

The author of Leah and Rachel says :

If they are women that go . . . paying their own pas-
sages, I advise them to sojourn in a house of honest repute, for
by their good carriage, they may advance themselves in mar-
riage, by their ill, overthrow their fortunes; and altho loose
persons seldom live long unmarried if free, yet they match
with as dissolute as themselves, and never live handsomely or
are ever respected.

The agent for Carolina wrote:

Most of the West India settlements will not receive women
convicts. If you resolve to send them to Carolina, I have a
ship bound thither that will carry them at the usual rate. . .
What reception they will find there I cannot say, tho it will be
better than elsewhere.

The agent of Massachusetts said that criminals would
be willingly accepted in Virginia, Maryland, etc.
Many of the women that came to America as servants
had a shady past. But the continent had no very warm
welcome for women convicts. As an inducement to
migration to Carolina the following was written in
1666:

If any maid or single woman have a desire to go over, they will
think themselves in the golden age, when men paid a dowry for
their wives; for if they be but civil, and under fifty years of
age, some honest man or other, will purchase them for their
wives.

The significance of the official stimulation of female
migration is strikingly portrayed in the words of a
Catawba chief who begged for the life of a white wo-
man that had incited Cherokees to steal horses in Vir-

252 The American Fainily -Colonial Period

ginia. l^he chief said he was "always sorry to lose a
woman ; that the loss of one woman might be the loss of
many lives, because one woman might be the mother of
many children."

In 1738 a minister in Georgia wrote that it was a
good time to send some unmarried women to Ebenezer.
A letter of the Salzburgers at Ebenezer confirms the
assertion. They would like to have

Some unmarried Christian Salzburger women or other honest
members of the female sex who it is hoped would not regret
to marry here and likewise to establish an orderly household.
Hitherto the young bachelors have endured much disorder in
their dwellings rather than marry such persons in whom they
did not discern the token of a genuine fear of God and an ex-
ceptionally honest life.

Of a supply of German servants it was stated:

Those delivered Mr. Bolzins were families in which there were
many unmarried young women, the congregation of Salzburgers
desired they might be left there, there being many unmarried
men and no unmarried women. (They believed that several
would take them for wives.

Again Oglethorpe wrote :

The first measures for us as trustees to take is after support-
ing religion to encourage marriage and the rearing up of chil-
dren. Here are a great number of married people and yet
their is now in this place only above 700 men more than there
are women most of these would marry if they could get wives.
The sending over single women without familys that could
protect them might be attended with indecencys but the giving
passage to the wives, sisters, and daughters of recruits, and a
small maintenance till they go on board would be a remedy to
this and much the cheapest way of peopling the country since
after their arrival they are no further expense, for their hus-
bands can maintain them. We have found out also that the
married soldiers live easiest many of them having turned out
very industrious planters.

Of the city of the South, Charleston, on the eve of

Southern Courtship and Marriage 253

the Revolution, it is told that mesalliances sometimes
occurred but were regarded with horror. One young
lady wedded the coachman. An old servant stabbed
the fellow to death. The unfortunate girl (said to have
been weak-minded) and her child fell to a lower social
level.

The family pride of the South early grew into eco-
nomic marriages or marriages determined by other
social considerations. As early as 1655 while Virginia
and Maryland were the only southern colonies fathers
were giving portions with their daughters, "so that
many coming out of England have raised themselves
to good fortunes there merely by matching with maidens
born in the country."

In Maryland, 1679, Sara Ford, a Quakeress widow,
leased land to a man on condition that "he provide and
allow for her three children . . . lodging and
washing, housing, apparel, meat and drink, for . . .
seven whole years from date, and . . . that he will
teach or cause to be taught, her said children to read
and write according and so far as their capacitys will
attain within the time and term aforesaid." He was
so far in loco parentis that he probably thought he
might as well go all the way. At any rate he married
the widow.

That Virginia was familiar with economic marriage
is suggested by one wedding effusion with the verse
"Here no sordid interest binds." The marriage settle-
ment is illustrated in the following letters from Vir-
ginia.

May 27, 1764.

Dear Sir: My son, Mr. John Walker, having informed me
of his intention to pay his addresses to your daughter Eliza-
beth, if he should be agreeable to yourself, lady, and daughter,
it may not be amiss to inform you what I think myself able to

254 The American Family - Colonial Period

afford for their support in case of an union. My affairs are in
an uncertain state; but I will promise one thousand pounds, to
be paid in the year 1765, and one thousand pounds to be paid in
the year 176D; and the further sum of two thousand pounds I
promise to give him, but the uncertainty of my present affairs
prevents my fixing on a time of payment - the above sums are
all to be in money or lands and other effects at the option of
my said son, John Walker. I am. Sir, j^our humble servant,

John Walker.
Col. Bernard Moore esq., in King William.

May 28, 1764.
Dear Sir: Your son, Mr. John Walker, applied to me for
leave to make his addresses to my daughter Elizabeth. I gave
him leave, and told him at the same time that my affairs were
in such a state that it was not in my power to pay him all the
money this year that I intended to give my daughter, provided
he succeeded ; but would give him five hundred pounds next
spring, and five hundred pounds more as soon as I could raise
or get the money; which sums, you may depend, I will most
punctually pay to him. I am, sir, your obedient servant,

Bernard Moore.

George Washington had given thought to marriage
conventionalities for he wrote:

I have always considered marriage as the most interesting event
of one's life, the foundation of happiness or misery. To be
instrumental therefore in bringing two people together, w^ho are
indifferent to each other, and may soon become objects of dis-
gust, or to prevent a union which is prompted by affection of
the mind, is what I never could reconcile with reason.

A North Carolina illustration of the mercenary in-
terest in marriage is contained in a letter written in
1762 by a gentleman in that colony to a friend in Mary-
land. The old governor, aged seventy-eight, had fallen
in love with a girl of fifteen of good family and for-
tune. Her parents persuaded her to marry the govern-
or tho she reciprocated the love of a certain youth. But
the governor signed away all his property to his son.

Southern Courtship and Marriage 255

The girl's friends found out this calamity and she mar-
ried the youth. When the governor came he was full
of rage.

In South Carolina, eighteenth century marriage no-
tices often mentioned "a large fortune" as one of the
lady's qualifications."^ In Charleston on the eve of the
Revolution marriages were preceded by settlements

duly drawn. "So-and-so to Miss , a most amiable

young lady with £10,000 to her fortune" was a very-
common form of marriage notice. Some notices were
more elaborate.

In the southern colonies notwithstanding the eco-
nomic forces sentiment seems to have figured more
largely in marriage alliances than in New York and
New England. Women's interests were guarded. In
the making of marriages it seems to have been assumed
as a matter of course that the widow would be left in
possession of everything as the custodian of the chil-
dren.

The marriage contract was as common in seventeenth
century Virginia as it was in England. Some of these
agreements reserved to the woman her entire property.
Such was perhaps, always the case when the bride-to-be
was a widow with children whose first husband had left
her his estate in fee simple. In a marriage contract be-
tween John Hirsch and Elizabeth Alford, of Lower
Norfolk County, 1675, it was provided that the hus-
band should not "meddle" with his wife's property and
that she should be fully authorized to manage and sell
it. She retained also the right to the proceeds of such
goods as she should export. She also reserved the right
to bequeath her estate as she chose. In a bond of 1750

13^ Salley. Marriage Notices in the South Carolina Gazette and its Suc-
cessors, 8 ff; Ravenel. Charleston, the Place and the People, 165-166.

256 The Ajuerican Family -Colonial Period

the groom and his guardian gave security of fifty
pounds that the marriage would take place if there was
no lawful impediment.

Seventeenth century Virginia records at least one in-
stance where a woman contracted not to marry any one
but the other party to the pact tho apparently not pledg-
ing herself absolutely to him. Sarah Harrison, after
"cordially promising" thus, married another man. And
to increase the flagrancy of her wantonness she persist-
ently refused in the marriage service to pledge herself
to "obey." She was married without that promise.

Colonial courtship was no simple matter. Alsop
said of Maryland in 1666:

He that intends to court a Maryland girl must have something
more than the tautologies of a longwinded speech to carry on
his design, or else he may (for ought I know) fall under the
contempt of her frown.

One Maryland cavalier that tarried too long making
an impression, as he thought, on a fair damsel found
that she had thoroly whitewashed his black charger
during his stay. One maiden that threw her suitor's
hat into the fire saw him fling her bonnet after it and
ultimately capitulated. The colonial records of 1657
show a courtship agreement in which a man undertook
to leave his stepdaughter at a certain man's house where
her expenses were to be paid by a young man who was
to have the privilege of courting her there in order to
settle a difficulty about a promise of marriage alleged
to have been made by her and a rape committed by him
on her.

A writer on colonial Culpepper County, Virginia,
remarks that young people did not make love till their
fathers had arranged the preliminaries. Virginia vouths
prosecuted their love afifairs in fine style. They took up

Southern Courtship and Marriage 257

the quest on their good steeds. The poetic souls wrote
love verses to their charmers and published them in the
Virginia Gazette.

The ruffianly Governor Nicholson proceeded other-
wise. In a right Oriental manner he demanded the
hand of a young girl and finding no favor with her or
her parents threatened the lives of father and mother
"with mad furious distracted speech." The brother of
Commissary Blair was a would-be suitor. His excel-
lency assailed Blair insanely: "Sir, your brother is a
villain, and you have betrayed me;" and he swore re-
venge on the whole family. He vowed that if the girl
married any rival he would cut the throat of bride-
groom, minister, and justice that issued the license.

A Staunton man in 1764 set about courtship more dis-
creetly. He wrote:

I intend to call . . . when down that I may no longer
worship a shadow but either banish the idol or admire the fair,
therefore must request you to let me know by the first con-
veyance the name of the charmer and whether the elder or the
younger of the two sisters that bears the amiable character
of being the most worthy of her sex, I shall likewise reconnoitre
the fair enthusiast on this side of the stream, and by the assist-
ance of our mutual friend Joel perhaps I may know how far my
addresses there w^ould be agreeable.

In South Carolina at the end of the seventeenth cen-
tury young girls received beaus at three o'clock expect-
ing them to leave about six as many families retired at
seven in winter and seldom sat up in summer beyond
eight. It is hard to realize how different life must
have been when artificial lights were almost negligible
and screen wire was unknown. It may be that the
usage described belonged as did its narrator in the
Puritan group, which was ridiculed by the neighbors.

John Wesley in Georgia became entangled in the

2^8 The American Family -Colonial Period

web of love. He was charmed by a designing damsel;
but, warned by his friends and the Moravians, broke
the engagement. Within eight days she married an-
other man. Then came the famous episode of scandal
to which reference will be made later.
A colonial traveler wrote thus:

Young women are affable with young men in America, and mar-
ried women are reserved, and their husbands are not as famil-
iar with the girls as they were when bachelors. If a young
man were to take it into his head that his betrothed should not
be free and gay in her social intercourse, he would run the risk
of being discarded, incur the reputation of jealousy, and would
find it very difficult to get married. Yet if a single woman
were to play the coquette, she would be regarded with con-
tempt. As this innocent freedom between the sexes diminishes
in proportion as society loses its purity and simplicity of man-
ners, as is the case in cities, I desire sincerely that our good
Virginia ladies may long retain their liberty entire.

XV. REGULATION AND SOLEMNIZATION

OF MARRIAGE IN THE SOUTHERN

COLONIES

Owing to the presence of various sects and national-
ities in the colonial South, marriage came under vary-
ing control.

Church of England bigotry is most conspicuous in
Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina. In Virginia
throughout the colonial period the ceremonial of the
Church of England was prescribed by law. In Mary-
land Episcopal reaction gradually abrogated optional
civil marriage, which had been allowed under the Cath-
olic proprietors, and finally in 1777 saddled upon the
people compulsory ecclesiastical marriage which con-
tinued to prevail there through the national period. In
North Carolina initial tolerance was similarly abro-
gated during the colonial period. In the two southern-
most colonies Episcopal rites were established by law
but free civil or religious celebration worked itself in.

The intolerance exhibited by the state church in this
particular was directly and indirectly an economic phe-
nomenon. It was due to clerical eagerness for mar-
riage fees and to the desire to fortify the prestige of the
established church, that mossy prop of an outworn
social order, destined to recede before the non-conform-
ist churches of capitalism. Stalwart non-conformists
or Catholics sharply fought or defiantly ignored its
marriage requirements even at the risk of illegitimacy.

How crassly material was the spirit that prompted

260 The American Family -Colonial Period

the ecclesiastical bigotry is evident from the frequently
low character of the clergy of the establishment. The
Episcopal church in Maryland was a disgrace and
"Maryland parson" was an epithet of contempt. "They
extorted marriage fees from the poor by breaking off in
the middle of the service, and refusing to continue until
they were paid." In Virginia there was a penalty for
exacting more than the legal fee for marriage or banns.

Ecclesiastical control of the sort described was a tem-
porary anachronism. Save in Maryland, the civil cere-
mony was recognized, tho with restrictions. Marriage
was already a civil contract.

Some idea of the strictness with which the law hedged
the entrance to matrimony may be gained from the fol-
lowing excerpts from colonial laws and citations of
colonial incidents.

In Maryland in 1638 a couple was married by license
under bond that the man was not precontracted and that
no lawful impediment existed. Many like bonds have
been preserved. The 1640 act on marriage ordained
that

No partie may solemnize marriage with any woman afore the
banes three days before published in some chappell or other
place of the county where public instnts are used to be notified
or else afore oath made and caution entred in the county court
that neither partie is apprentice or ward or precontracted or
within the forbidden degrees of consanguinity or under gov-
ermt, of parents or tutors and certificate of such oath and cau-
tion taken from the judge or register of the court upon paine
of fine and recompense to the parties aggrieved.

The act of 1658 enforced banns in all cases. In 1662 a
new act was aimed against clandestine marriages. The
option of governor's or lieutenant-general's license in-
stead of banns is allowed in this act. One hundred

Solemnization of Marriage in the South 261

pounds of tobacco was fixed as the legal marriage fee.
By 1673 Maryland had become the haven for runaway
Virginia couples. The Pocomoke boundary lured
many eastern shore Virginians for whom love did not
run smooth at home. The Virginia assembly of 1673
initiated negotiations with the neighboring government
in respect to this evil. A Maryland proclamation of
1685 notes that

Severall great damages and Inconveniences have and doe daily
happen by the private and clandestine marrying of strangers
and others comeing into this province from Virginia, and other
neighboring parts, to the greate irreparable griefe trouble and
disquiett of the parents and guardians, overseers, masters or
dames . . . and also to the great dishonor of and re-
flection upon the government.

Marriage to strangers from Virginia, etc., without •
Maryland license was accordingly prohibited.

In 1 75 1 a former teacher came to Frederick in the
role of a minister. His right to the title was disputed
and the rector applied for an injunction to prevent him
from solemnizing marriage. The court did not grant it
but told the person in question to marry none but
Germans."^

The Maryland colony passed an act requiring the ^
registration of marriages, births, and burials with pen-
alty for infringement. The law was no doubt subject to
neglect. In All Saints Parish in 1742 it was ordered
that a notice be posted at the church door to inform the
parishioners to come forthwith "and have all former and
future births, marriages, and burials put on the parish
records or they will be prosecuted as the law directs."

Marriage was highly esteemed in Maryland. In one .
locality after marriage the bridal party was often con-

136 Society for History of Germans in Maryland. Sixth Annual Report, 20.

262 The American Family - Colonial Period

veyed from place to place to be entertained by everyone
before settling down at home.^^^

In Virginia the earliest statutes show a notable ad-
vance over the custom of the motherland. The admin-
istration of marriage law was gradually instrusted to
lay tribunals. Moreover marriage began to be hedged
by statute and was no longer left to the hazards of cus-
tom. Banns or license, parental consent, certificate, and
registration were presently introduced. Marriage be-
came substantially a civil contract long before the law
avowed such a purport.

An act of the Commonwealth period shows that min-
isters had ignored the law in respect to license or banns
and a heavy penalty is attached to such misconduct in
the future. The first act of the Restoration requires
license or

Thrice publication according to the prescription of the rubric
in the common prayer booke, which injoynes that if the persons
to be marryed dwell in severall parishes the banes must be
asked in both parishes, and that the curate of one parish shall
not solemnize the matrimony untill he have a certificate from
the curate of the other parish, that the banes have been there
thrice published and noe objection made.

There seems to have been difficulty in enforcing the
legal restrictions on marriage. A proclamation was is-
sued in 1672 under which it was declared that the cere-
mony was to be invalid unless attended by license or
banns.

A law of 1 66 1 exhibits the folly of allowing to the
governor the perquisite of license granting as a source
of income. "Whereas many times lycences are granted
and the persons are marryed out of the parishes, which
lycences have been usually granted by the governor,
whose knowledge of persons cannot possibly extend

i37Ridgely. The Old Brick Churches of Maryland, 109-uo.

Solemnization of Marriage in the South 263

over the whole country," therefore persons desiring to
be married by license must give bond that there is no
lawful impediment. The clerk will then write the li-
cense which will be signed by a justice or by a deputy
of the governor. Marriage bonds were sometimes
signed by the bridegroom and a friend but in numerous
cases it appears that only the friends signed. This form
of marriage must have been a rather aristocratic lux-
ury. Banns were cheaper. Sometimes the would-be
bridegroom posted at the court-house door a notice of
his purpose of marriage. The act of 1705 requires
bond in all cases and requires parental consent only in
the case of minors.

In 1662 a prominent citizen eloped with a twelve-
year-old heiress from a conspicuous eastern shore fam-
ily while she was staying at the home of Captain Jones
receiving education. The couple fled across the bay in
a sailboat to a place where they were not known. In
1696 an ''act for the prevention of clandestine mar-
riages" was passed. According to it "many great and
grievous mischeifes have arisen and dayly doe arise
by clandestine and secret marriages to the utter ruin
of many heirs and heiresses" and "the laws now in
force ... do inflict too small a punishment for so
heinous and great an ofifence." A minister ignoring
banns or license is hereafter to be imprisoned "for one
whole year without bayle or mainprize and shall for-
feitt and pay the sume of" five hundred pounds, half of
which goes to the informer. A girl between twelve and
sixteen contracting irregular marriage forfeits during
coverture her inheritance to the next of kin. If wid-
owed she regains the inheritance or it goes to those that
should have been entitled to it "in case this act had
never been made." The act of 1705 declares that if any

264 The American Family -Colonial Period

minister, contrary to the spirit of the law, leaves the
colony and marries Virginians without license or pub-
lication, the penalty shall be the same as if the offence
had been committed in the province.

The minister of every parish was required to keep a
book and in it to register every christening, wedding,
and burial. The church wardens and ministers had
the duty of making an annual return to the quarter
court of all marriages occurring. The act of 1642 re-
quired that the report be made to the "commander of
every monethly court." The Proclamation of 1672 re-
quired the return of licenses (at least in certain cases)
to Jamestown for final record. When Williamsburg
became the capital returns of registration were to be
made thither.

Marriages within the "levitical degrees prohibited
by the laws of England" were forbidden. Offenders
were subject to separation and the children were ille-
gitimate. Fines might be imposed at discretion of the
court. There were cases of proposed or actual mar-
riage contrary to the prohibition. All dispensations of
Rome were voided in the colony .^^®

Virginia laws did not attempt to regulate courtship
. and "sinful dalliance" in New England fashion. But
Wyatt, one of the early governors, issued a proclama-
tion aimed chiefly at women forbidding them to con-
tract to two men at once, for

Women are yet scarce and in much request, and this offence has
become very common, whereby great disquiet arose between par-
ties, and no small trouble to the government. . , [Such
conduct must cease and] every minister should give notice in
his church that what man or woman soever should use any
word or speech tending to a contract of marriage to two sev-
eral persons at one time ... as might entangle or breed

138 Barton. Virginia Colonial Decisions, vol. i, R 55.

Solemnization of Marriage in the South 265

scruples in their consciences, should, for such their offence,
either undergo corporal correction, or be punished by fine or
otherwise, according to . . . quality of the person so of-
fending.^^^

There is no proof that any maid was ever thus cor-
porally corrected ; but a man was whipped for engaging
to two women at once.

William and Mary College in colonial days had a
regulation on the subject of marriage of faculty mem-
bers. Certain professors were bent on marrying. Com-
plaint is made that two have "lately married and taken
up their residence" out of bounds whereby they are in-
capacitated for attending to their duties. Accordingly
"all professors and masters hereafter to be appointed"
are subject to the condition that upon marriage "his
professorship be immediately vacated." It was doubt-
less not with the same intent that the Assembly at the
beginning of the Revolution laid a tax of forty shillings
on each marriage license. The plebeian banns were
still available.

Marriage notices in the Virginia Gazette at the time
of the Revolution are accompanied by a few verses.
Also the papers might be used to prevent marriage.
An advertisement of the later eighteenth century warns
all ministers from marrying a youth "as he is under
age, and this shall indemnify them for so doing."

A Virginia wedding was a notable event involving
much ceremony and great preparations and engaging
the attention of the neighborhood. The long journeys
of guests and the scarcity of social contacts in early days
demanded in the wedding a great event. The occasion
seems to have been, in the first century of the colony,
one of hilarious abandon. In the early days the ccre-

^39 Cooke. Virginia, 149.

266 The American Family -Colonial Period

mony seems to have been heralded by a lively fusillade
but this serious waste of powder was restricted if not
forbidden in years when the Indians were menacing.
In 1656 we find this item : "Mr. Bushrod what do you
mean by suffering your tobacco to run up so high?
Why do you not topp itt?" "Because my overseer has
gone to a wxddinge without my consent, and I know not
how to help it." In 1666 when a Dutch man-of-war
ravaged the shipping the guard-ship was practically
useless because the captain was ashore at a wedding.

Seemingly it was not always customary for the groom
to procure the wedding ring. In 1655 M^*- H- West-
gate left a hogshead of tobacco to purchase two wed-
ding rings for his daughters. The rings were bought
in England. In the later years of the colony when
there was a greater supply of clergy the bride had the
choice of the officiating priest.

North Carolina made provision for license, banns,
and registration. The stipend for licenses was a lucra-
tive perquisite for the governor. Royal instructions in
1730 to the governor declare:

To the end ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Bishop of London
may take place in that our province so far as may be we do
think fit that j^ou give all countenance and encouragement to
the exercise of the same excepting only the collating the bene-
fices granting licenses for marriages and probate of v^^iUs which
we have reserved to you our governor and to the commander
in chief of our said province for the time being as far as by law
we may.

There is recorded an objection of Governor Tryon to
court clerks' issuing of licenses save on his blank. He
wanted the emolument.

In 1715 it was enacted that the "inhabitants and free-
men of each precinct" are to elect three freeholders,

Solemnization of Marriage in the South 267

one of whom the governor or commander-in-chief is to
choose as register of deeds. Until there be a clerk of
the parish church the register is to record betrothals
and marriages. Every "master or mistress of a family
who shall neglect to register the birth or death of any
person born or dying within his or her house or planta-
tion; and every married man who shall neglect to remit
to the said register a certificate of his marriage and
cause the same to be registered, for longer than one
month" must pay a shilling a month for the delay, total
not to exceed twenty shillings. One act for the govern-
ment of Carolina provided that births, christenings,
marriages, and burials were to be registered in each
parish (except in case of negroes, mulattoes, and Indian
slaves). Any person reasonably desiring was to have
access to such records. Royal instructions in 1730 re-
quired the governor to keep account of births, deaths,
and burials. An act of 1748 fixed fees for registry and
certificate of births, burials, and marriage and imposed
a penalty for refusal to render the service at that price
or for charging more.

The following Carolina episode of 1713 savors of
New England:

Whereas we are informed by the Rev. Mr. John Urmston that
Mr. Richard French have and doe take upon him to administer
ye holy sacrt. of baptisme and to marry persons without being
duly qualified for the same, it is ordered by this board that the
provost marshall doe sumons ye said Richard French to appeare
at ye next councill to be holden at Capt. Hecklefield on the
3d day of the next genii court to answer to ye said compit and
that he forbid ye said French to marry or baptize any persons in
ye meanwhile.

South Carolina early had provision for registration
of marriage. The act of 1704 required registration of

268 The American Family - Colonial Period

births, christenings, marriages, and burials, except those
of "negroes, Mullatoes, and Indian slaves" and pre-
scribed a fine for wedding contrary to the table of for-
bidden degrees.

In Maryland the Quakers were strong and practiced
their usual rites. The question of marriage, involving
legitimacy and inheritance, early was a serious one for
them. They exercised great caution with a view to pre-
venting the union of persons that already had partners
in the old country. They required two or three appli-
cations to the meetings so as to secure publicity and
avoid anything "contrary to the order of truth" or that
might bring discredit. A proposal of marriage in 1678
is recorded as follows:

Obadiah Judkins and Obedience Jenner, acquainted this meet-
ing, and also the women's meeting, with their intentions of com-
ing together as husband and wife, according to the order of
truth; now inasmuch as the young woman is but lately come
forth of England, and Friends noe certaine knowledge of her,
the advice of the men's and women's meeting is that they for-
beare, and proceed noe further till certificate be procured out of
England from the meeting where she last belonged unto, of her
being cleere from others, and as to the manner of her life and
conversation, that so the truth may be kept cleere in all things;
both the partys being willing to submit to the same, and also to
live apart in the mean time.

It was not unusual to appoint a committee to inquire as
to the freedom of the parties. Too many immigrants
to Maryland had deserted their lawful spouses; hence
the precautions of the Friends were quite in order.

A list of queries adopted by the yearly meeting of
1725 to be answered by lower meetings includes the fol-
lowing:

Is care taken and Friends advised that none too nearly (re-
lated) proceed in collateral marriages, and that none marry

Solemnization of Marriage in the South 269

within the third degree of affinity and the fourth degree of
consanguinity?

The Friends were especially disquieted by marriages
of members with outsiders and by hasty marriage with-
out formal publication of the banns as also by an attend-
ant evil -the marriage of children by priests and
magistrates. William Dixon informs the meeting
That his daughter-in-law [probably stepdaughter] is stole away
and married by a priest in the night, contrary to his and his
wife's minds; that he has opposed the same and refused to pay
her portion, for which he is cited to appear before the com-
missary general, and now he desires to know whether the meet-
ing would stand by him, if he should sue the priest that married
her. The meeting assents.

Nothing seems to have distressed the Friends in Talbot
more than "outgoings" in marriage. To be married
with a license by a magistrate or by a "hireling priest"
was a reprehensible abomination. One Church of Eng-
land minister was specially obnoxious on account of
such services. At a meeting in 1681 a committee ap-
pointed to wait on the lord proprietary "concerning
Friends children being taken away from them and mar-
ried by the priest without their consent or knowledge"
reported "that they were treated very civilly" by the
proprietor, who said "that for the future he would take
care in all his counties that the like should be pre-
vented." The evil continued. A quarterly meeting in
1688 recommended the disinheritance of disobedient
children. The yearly meeting confirmed this position
and recommended that "priests or magistrates that do
marry Friends children without their parents or guar-
dians consent should be prosecuted."

The Labadists, who had a colony in Maryland, were
in some respects similar to the Friends. They were

270 The American Family -Colonial Period

stringent on the subject of intermarriage with gentiles.

A convert to the society was expected to abandon his un-

regenerate spouse when he entered the fold."°
The Virginia Quakers exercised oversight like that

of their Maryland brethren. A typical document is as

follows :

This is to certify the truth to all people that A.B. son of R.S.,
and CD. daughter of J.S. haveing intentions of marriage ac-
cording to the ordinance of God and his joyning did lay it before
the men and weomans meeting, before whom their marriage
was propounded, and then the meeting desired them to waight
for a time, and so they enquireing betwixt the time wheather the
man was free from all other weomen, and shee free from all
other men, so the second time they coming before the man and
weomans' meeting, all things being cleare, a meeting of the
people of God was appointed for that purpose, wheare they
tooke one another in the house of W.L. and in the presence of
God and in the presence of us his people according to the law
of God and the practis of the holly men of God in the scrip-
tures of truth and they theare promising before God and us his
people to live faithfully togeather man and wife as long as they
live, according to Gods honorable mariage, they theare setting

both their hands unto it the day of in the yeare .

and wee are witnesses of the same whose names are heareunto
subscribed.

Parental consent is certified in the following document:

This may sattisfie friends that I have given my consent to
Moses Hall as concerning marriage with my daughter Margrett
Duke as witness my hand this 7 day of the 1 1 mo 1707. Thom-
as Duke Senior.

Other records are as follows :

Margaret Tabbarer states in a paper sent to the meeting that
her daughter had been married to a young man by a Priest,
and expresses her sorrow that she has married that way.
Tho: Hollowell and Alic his wife desire that their testimony

1*0 Howard. History of Matrimonial Institutions, vol. ii, 245, footnote 2.

Solemnization of Marriage in the South 271

be recorded against their childrens unlawful behavior in being
married by Priests.

Daniel Sanbourn on behalf of the men's meeting in
Chuckatuck signed on "the eight day of the 3 mo in the
yeare 1701" a certificate of disownment against "Tho
Duke" for "marrying one that was not of us and lick-
wise goeing to the hireling priest." There are other
protests and references to disorderly marriage.

The North Carolina records contain several instances
of the control exercised by the Friends over the mar-
riage of their members. In this colony also, Friends
gave two notices of intended marriage and we find note
of two men appointed "to enquire into his life and con-
versation and clearness in respect of marriage." In one
locality a man's not having paid his debts would lead
Quakers to refuse his request of marriage.

In Virginia there was to be no marriage of servants
without certificate of master's consent.

Servants procuring ymselves to be married without consent of
their Masters shall serve a year and if any being free shall
secretly marry wth a servant he or she shall pay ye mr. of ye
Servt 1500 lb. tobo, or a years service and ye Servt shall serve
ye vi^hole time and a year after.^*^

In Maryland free persons and servants were prohib-
ited from marrying without the express approval of
master or mistress. The General Assembly of 1777
passed an act prohibiting ministers, under penalty of
fifty pounds, from marrying a free person and a servant
without consent of master or mistress.

A North Carolina statute forbade any one, under
penalty of five pounds to be paid to the master, to marry
servants without the written consent of the master. All

^*i Cooke. Firffinia, 122-123 ; Virginia Magazine of History and Biogra-
phy, vol. X, "Abridgement of Laws of Virginia, 1694," 145-146.

272 The American Family - Colonial Period

servants so married were to serve one year extra. Prob-
ably many masters used their power to prevent the mar-
riage of servant women. This embargo must have in-
creased the number of unlawful unions. Baptists seem
to have considered it a hardship. Just before the Revo-
lution the Kehukee Association declared marriages not
made according to law to be binding before God and
that it was not lawful to fellowship a member that
broke the marriage of servants.

XVL WOMAN'S PLACE IN THE COLONIAL

SOUTH

Southern "chivalry" does not date back to the begin-
nings of the South. It took time for the softening in-
fluences of the genial climate and the feudalizing trend
of the broad expanse to prevail. Seventeenth century .
Virginia was bourgeois rather than knightly. Like
their New England compeers, the founders of the Old
Dominion were prosaic and practical. The economic
interest dominated and left little room for sentiment. '
Women fared like contemporary English women of the
middle class. Their lot was domestic, commonplace, ,
subordinate. The early Virginians prepared the duck-
ing stool for gossiping women. At an early day Betsey
Tucker was ducked for making her husband's house
and the neighborhood uncomfortable by her violent
tongue. In 1662 the Assembly passed an act to the
effect that wives that brought judgment on their hus-
bands for slander should be punished by ducking.
Bacon captured wives of loyalists and notified their hus-
bands, who were with the governor, that he intended to
place the ladies in front of his men in the line of battle.
This was no empty threat and the "Apron Brigade''
saved him from the fire of the governor's guns. The
man that was thus guilty (as Colonel Ludwell put it)
of "ravishing of women from their homes and hurrying
them about the country in their rude camps" was a
wealthy planter. Nor was His Excellency more chiv-
alrous. Governor Berkeley spurned with vile insult

274 The American Family -Colonial Period

a woman begging for her husband's pardon for his part
in the insurrection. We find record also of a rude in-
sult to a lady of a leading family from a Virginia colo-
nel, member of another leading family.

Some little feeling for womanhood is indeed mani-
fested in the case of Grace Sherwood who in 1706 on
suspicion of witchcraft was examined by a jury of
women who reported her "neither like them, nor any
other woman they knew of." She was fortunate in not
coming under the Massachusetts law authorizing ex-
amination by a male "witch pricker" but she was ducked
as a suspected witch. On the whole her experience is
scarcely an exhibit of chivalry."^

The accounts that Colonel Byrd gives of his visits to
Virginia homes show sufficiently the attitude toward
women in the middle of the eighteenth century. "We
supped about nine and then prattled with the ladies."
"Our conversation with the ladies was like whip-sylla-
bub, very pretty but nothing in it." He jokes rather
coarsely about Miss Thekky's lamentable maiden state
and refers to Mrs. Chiswell as "one of those absolute
rarities, a very good old woman." Another man wrote
of the Virginia women :

Most of the women are quite pretty and insinuating in their
manner if they find you so. When you ask them if they would
like to have husbands they reply with a good grace that it is just
what they desire.

A young Virginia lady writes:

Hannah and myself were going to take a long walk this even-
ing but were prevented by the two horrid mortals Mr. Pinkard
and Mr. Washington, who siezed and kissed me a dozen times
in spite of all the resistance I could make. They really think,
now they are married, they are prevaliged to do anything. . .

1*2 See Wertenbaker, Patrician and Plebeian in Virginia, 82-87 1 Forrest,
Historical and Descriptive Sketches of Norfolk, Virginia, 464-465.

Woman's Place in the South 275

While we were eating the apple-pye in bed - God bless j^ou,
making a great noise - in came Mr. Washington dressed in
Hannah's short gown and peticoat, and seazed me and kissed
me twenty times in spite of all the resistance I could make;
and then Cousin Molly.

Evidently women had reached by this time the status of ,

toys.

It was out of such perspectives as those detailed that

"chivalry" arose. By the time of the Revolution there

was sufficient recrudescence of feudalism to cause an

atavic reversion to chivalric standards.

The Virginia gentleman [says Wertenbaker] taught by the
experience of many years, was beginning to understand aright
the reverence due the nobleness, the purity, the gentleness of
woman. He was learning to accord to his wife the unstinted
and sincere homage that her character deserved.

But as we trace the later history of sex morals in the
South it will become glaringly apparent what a ve-
neered mockery was this boasted southern chivalry.

The domestic life of women on the old plantations ^
must have been rather monotonous. According to trav-
elers' descriptions they did not share largely in the
diversions of the men. The subordination of woman is
illustrated in various ways. Her husband was respon- *
sible for her behavior. Thus in a Virginia witch case
the husband was under bond on his wife's account and
upon her acquittal the bond was cancelled. The min-
utes of the council at Wilmington, North Carolina,
August 31, 1753 contain the following:

Read the petition of Wm. Barns setting forth that his wife
having during his absence retailed liquors contrary to law a
bill of indictment had been found against him in the county
court of New Hanover and that he being poor as well as in-
nocent of the said crime prayed that a nolle prosequi might be
entered in his behalf. , . Attorney general was ordered to
enter a nolle prosequi.

276 The American Family -Colonial Period

The early Baptists in North Carolina met the penalty
of too great liberality to women when a regular Bap-
tist preacher in South Carolina refused to assist at an
ordination and rebuked them for letting women pray in
public. The minutes of one Baptist association for
1 77 1 record that it was not lawful for a woman to vote
in conference.

The subjection of women was of course coupled with
a legal claim on their part upon the property of the
husband and a natural hold on the husband's considera-
tion. The first will in Maryland, dated in the year
1638, is that of William Smith in which he leaves all
his goods to his wife. In North Carolina,

Elizabeth Bateman widdow . . , of . . . Jon. Bate-
man declining her legacy given in . . . will and craving
to have her third of her deceased husband's estate. Ordered
that . . . said Elizabeth Bateman have her third.

In Virginia in the case of Brent vs. Brent the husband
was a terrible fellow. The wife was allowed a separate
maintenance, being ill-treated, and he was to be ar-
rested for seditious words. At the general court of
Carolina, 1695, ''John Wilson acknowledged his assign-
ment of a warrant of right to Wm. Duckenfield Esqr.
and Marget his wife relinquisheth her right of dower."
In Georgia the wife's consent had to be secured to the
alienation of lands in which she had an interest. Thus
there was a certain technical protection for woman that
did in a measure assure her property rights but from
the standpoint of equity no amount of legal standing
could ofTfset the cancellation of personality.

Yet tho colonial usage kept woman in retirement, the
colonial South had notable women that vied with their
assertive sisters of the North in the world of affairs.
There was no marked difference between the sections

Woman's Place in the South 277

in the extent to which women took up independent ca-
reers, or assumed responsibilities beyond housewifery.

Maryland women of the middle of the seventeenth
century must have possessed executive ability and intel- *
ligence; for the keen pioneers generally appointed their
wives, or if unmarried their sisters, as executors of their
wills. The Assembly of 1671 decided that in case of in-
testacy the wife should be administrator if the husband
had left no directions.

The first seventeenth century business woman in
Maryland, and possibly in America, received a license
from the assembly to establish a printing press at An-
napolis to print official papers. This lady could not
write. Verlinda Stone was a woman of force and cour-
age. She wrote to Lord Baltimore demanding an in-
vestigation of a fight in which her husband was wound-
ed. The letter was sufficiently business-like but ends
vehemently. Captain Cornwallis refers to the wife of
Commissioner Hawley

Who by her comportment in these difficult affairs of her hus-
band's hath manifested as much virtue and discretion as can
be expected from the sex she ones whose industrious house-
wifery hath so adorned this desert, that should his discourage-
ments force him to withdraw himself and her, it would not a
little eclipse the glory of Maryland.

Margaret Brent administered Leonard Calvert's estate.
She never married. In 1658 she testified that "Thos.
White, lately deceased, out of the tender love and affec-
tion he bore the petitioner, intended if he had lived to
have married her, and did by his last will and testa-
ment" leave her "his whole estate." She asserted her
right to vote in official capacity as Calvert's successor .
and she conducted the colony through a dangerous situ-
ation with ability and patience. In colonial NLiryland

2/8 The American Family -Colonial Period

women began to function in public service as keepers of
ordinaries and ferries. During the Revolution a woman
was postmistress of Baltimore.

In Virginia, also, women showed strength and abil-
ity. "Mrs. Procter, a proper civil, modest gentle-
woman" defended herself and family for a month after
the massacre. "Lady Temperance Yeardly came on
November i6, 1627 to . . . Jamestown and con-
firmed the conveyance made by her late husband . . .
late governor ... to Abraham Percy." James
Clayton writing as early as 1688 of "Observables" in
Virginia mentions several "acute ingenious gentle-
women" who operated thriving tobacco plantations,
draining swamps, raising cattle, buying slaves. One
near Jamestown was a fig-grower.

In South Carolina women took an active part in all
sorts of affairs and seem to have enjoyed a certain stand-
ing not gained by women elsewhere in the colonies.
The men often had to be absent and it was not uncom-
mon for a woman to be alone for several months in
charge of a great plantation with hundreds of slaves
with no white man to assist her save the overseer.
Women often taught their own children. Eliza Lucas
studied law and while studying it drew up two wills
and was made trustee in another. '^In the Revolution
the women were often more stalwart than the men, urg-
ing husbands and fathers not to give in in order to save
their property and bearing cheerfully hardship and
banishment.^

In all the southern colonies there were keen gentle-
women that took up tracts of land and cleared and cul-
tivated their estates. Southern women were not out-
done by the business women of the North. A traveler

Woman's Place in the South 279

who had been through Maryland, Virginia, and Caro-
lina wrote (in the London Magazine, 1745- 1746) :
"The women, who have plantations, I have seen mighty
busy in examining the limbs, size, and abilities of their
intended purchases." There were several women ed-
itors in the South."'

In general the women of the South were freer from
toil than those of the North. Yet even in this milder
region pioneer life required a degree of fortitude that
tended to strengthen female character as the perils of
feudalism had done for the chatelaines of earlier days.
A Maryland missionary letter of 1638 remarks that "a
noble matron has just died, who coming with the first
settlers . . . with more than woman's courage bore
all difficulties and inconveniences. . . A perfect ex-
ample as well in herself as in her domestic concerns."
Maryland planters' women lived in the saddle but were
none the less "queens of the household" with the grace
of those "to the manor born." A writer on Virginia
says in 1853 :

Many of the respected females who iJgured in the earh'er
period of our history, were very difFerent, in some respects,
from the accomplished and esteemed fair ones of the city at this
day. They were generally more robust and capable of endur-
ing much greater fatigue. The roseate tints upon the full
cheek of health were more frequently to be seen, nor so soon
gave place to the pale hues of debility, disease, and premature
death. . . They mounted the spirited horse and cantered
[before sunrise].^"

^*3 For woman's sphere in the southern colonies see Richardson, SiJf-
lights on Maryland History, vol. i, chapter xxxiii; Early, By-ivays of Vir-
ginia History, 155-157; Bruce, Social Life of Virginia in the Seventeenth Cen-
tury, 231; Earle, Colonial Dames and GooditAves, chapter ii; Fisher, Men,
Women, and Manners in Colonial Times, vol. ii, 321-323; Sioussat, Colonial
Women of Maryland, 214-226.

1** Forrest. Historical and Descriptive Sketches of Norfolk, In., 42-43.

280 The American Family — Colonial Period
Doctor Brickell of North Carolina wrote:

Both sexes are very dexterous in paddling and managing their
canoes, both men, women, boys, and girls, being bred to it
from their infancy.

Woman's function as housewife and helpmeet was in-
deed important. A traveler wrote of Maryland:
The women are very handsome in general, and most notable
housewives; everything wears the mark of cleanliness and in-
dustry in their houses; and their behavior to their husbands
and families is very edifying. . . I am not writing anything
yet of the more refined part of the colony, but what I say now
is confined to a tract of about 200 miles ; for in some other parts
you will find many coquettes and prudes, as well as in other
places ; nor, perhaps, may the lap-dog or monkey be f orgotten.^*^

At all events woman's civic service was mainly in the
home.

Concerning Virginia an eighteenth century writer
said:

Of the planters' ladies, I must speak in terms of unqualified
praise; they had an easy kindness of manner, as far removed
from rudeness as from reserve. . . To the influence of their
society, I chiefly attribute their husband's refinement.

A nineteenth century writer on Norfolk, looking back,
said:

[The colonial ladies were] noted for their personal attractions ;
and many, in the higher walks of life, for great dignity of char-
acter, modesty, and politeness of behavior, as well as for their
activity and frugality in the management of their household
affairs. These commendable qualities left their impress and
beneficial influence upon succeeding generations. . . Some
spun at the wheel or wove at the hand loom! and cultivated
kitchen and flower gardens. They studied the Bible, and other
books of sound moral and religious instruction ; instilled correct,
honorable, virtuous, and patriotic principles into the minds of
their children, and presided with dignity and grace at the

^^^ Itinerant Observations in America, 46.

JV Oman's Place in the South 281

social entertainment. . . Of many it might then have been
said. . . "She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her
tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways
of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her
children arise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and
he praiseth her."

James Franklin wrote at the end of the Revolution-
ary period that except for certain amusements the Vir-
ginia ladies

Chiefly spend their time in sewing and taking care of their
families; for they seldom read or endeavor to improve their
minds. However they are in general good housewives; and tho
they have not perhaps, so much tenderness and sensibility as
the English ladies, yet they make as good wives and as good
mothers as any in the world.

Brickell wrote further of North Carolina:

The girls are not only bred to the needle and spinning, but to
the dairy and domestic affairs, which many of them manage
with a great deal of prudence and conduct, tho they are very
young. . . The women are the most industrious in these
parts, and many of them by their good housewifery make a
great deal of cloath of their own cotton, wool and flax, and
some of them weave their own cloath with which they decent-
ly apparel their whole family tho large. Others are so ingen-
ious that they make up all the wearing apparel both for husband,
sons and daughters. Others are very ready to help and assist
their husbands in any servile work, as planting when the sea-
son of the year requires expedition : pride seldom banishing
housewifery.

Tradition of South Carolina tells us that among the
Huguenots "men and their wives worked together in
felling trees, building houses, making fences, and grub-
bing up their grounds . . . and afterwards con-
tinued their labors at the whip-saw." One man asserts
that his grandfather and grandmother started their
handsome fortune by working together at the whip-

282 The American Family - Colonial Period

saw. A writer on South Carolina in 1763 said: The
women of the province "are excelled by none in the
practice of all the social virtues, necessary for the hap-
piness of the other sex as daughters, wives, or mothers."

There was more grace and charm perhaps in the set-
tled life of the South than in that of New England but
it is pretty clear that divergence of life between North
and South was less marked in colonial days than since.
But even before the Revolution "chivalry" was, as we
have seen, under way. Lady Tryon and Esther Wake
wrought so successfully with their feminine charms
that the North Carolina assembly granted a large ap-
propriation to build a governor's palace. Woman's in-
fluence was felt not only in private but in public -in
council, in assemblies, in the House of Burgesses.

It must be remembered that when writers eulogize
the women of the South and the attitude of the men
toward them the picture in mind is likely to be of
the women of the "aristocracy." Common people were
not very likely to get into books very adequately in the
Old South. Side by side with the women of the nobil-
ity lived the miserable sisters of toil -the poor, the serv-
ants, the slaves -and their lot was by no means roseate.
Some conception of the life of the servile class will be
gained in a later chapter. In Virginia in order to dis-
courage planters from working women in the fields, fe-
male servants so working were made subject to tithe,
while all other white women were exempt.^*^ A woman
in The Sot-weed Factor; or, a Voyage to Maryland^
contrasts England and America thus:

Not then a slave for twice two year
My cloaths were fashionably new
Nor were my shifts of linnen blue.

146 Burk. History of Virginia, vol. li, appendix xviii.

Woman's Place in the South 283

But things are changed; now at the hoe,
I daily work and barefoot go,

In weeding corn or feeding swine,

I spend my melancholy time.

In the valley of Virginia in harvest German women
worked in the fields. Females reaped, hoed, plowed.
A writer on the valley said : "Some of our now wealth-
iest citizens frequently boast of their grandmothers, aye
mothers too, performing this kind of heavy labor."

North Carolina became a dumping ground for
"white trash." If we may believe one sharp writer
(seemingly Byrd, whose reliability has been impugned)

The men . . . just like the Indians, impose all the work
upon the poor women. They make their wives rise out of
their beds early in the morning, at the same time that they lye
and snore, til the sun has run one third of his course. . .
They loiter away their lives . . . and at the winding up
of the year scarcely have bread to eat.

North Carolina possessed much of the roughness and
crudeness of frontier life. The reverend Mr. Urm-
stone, a missionary, writes numerous querulous letters
detailing the hardships of the country and the rough-
ness of the people. A letter, dated February 15, 17 19,
relates that his wife died in October. She had

Declared before several of her neighbors that her heart was
broken through our ill usage and comfortless way of living; she
prest me sore for divers years either to quit this wretched coun-
try or give her leave to go home with her children: I wish I
had done either it might have pleased God to have continued her
to me many years longer.

XVII. CHILDHOOD IN THE COLONIAL
SOUTH

Children were of use in the colonial South as in New
England. The opportunity for child-labor left un-
bridled the spontaneous impulse to propagation and
fecundity was a social boon in the new country.

The London Company, which settled Virginia, was
anxious to utilize child-labor in developing the re-
sources of the colony. In 1619 arrived one hundred
children "save such as dyed on the waie" and another
hundred, twelve years old or over, was asked for. In
1627 many ships came bringing fourteen or fifteen hun-
dred children kidnapped in Europe. A few years later
a request went to London for another supply of "friend-
less boyes and girles."

How the system of servitude affected family rela-
tions may be gathered from the following illustrative
material.

A boy six years old was kidnapped in England by a
sea-captain and sold to America where he married his
master's daughter and became his heir. He never
found his parents. Later he bought the sea-captain
(now a convict). The latter, probably fearing ven-
geance, killed himself the first day.

James McAvoy and thirteen other youths were kid-
napped from Ireland and brought to Virginia. Several
of the boys were recovered by their parents. McAvoy
was sold to Mr. R. Carlile and by him resold to a man

286 The American Family -Colonial Period

in the valley. While in service he married but re-
turned to the bull-pasture before his time was out. His
owner came and took him back. Presently his wife
came to him with her child. The couple soon ran away
together and he was not again disturbed.

Banishment to the plantations was the probable fate
of a child whose existence menaced the honor or peace
of a noble family.

In 1632 the Virginia colony gave John and Anna
Layton five hundred acres of land in official recognition
of the fact that their child, Virginia, was the first white
child born in the colony. By 1634- 1639 is noted faster
growth due to advance in birth-rate. The writer of
Leah and Rachel said of Virginia:

Children increase and thrive so well there that they them-
selves will sufficiently supply the defect of servants, and in small
time become a nation of themselves sufficient to people the
country.

Primal fertility appeared. We hear of a family of
twelve living in a cabin with only an earth floor and
with no beds save bearskins. Some families had eight,
ten, or fifteen children. Patrick Henry, born in 1736,
was one of nineteen children and John Marshall, born
in 1755, was the first of fifteen.

In Maryland thrifty yeomen had large families.
Evidence of family magnitude is found in the grave-
yard Mrs. Richardson remarks in regretful retrospec-
tion:

Manor houses with outstretched wings were built to gather
under their sheltering roofs the dozen or more little ones who
usually came to break the stillness of the quiet days in that far
off time when there was more of maternity than nervous energy
in the world.

Families in North Carolina were large. Fecundity

Childhood in the South 287

was a family ideal. Pioneer vigor ensured numerous
offspring; and as a rule children repaid even before the
age of twenty-one the expenses of rearing. Doctor
Brickell wrote in 1737:

The women are very fruitful, most houses being full of little
ones, and many women from other places who have been long
married and without children, have removed to Carolina and
become joyful mothers, as has often been observed. It very
seldom happens they miscarry, and they have very easie travail
in their child-bearing. . . The Europeans, or Christians of
North Carolina are a streight, tall, well-limbed and active peo-
ple ; their children being seldom or never troubled with rickets,
and many other distempers that the Europians are afflicted with,
and you shall seldom see any of them deformed in body.

Governor Dobbs wrote from Newbern in 1755:

There are at present 75 families on my lands. I viewed betwixt
30 and 40 of them, and except two there are not less than from
five or six to ten children in each family, each going barefooted
in their shifts in the warm weather, no woman wearing more
than a shift, and one thin petticoat; They are a colony from Ire-
land removed from Pennsylvania, of what we call Scotch-Irish
Presbyterians who with others in the neighboring tracts had set-
tled together in order to have a teacher of their own opinion
and choice.

Woodmason's Account of North Carolina in IjdO
informs us that "the necessaries of life are so cheap and
so easily acquired and propagation being unrestricted
that the increase of people there is inconceivable even
to themselves." For the fifty years from 1753 to 1803
the church register of a Moravian group shows more
than twice as many births as deaths.

In 1708 Oldmixon wrote of Charlestown:

There are at least 250 families in this town, most of which are
numerous, and many of them have ten or twelve children in
each.
He likewise informs us that in Carolina "the children

288 The American Family - Colonial Period

are set to work at eight years old." Milligan wrote of

Charlestown in 1763:

I have examined a pretty exact register of the births and burials
for fifteen years, and find them, except when the small-pox
prevailed, nearly equal; the advantage, the small, is in favor of
the births, tho the burials are added all the transient people
who die here.

Genealogical registers show the following instances
of South Carolina fecundity during the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries : Five persons with nine chil-
dren each ; six with ten children each ; three with eleven
children each ; four with twelve each ; two with thirteen
each; one with fourteen; one with fifteen; one woman
with nineteen children by one husband. There is no
reason to suppose that the elect few whose genealogies
are available were unique in prolificness.

In Georgia some people settled on the edge of
swamps. In one settlement so high was the death-rate
among children that they seldom survived till puberty.
Those that lived to adulthood possessed feeble constitu-
tions. But a letter from Savannah in 1740 contains this
item:

I have carefully inquired into the account of our births and
burials at Savannah, and its districts for one year past, and find
the former has exceeded the latter as three to tw^o.

As always in a new country natural conditions im-
parted a training in activity and responsibility. Thus
the author of Leah and Rachel says of Virginia :

This good policy is there used ; as the children there born grow
to maturity, and capable (as they are generally very capable and
apt) they are still preferred and put into authority, and carry
themselves therein civilly and discreetly.

Alsop says of Maryland in 1666: There are no ale-
houses; "from antient custom . . . the son works
as well as the servant; so that before they eat their

Childhood in the South 289

bread, they are commonly taught how to earn it." By
the time sons are ready to receive what the father gives
them, which is partly their own earning, "they manage
it with such a serious, grave, and watching care, as if
they had been masters of families, trained up in that
domestick and governing power from their cradles."

The spiritual welfare of the young was an object of
solicitude but also subject to vicissitudes. In the Mary-
land Assembly in 1694, ^^ was ordered that a law be
proposed that parents frequently bring their children to
be catechized and that the ministers call upon them. In
1696 it was voted that the ministers frequently admon-
ish the children's parents in their parishes to send them
to be catechized. A circular letter in 1701 to the clergy
of Maryland by the reverend Thomas Bray, a clergy-
man of the Church of England, urges religious training
of children in which there has been remissness. In Vir-
ginia an act of 1661-1662 recites that "many schismat-
ical persons . . . refuse to have . . . children
baptized." Accordingly parents refusing to carry a
child to a lawful minister for baptism were to be fined
two thousand pounds of tobacco. The records of the
period contain one case, at any rate, of an order against
a father under charge of not baptizing children. The
reverend Samuel Davis, minister at Hanover, wrote in
1751 that family religion was a rarity. Byrd said that
the North Carolina settlers took no trouble to get chil-
dren baptized and Christianized. It may be that the
strictures of this Episcopalian cavalier were unfair.
The North Carolina records for 1771-1775 contain an
account of an Episcopal minister's charging fifteen shil-
lings for baptizing a sick child.

I have of my own knowledge seen a man as he passed his dDor
desire him to call in and baptize his child w hich lay sick .iiid lie

290 The American Family -Colonial Period

has refused and in consequence . . . the child died unbap-
tized.

In an account of missionaries sent to South Carolina
in the early part of the eighteenth century occurs a re-
port, dated in the year 1706, from the reverend Doctor
Le Jean that "the parents and masters" were "endued
with much good will, and a ready disposition to have
their children and servants taught the Christian re-
ligion." When he found parents refraining on account
of expense from having children baptized he told them
he desired nothing.

Scattered residence and aristocratic spirit retarded
the planting of schools. Education in the South was
very defective. Only the aristocracy could provide for
its children according to the best educational standards
of the age in England.

With this dearth of formal arrangements for educa-
tion the training of the young was naturally subject to
varying vicissitudes. In seventeenth century Virginia
the desire of parents to provide education for their
children was indicated in various ways. Often direc-
tions were left and provision was made in wills. One
of the most ordinary provisions of wills was that the
testator's children be taught to read the Bible. Many
planters provided surprisingly large amounts for the
education of their children. John Custis IV. provided
by will that the proceeds of the labor of fourteen slaves
should be devoted to the maintenance and tuition of his
grandson until he should be sent to England for ad-
vanced training for which an additional large amount
was provided. John Savage directed in his will that a
horse and mare, two steers and two cows, with their in-
crease, should go for the education of his son in Eng-
land. For the tuition of his two daughters the execu-.

Childhood in the South 291

tors were to hire out three servants. That the desire to
have their children educated was not confined to whites
is shown by the will of Thomas Carter, a free negro,
which directed as to the education of his sons. In early-
Maryland wills also fathers provide for the education
of their sons -"as befits their station," frequently direct-
ing that they be sent to college in England.

Maryland children were taught by parents, tutored,
or sent to England to school. Many sons of wealthy
parents enjoyed the privilege of an education abroad.
In Virginia the wealthiest families kept tutors. Some-
times the tutor was a freed servant, as in the Washing-
ton family, and sometimes a servant still in bondage.
Often the tutor in a great Virginia family was an Epis-
copal clergyman. When the sons outgrew their master
they were sent to New or Old England, or perchance to
William and Mary. Before 1770 nearly every South
Carolina planter sent his sons to Oxford or Cambridge.

To William and Mary many Maryland boys were
sent -a fact that largely accounts for the numerous mar-
riage alliances between the early families of Maryland
and those of Virginia. A traveler in the South wrote
before the middle of the eighteenth century: "The
Williamsburgh college in Virginia is the Resort of all
the children, whose parents can afford it." It is inferior
to the universities of Massachusetts, "for the youth of
these more indulgent settlements, partake pretty much
of the petit maitre kind, and are pampered much more
in softness and ease than their neighbors more north-
ward." Such a spoiled lad was, perhaps, Thomas Byrd
who was sentenced to a whipping on the charge of
breaking windows. He refused to submit ; his father of-
fered to compel him ; but he was expelled from college.

292 The American Family - Colonial Period
The traveler just quoted says also:

Often a clever servant or convict, that can write and read toler-
ably, and is of no handicraft business, is indented to some plant-
er, who has a number of children, as a schoolmaster, and then,
to be sure, he is a tip-top man in his parts, and the servant is
used more indulgently than the generality of them.

The diary of John Hanower (1773-1776) who came
to Virginia as a schoolmaster, indented to Colonel Dan-
gerfield, illuminates this phase of pedagogy. His wife
seems to have been in England.

[May 27.] This morning about 8 A M the colonel delivered
his three sons to my charge to teach them to read, write, and
figure. His oldest son Edwin ten years of age, intred into two
syllables in the spelling book, Bathourest his second son six years
of age in the alphabete and William his third son four years of
age does not know the letters, he has likewise a daugh-
ter. . . My school houres is from six to eight in the morn-
ing, in the forenoon from nine to twelve, and from three to six
in the afternoon. . . [June 14] This morning entered to
school Wm. Pattie son of John Pattie wright, and Salley Evens
daughter to Thos. Evens Planter. . . [Monday, 20th] This
morning entred to school Philip and Dorothea Edge's Chil-
dren of Mr. Benjamin Edge, Planter. . . [Tuesday, 21st]
This day Mr. Samuel Edge Planter came to me and begged me
to take a son of his to school who was both deaf and dum, and I
consented to try what I cou'd do with him. . . Munday,
17th [Apr., 1775] At 8 A M I rode to Town. . . On
my aravel in town the first thing I got to do was to dictate
and write a love letter from Mr. Anderson to one Peggie
Dewar at the howse of Mr. John Mitchel at the Wilder-
ness. . . [Tuesday, April 23d, 1776] Settled with Mr.
Porter for teaching his tvvo sons 12 Mos. when he ver>f genteely
allowed me £6 for them, besides a present of two silk vests
and two pair of nankeen breeches last summer and a gallon of
rum at Christenmass, both he and Mrs. Porter being extream-
ly w^ell satisfied with what I hade don to them.

Not all pedagogy was so amateurish as that suggested

Childhood in the South 293

by the diary of this worthy pedagog. Mrs. Pinckney
wanted to get her son a toy so that he might learn by
play according to Locke's method. His father under-
took to contrive a set of toys to teach him his letters by
the time he could speak. "You perceive we begin
betimes for he is not yet four months old." The infant
began to spell before he was two years of age. He be-
came General C. C. Pinckney of Revolutionary fame
but he declared that this early teaching nearly made him
a stupid fellow. Martha Laurens, born in Charleston
in 1759, could in her third year "read any book."

School administration presented problems of its own.
The first free school in Queen Anne's County, Mary-
land, procured its first teacher in 1724. Difficulty was
soon experienced in securing the attendance of the
"foundation" pupils. Many notices were given to the
parents and guardians of these pupils requiring them to
show cause why the pupils were not at school. A letter
from the reverend Mr. Reed, dated at Newbern, North
Carolina, in 1772, recounts trouble about an academy.
"When Mr. T. opened his school, he was apprized of
the excessive indulgence of American parents, and the
great difficulty of keeping up a proper discipline; more
especially as his school consisted of numbers of both
sexes." He had to correct and turn out some for un-
ruliness. Two trustees whose children were turned out
became "his most implacable enemies. . . The cor-
recting and turning the children of two of the trustees
out of the school, was, like the sin against the Holy
Ghost, never to be forgiven."

The early German settlers of North Carolina brought
their religious books with them. The cabin in the
clearing was followed by a schoolhouse erected in sonic
accessible place. The youth were taught by the school-

294 ^^'^^ American Family - Colonial Period

master the rudiments of education. The mother tongue
was used.

A writer on Highland County, Virginia, tells us that

The Scotch-Irish set great store on schooling, but pioneer life
in a thinly peopled wilderness was not favorable to effort in
this direction. The more alert of those who could read and
write would give their children some rudimentary train-
ing. . . A significant instance lies in the fact that an early
constable of the Bullpasture, who of necessity was able to read
and write, reared an illiterate family. A signature by means
of a mark was very common.

Doctor Brickell of North Carolina wrote:

The children at nine months old are able to walk and run
about the house, and are very docile and apt to learn anything,
as any children in Europe; and those that have the advantage
to be educated, write good hands, and prove good accountants,
which is very much coveted, and most necessary in these parts.

A writer on the history of Mecklenburg County and the
city of Charlotte in colonial times, says that the children
generally received six months of schooling for two or
three years.

Observations by a traveler through the South ap-
pearing in the London Magazine, 1745- 1746, indicate
that "those that cant afford to send their children to the
better schools, send them to the country school-masters
who are generally servants, who after serving their
terms out, set up for themselves."

A historian of Tazewell County, Virginia, wrote in
1852:

The early settlers of this region had many difficulties to encoun-
ter in their efforts to procure homes for themselves and their
children, and too frequently education appears to have been but
of secondary importance in their estimation. Yet primary schools
of some sort seem to have been maintained from an early date
after its settlement, in those neighborhoods where children were
sufficiently numerous to make up a school, and parents were able
and willing to support a teacher.

Childhood in the South 295

Nevertheless in spite of all the desire for education
and pitiful attempts to provide it the southern masses
remained unenlightened. Doyle says: "In the absence
of schools the small freeholder, so far as such a class ex-
isted, grew up with tastes and habits little above those
of the savage whom he supplanted." ^*^

Occasionally the class feeling of the aristocracy in the
matter of education struck fire. Some of their ideas
would bring delight to the modern advocates of caste
lines in education. Thus the proceedings of the Mary-
land assembly for 1663 contain this item:

Was returned the additionall act for the advancement of chil-
dren's estates from the lower house wherein they desired the
words [handy craft, trade] might be struck out. Ordered that
answer be returned that to strike out those words . . . was
to destroy the very thing intended by the act which was to
breed up all the indigent youth of this province to handycraft
trade and noe other.

In seventeenth century Virginia the court looked to
the education of orphans. Masters were obliged to
teach their bond-apprentices to read and write. For
instance in 1698 "Ann Chandler, orphan of Daniel
Chandler, bound apprentice to Phyllemon Miller till
eighteen or day of marriage, to be taught to read a chap-
ter in the Bible, the Lord's Prayer and Ten Command-
ments, and semptress work." Many negro children
were taught to read and write by their parents or mas-
ters. North Carolina law required that orphans be
properly educated according to rank out of the estate if
it sufficed; otherwise they were to be apprenticed to
handicraft or trade (not to Quakers) till of age.

The Quaker counterpart of the discrimination men-
tioned is seen in a query adopted by the Maryland
yearly meeting in 1725 to be answered by lower meet-

1*7 Doyle. English Colonies in America, vol. i, 394.

296 The American Family -Colonial Period

ings : "Whether there is any masters of trade that want
apprentices[,] or children of Friends to be put forth,
that they apply themselves to the monthly meetings be-
fore they take those that are not Friends, or put forth
their children to such?" Another query was: "Whether
have the children of the poor due education so as to fitt
them for necessary employment?"

Family government in the colonies was patriarchal
tho not necessarily harsh and forbidding. Pioneer ex-
igencies magnified the family into a compendium of
church, state, and school. Immigrant peoples had the
same problem as modern immigrants in respect to main-
taining the mother tongue and folk standards. The
Mennonists in the Valley of Virginia trained their chil-
dren in their peculiar religious ways. Generally they
strictly forbade the dance or other juvenile amusements
common to other sects of Germans. Virginia had dis-
reputable taverns and saloons that were an offset to fam-
ily interests and discipline. The Maryland Quaker
queries already mentioned contain the following:
Are all careful to keep meetings . . . bringing forth their
families? . . . Do those that have children train them up
in the nurture and fear of the Lord, restraining them from
vice, wantonness, and keeping company with such as would
teach them vain fations and corrupt ways of this world to the
misspending of their precious time and substance?

An old writer remarks of the Scotch-Irish and Scotch
settlers of North Carolina:

These Presbyterian mothers gloried in the enterprise, and re-
ligion, and knowledge, and purity of their husbands and chil-
dren, and would forego comforts and endure toil that their
sons might be well instructed enterprising men.

Chastellux says that like the English the settlers were
fond of their infants but cared little for their children.
The annals and biographies do not confirm his asser-

Childhood in the South 297

tion, George Wythe learned Greek at home from a
Testament while his mother held an English copy and
guided him. John Mason carried through life the ef-
fect of his mother's influence. She died when he was
seven yet all his life "mother's room" was vivid in his
memory.

Of course one can find instances to the opposite effect.
Thus the reverend Mr. Urmstone writes from North
Carolina that the people are unwilling to pay minister
or schoolmaster, "nay they need to be hired to go to
church or send their children to school." There are in-
dications, however, that he was no model rector or pat-
tern. Indeed he himself writes :

I intend to send my two youngest children as a present to the
society hoping they will put them into some charity school or
hospital!. Whereby they may be educated and provided for,
when they come to age, for I am not able to maintain them.
My eldest is near twenty, capable of helping me, but is bent up-
on going for England. . . There is no boarding here, there
is never a family that I know of that I would live in if they
would hire me.

As an instance of aliens' experience with their chil-
dren in the midst of the English environment we may
cite the Huguenots. The children of the immigrants
grew up more proficient in English than in the mother
tongue. Gradually the church services became con-
fined to the surviving refugees and such of their chil-
dren as out of respect accompanied them. The second
and third generations in America were ready to join the
established church of the province.

With regard to the character of youth under the colo-
nial regime the following additional citations will be
suggestive. A Virginia lady of the olden time reported :

Very little from books was thought necessary for a girl. Slu-

was trained to domestic matters, however, must learn the .icconi-

298 The American Family - Colonial Period

pHshments of the day, to play upon the harpsichord or spinet,
and to work impossible dragons and roses on canvas.

Doctor Brickell wrote of early eighteenth century
North Carolina:

The young men are generally of a bashful, sober behavior, few^
proving prodigals, to spend what the parents with care and
industry have left them but commonly improve it. . . The
girls are most commonly handsome and well featur'd, but have
pale or swarthy complexions, and are generally more forward
than the boys, notwithstanding the women are very shy, in their
discourses, till they are acquainted.

The author of Itinerant Observations in America
which appeared in the London Magazine of 1745- 1746,
after travels in the South wrote thus:

The girls, under such good mothers, generally have twice the
sense and discretion of the boys; their dress is neat and clean,
and not much bordering upon the ridiculous humour of the
mother country, where the daughters seem dressed up for a
market. . . Adieu Maryland.

XVIII. FAMILY PATHOLOGY AND SOCIAL

CENSORSHIP IN THE COLONIAL

SOUTH

The colonial South had its share of irregularities in
the relations between husbands and wives, parents and
children. Civic treatment of family disorders was
somewhat less radical than in New England. Isolation
of residence made for a low degree of civic control.
Continental blood worked against tendencies to Puritan
asperity in domestic life.

In 1624 in Virginia it was ordained that

Three sufficient men of every parish shall be sworn to see
that every man shall plant and tende sufficient corne for his
family. Those men that have neglected so to do are to be by
the said three men presented to be censured by the governor and
counsell.

Sometimes Virginia church wardens relieved wives
who, with children, had been ejected by husbands.
Mary Laurence in 1676 complained that her husband
had driven her out and refused to maintain her. The
justices ordered her returned home. If the husband
proved vagabond he should be put to forced labor ior
their support. Meanwhile the churchwarden was to
see that she and the child did not lack food. In 168H a
man had deserted an old, deaf wife, who unless the rest
of her estate should be sold would be thrown on the
parish. The court ordered wardens to act as trustees of
the property and use it for her.

300 The American Family -Colonial Period
In 1692 the Grand Council of South Carolina

Upon hereing the petition of Jan La Salle ordrd that her hus-
band Peter . , . cohibitt wth: the said Jane his wife and
maintaine her in all necessaryes as his wife, or else that he allow
his said wife the negro woman he had with her and pay his said
wife £6 ster. p. annum.

He was charged costs.

A North Carolina law of 1755 provides that vagrants
shall be whipped from constable to constable to the
counties where their wives and children formerly lived
and there give bond for good behavior and "for betak-
ing him or herself to some lawful calling or honest
labor." Otherwise the culprit should be hired out for
one year; the money to cover expenses of arrest and any
balance to go to the family.

In Georgia there was special need of social main-
tenance of families: it was a charity establishment in
part. At a board meeting in 1735 in Palace Court was
received a

Petition of Mary Bateman, mother of Wm. Bateman now in
Georgia, setting forth, that her son, William Bateman went
to Georgia by the way of Charlestown at his own expense,
with one servant to take possession of a grant of 75 acres of
land; that his servant left him at Charles Town; that he has
had great illness, and been at extraordinary expenses on other
occasions; and praying credit for a years maintenance for him-
self and his wife in Georgia and to have the assistance of a serv-
ant. Resolved that credit be given to the said Wm. Bateman
and his wife for a year's maintenance and that a servant be sent
him. . .

Resolvd that a town lot in Savannah be granted to Austin
Weddell ; And that he and his wife be sent over by the said
ship and that they be maintained for a year.

In regard to Georgia the following regulation was
made:

The children of six years and upwards of [certain] servants to

\

Social Censorship in the South 301

be employed as the overseers shall direct; and the maintenance
of them for provisions and clothing; to be paid by the week
after the rate of four pence a day each . . . but those
children of such servants under six years old are to be main-
tained by the parents out of their allowances.

At Frederica and Savannah salaries were provided
for public midwives for the poor and for trust servants,
besides five shillings per case, and the midwives were
under obligation to attend on such as required their
services.

The Savannah records for a number of years contain
numerous instances of public aid to families. Many of
the cases involved widowhood or bad health, and dis-
cretion was manifested in allotment of relief.

It is probable that Georgia had a greater volume of
such relief cases than had the other colonies. In North
Carolina in 1771 the House allowed one hundred fifty
pounds to the widow of a government soldier who had
fought in the battle of Alamance and one hundred
pounds to each of three others, because of their distress
with a number of small children; ''which money shall
be paid into the hands of a trustee, and by him applied
to the purchase of slaves for the use of the said widows
and children, and to no other purpose whatsoever."

Old records contain instances of family discord tend-
ing to separation. Some such cases have already been
mentioned incidentally. In no southern colony was
there a tribunal competent to grant divorce or separa-
tion. The statutes of these colonies are silent on the
subject of divorce jurisdiction. Not a case has been
discovered of absolute divorce by pre-revolutionary
legislatures. Separations did occur and separate innin-
tenance was sometimes granted by the court. One such
case in Virginia has been cited in another connection.

302 The American Family - Colonial Period

Again, in 1691, the request "of Ruth Fulcher for sep-
arate maintenance against her husband, John Fulcher,"
was referred to county court justices, "who, after hear-
ing the testimony, decided in favor of the plaintifif." In
1699 Mrs. Mary Taylor complained to court that her
husband was "so cross and cruel" that she could not live
with him. She asked for alimony in a home of her
own where she would be "secure from danger." The
court ordered the husband to deliver to her furniture
and clothing and contribute twelve hundred pounds of
tobacco or six pounds yearly to her support.

The Maryland high court of chancery took cogni-
zance of suits for separate alimony. In 1689 the case
of Galwith vs. Galwith came before the provincial
court. The record of the court from which it was ap-
pealed says that at June session, 1685, "the appellee, be-
ing the wife of the appellant," presented a petition "set-
ing forth, that within a few years certain false, evil, and
scandalous reports were raised and spread abroad
against her by some malicious persons," causing "great
dissention and difference between her husband and her-
self, insomuch that he refused to entertain her in his
house, or allow her a competent maintenance elsewhere,
by which she was reduced to great poverty and want."
In 1684 she had "applied to the county court for re-
lief ... at which time the court hearing and con-
sidering the premises, granted an order that her husband
should allow . . . her 2000 wt. of tobacco for her
maintenance the next year ensuing." But the "year was
completed and ended, and her said husband not being
reconciled nor willing" to take back her or the child,
"which she hitherto had maintained," she would shortly
"be brought to extreme poverty and necessity without
further assistance from the court." She prayed the

Social Censorship in the South 303

court to order her husband to "take her home to dwell
with him, which she was desirous to do, or else that he
might be enjoined to allow her a competent maintenance
for herself and child." So he was commanded to "take
home his said wife Jane Galwith, to dwell with him as
man and wife ought to do; otherwise to allow . . .
her 3000 wt. of tobacco a year, commencing from that
day." The higher tribunal reversed the judgment.
The jurisdiction in suits for alimony, assumed prior to
the Revolution by the courts of equity, was confirmed
by a later statute.

Troublesome cases did arise in spite of southern con-
servatism. The records of the Maryland provincial
court show that in 165 1 Robert Holt deposed that his
wife had divers times threatened his life. Edward
Hudson joined her in abusing him. "I goe daily in
fear of my life." According to witnesses, the woman
was adulteress with Hudson. A woman testified to
Mrs. Holt's disposition to kill her husband. John Gent
deposes "that he heard Dorothy Holt cry for many
curses to God against her husband, that he might rot
limb from limb, and that she would daily pray to God
that such casualties might fall upon him, and likewise
that her son Richard might end his days upon the gal-
lows." On one occasion in this colony in the year 1658
a minister gave a divorce and remarried the man. Both
men were indicted. In 1701 the petition of a man to
the council for divorce and illegitimizing of the wife's
children of the period of her elopement was sent to the
house with a proposed bill. The House summoned the
parties to appear at next session.

It would seem that orders of separate maintenance
would be in efifect decrees of separation. In seventeenth
century Virginia, even orders of separation occurred

304 The American Family - Colonial Period

only at very long intervals. They were rarely asked
and more rarely granted. In 1655 Alice Clawson of
Northhampton County secured some sort of "divorce"
on the ground that her husband had for many years
lived among the Indians and had refused to give up his
Indian concubine. In the Virginia colony marriages
could be annulled by the General Court if the
parties were within the forbidden degrees. Before
March 12, 1684 a man married his uncle's widow.
How such a marriage could occur is hard to under-
stand. After at least ten years of marriage and after
the birth of children the woman seems to have been hor-
rified at the sinfulness of her union and she secured a
separation. The man agreed to pay alimony. Their
daughter was to be put in school as the mother should
see fit. The vestry of St. John's parish, Baltimore
County, Maryland cited a man to appear and explain
his marriage with his deceased wife's sister. Another
was summoned for uniting himself in marriage with his
late wife's niece. Both failed to justify themselves so
the clerk was ordered to present them to the County
Court.

An interesting personage was Mr. John Custis of
Virginia. He had put on his tombstone this inscrip-
tion: "Aged 71 years and yet lived but seven years
which was the space of time he kept" bachelor's hall.
He and his wife seem to have been very unhappy to-
gether. In 1774 they entered into the "Articles of
Agreements betwixt Mr. John Custis and his wife.
Whereas some dififerences and quarrels have arisen be-
twixt Mr. John Custis and Frances his wife concerning
some money, plate and other things taken from him by
the sd. Frances and a mor plentiful maintenance for
her. Now to the end and all animostys and unkind-

Social Censorship in the South 305

ness may cease and a perfect love and friendship may be
renewed betwixt them they have mutually agreed" that
she shall return things taken and not repeat the offence.
She shall not run in debt without his consent. He is not
to deprive her of the plate and damask during her life.
She is to forbear to call him vile names or give him any
ill language. He is to reciprocate. They are to live
lovingly together as a good husband and wife ought.
She is not to meddle with his business, nor he, in her
domestic affairs. Half of the net produce of the estate
shall go to her for clothing herself and children and ed-
ucating them and providing things necessary for house-
keeping, and physic, so long as she live quietly with him
"and that he shall allow for the maintenance and family
one bushel of wheat for every week and a sufficient
quantity of Indian corn," also meat, "and sufficient
quantity of cyder and brandy if so much be made on the
plantation." If she shall exceed the allowance or run
him in debt the bond shall become void and the allow-
ance cease. She is to have the same house servants as
now or others in their stead; also an errand boy. Her
husband shall allow her fifteen pounds of wool and fif-
teen of fine dressed flax yearly to spin for any use in the
family. She may give away twenty yards of Virginia
cloth yearly to charity if so much remains after the serv-
ants are clothed. She may keep a white servant out of
the above allowance provided he be subject to her hus-
band. He is to give her fifty pounds now, if so much be
available, in order to get things started. She is to give
account under oath if he require, how said fifty pounds
and yearly profits are spent.

In the latter part of the eighteenth century some Vir-
ginia husbands and wives advertised each other with
abuse, in which the wife had the advantage. In one

3o6 The American Family - Colonial Period

case were inserted particulars filling half a column.
The indictment begins thus: "Whereas Ben Banner-
man my husband has published a false and scandalous
account," etc. A later writer, taking account of such
instances, was impressed with the fact that all such
viragoes of whom he read date from the old country.
"Not one is found that does not refer to Europe; thus
proving that . . . our fair countrywomen were as
good-tempered as they were beautiful." It is probable
that his observations refer to Richmond newspapers."^

In South Carolina, 1731-1732, appeared advertise-
ments for three absconding wives. In Georgia, White-
field's and Wesley's work, it was said, caused division
among families.

While the materials at hand illustrative of marital
friction and social suzerainty over the family are rather
meager, it is evident that the community recognized as
in New England the necessity of supplying family ne-
cessities and maintaining family integrity. The recog-
nition of wifely claims of alimony is a tacit avowal of
woman's parasitism. But some of the instances of fam-
ily trouble cited suggest that some southern women
were sufficiently forceful and independent. The treat-
ment of forbidden degrees parallels that in New Eng-
land. Religion as a source of family dissension recalls
especially certain incidents in Rhode Island. Protes-
tant solvent tendencies operate in both regions.

In England under Elizabeth poor children were to
be trained for some trade and the idle were to be pun-
ished. In the reign of James I. the statutes of Eliza-
beth for binding children were utilized for sending
them to America. The apprenticing of poor children
to the Virginia Company began as early as 1620. In

148 Compare Little, Richmond, 22.

Social Censorship in the South 307

that year Sir Edwin Sandys asked authority to send one
hundred children that had been "appointed for trans-
portation" by the city of London but were not willing
to go. The apprenticeship statute of Elizabeth solved
the difficulty. Children and vagrants were regularly
assembled for shipment. A record of 1627 reads:
"There are many ships going to Virginia, and with
them 1400 or 1500 children which they have gathered
up in divers places."

The jurisdiction of churchwardens in early Virginia
covered indigent orphans. It seems that they were
usually indentured till they were twenty-one. The par-
ish often provided a sum for clothing. The wardens'
jurisdiction extended also over parents disposed to en-
courage children in bad courses. In 1692 a man was
reported to justices as an "idle and lazy person" whose
children lived by his begging or their stealing. He re-
fused to bind them out. The churchwardens were in-
structed to do so if he continued vagabond. Near the
end of the seventeenth century, wardens were empow-
ered to bind out illegitimate boys until they were thirty.
Poor children whose parents could not provide for them
properly were bound out for long terms. Wardens
were required to supervise the treatment of those they
bound out. If the master gave bad treatment the child
was removed to another safe master and the offender
was punished. In 1657 acts were passed forbidding
any person to whom an Indian child had been entrusted
from assigning or in any way transferring the child. It
was ordered that such child should be free at the age of
twenty- five.

Mr. H. Jones wrote of Virginia in 1724:

When there is a numerous family of poor children the vestry
takes care to bind them out apprentices, till they arc able to

3o8 The American Family -Colonial Period

maintain themselves by their own labor; by which means they
are never tormented with vagrant and vagabond beggars.

An act of 1748 provides that orphans whose estates will
not support them shall be bound as apprentices. They
shall be taught to read and write and otherwise sup-
plied. If ill used or if training is neglected such or-
phans may be removed.

An instance of voluntary apprenticeship is presented
in the diary of Colonel Carter:

Billy Beale, the youngest son of the late John Beale, a lad of
about eighteen, came to me Saturday on a letter I wrote to his
mother. He brought with him Mr. Eustace's and Mr. Ed-
wards' consent, his guardians, that he should be bound to me in
the place of Wm. Ball, which the young gentleman very
willingly agreed to. . . He is ... to serve me three
years for £10 the year in order to be instructed in the steward-
ship or management of a Virginia estate.

In Maryland about 1658 the assembly passed a meas-
ure to the efifect that guardians should render account
of minors' estates. No child was to be placed in the
hands of guardians "of a contrary judgment then that of
their deceased parents." In 1663 the assembly decided
that no account be allowed for anything against orphans'
estates unless their education is provided for out of the
estate if it suffices. If the estate was too small to pro-
vide education then the orphans were to be bound ap-
prentices to some "Handicraft, trade, or other person"
till twenty-one, unless a kinsman will maintain them on
the interest of the estate, the estate itself to go to the
orphans at the years appointed by law. No allowance
was to be made for excessive funeral expenses. The
Assembly Proceedings of 1671 record the experience
that former acts for the preservation of orphans' estates
were inadequate. Long directions are given for safe-
guarding estates. It is directed explicitly that children

Social Censorship in the South 309

are to be committed to persons of the same religion as
the parents if the court has to make the appointment.

The early Friends in Maryland took especial care of
the interests of orphans and protected their estates by
extralegal guards. They had a committee to look after
widows and orphans. They even had a register of wills
at a time when there was no official register or at least
none near at hand. Among the queries adopted by
yearly meeting in 1725 to be answered by lower meet-
ings we find this: "Whether there is any fatherless or
widows that want necessarys . . . and if any want
are they supplied?"

In the Calvert Papers occurs indication that at least
one of the parochial clergy had under consideration a
charitable subscription toward the support of widows
and the education of children of the brethren left des-
titute.

In North Carolina the authorities looked after the
fortunes of dependent children. Thus a Carolina court
of 1694 leaves the following record:

Upon a petition exhibited by Thomas Hassold showing that a
child named Thos. Snoden was left with him by his father-in-
law Edmund Perkins upon condition to pay him 600 pounds of
tobacco per annum for his dyatt, ordered that the sd. Thos.
Snoden serve the said Hassold until his father-in-law come for
him or els till he arrive that the age of twenty one yeares.

At a later court two orphans were bound out, the boy to
be taught a trade and at the end of his term to receive a
heifer. The girl was to receive with her freedom a cow
and calf "beside the custom of the country." Governor
Johnson remarked on a North Carolina law entitled
"An act concerning orphans" that this law was hi^Hily
unjust and seemed designed to encourage and protect
unjust guardians that robbed their wards, "a practice

3IO The American Family -Colonial Period

too common in this country." At another time attention
was called to the need of further security for the estates
of widows and orphans.

A statute recalling northern legislation was enacted
in 1773 in a measure applying to Newbern: "Whereas
sundry idle and disorderly persons as well as slaves and
children under age do make a practise of firing guns
and pistols within the said town," a fine of ten shillings
is prescribed for the offence. If culprits are under age
the parent, master, or guardian must pay.

At a meeting of the Georgia Board in Palace Court,
1735, complaint was made that William Littel, an in-
fant in Georgia, was deprived of his patrimony by a
man that had married his mother. The mother was
now dead according to the complaint filed by the child's
grandfather. The board ordered guardians appointed
and the infant to be kept at Mrs. Parker's and proper
disposal of the estate to be made for the child's benefit.
The Georgia committee on accounts in 1737 recom-
mended a budget for one year to include one hundred
fifty pounds for the support of sick, widows, and or-
phans in the colony. A Savannah estimate in 1739 in-
cluded an allowance for the care of widows of trust
servants till they marry or enter service of one hundred
pounds for the year. A like item of fifty pounds was
made for Frederica.

Martyn's account of Ebenezer in 1738-1739 says :

They have built a large and convenient house for the reception
of orphans and other poor children, who are maintained by
benefactions among the people, are w^ell taken care of and taught
to w^ork according as their age and ability will p)ermit.

Whitefield began an orphan asylum in Georgia in 1740.
To it poor children were sent to be kept partly by char-
ity and partly by the produce of the land cultivated by

Social Censorship in the South 311

negroes. The institution did not flourish, probably on
account of unhealthy location. The writer of Itinerant
Observations in America visited the establishment soon
after its foundation. He says:

They were at dinner when we arrived, the whole family at one
table, and sure never was a more orderly pretty sight: If I
recollect right, besides Mr. Barber the school-master, and some
women, there were near forty young persons of both sexes
dressd very neatly and decently. After dinner they retired, the
boys to school and the girls to their spinning and knitting: I
was told, their vacant hours were employed in the garden and
plantation work.

This visit to the Orphan House removed his prejudices
against it. Habersham said that many of the best or-
phans were removed from the orphan house by justices
and bound as servants.

It is evident from the foregoing pages how great a
burden was imposed upon colonial enterprises (espe-
cially in Georgia) by the presence of dependent women
and children. After the industrial life of a colony was
under way the labor of such could be utilized; but at
first they were a drag. Thus West wrote to Lord Ash-
ley (with reference to Carolina) in 1670:

Arrived the Carolina frigate with about 70 passengers . . .

and six servants . . . viz. two men and woeman and three

small children, which wilbe a great charge to the plantation,

wee having nothing yet but what is brought.
A letter of Lord Ashley in 1671 warned against inviting
the poorer sort, as yet, to Carolina. It is substantial
men and their families that are needed. "Others relyc
and eate upon us."

A freeholders' petition to the Georgia trustees in 173H
says:

None of all those who have planted their land liavr been able
to raise sufficient produce to maintain their families m bread

312 The American Family -Colonial Period

kind only, even though as much application and industry have
been exerted to bring it about, as could be done by men engaged
in an affair on which they believed the welfare of themselves
and posterity so much depended, and which they imagined re-
quired more than ordinary pains to make succeed. . . Your
honors, we imagine, are not insensible of the numbers that have
left this province, not being able to support themselves and
families any longer. . . [This paper is signed by one hun-
dred seventeen freeholders.] We did not allow widows and
orphans to subscribe [i.e., sign].

Habersham wrote to Oglethorpe in 1741 :

What must a poor friendless man do, with his wife and chil-
dren settled upon fifty acres of land, perhaps pine barren, but
suppose it the best, without either servants to help clear or steers
to plow the ground?

Planters' extravagance sometimes forced a resort to
the frontier. In colonial Virginia the father sometimes
left his son expensive habits, a depleted plantation, and
a heavy debt. Then degrading poverty, untimely death,
or migration to the West were the alternatives. Many
families carried to the wilderness their social refine-
ment and dear-bought experience and commenced life
afresh on a less splendid scale.

XIX. SERVITUDE AND SEXUALITY IN THE
SOUTHERN COLONIES

The problem of sex morals in the colonial South was
very largely an economic question and was so regarded
by the authorities. Sexual morality was at a low ebb.
Very early, laws had to be passed on this point.

By a Maryland act of 1650, renewed in 1654, adul-
tery and fornication were to be censured and punished
as the governor and council or authorized officials
should think fit, "not extending to life or member." In
1658 an act was passed as follows:

Whereas divers women servants within this Province not have-
ing husbands living with them, have bene gotten with child in
the tyme of their servitude to the great dishonour of God and
the apparent damage to the masters. . . For remedy where-
of bee it enacted . . . that every such mother of a bastard
child not able sufficiently to prove the part>' charged to be the
begetter of such child, in every such case the mother of such
child shall only be lyable to satisfy the damages soe sustained
by servitude, or other wayes . . . provided that when the
mother of any such child as aforesaid shalbe able to prove her
charge either by sufficient testimony of wittnesses or confession,
then the party charged, if a servant to satisfie half the said dam-
ages, if a freeman then the whole damages by servitude or oth-
erwise as aforesaid. And if any such mother . . . be able
to prove . . . that the said party charged (being a single
person and a freeman) did before the begitting of such child
promise her marriage, that then hee shall performc his promise
to her, or recompense her abuse, as the court before whom such
matter is brought shall see convenient, the quail ity and condi-
tion of the persons considered.

This act was to continue for three years or to the etui

314 The American Family - Colonial Period

of the next General Assembly. According to Maryland
law, polygamy, sodomy, and rape were capital offences.
The author of Leah and Rachel notes regarding Vir-
ginia that "if any be known . . . to . . . com-
mit whoredome . . . there are . . . severe
and wholesome laws." An act of 1657-1658 deprived
males guilty of bastardy of the right to testify in court
or hold office -a severe penalty when everyone wanted
some office. But the colony could not afford to support
illegitimates! An act was passed giving the master an
additional time of service if a bastard was born to his
servant. This law put a premium on immorality and
there seem to have been masters base enough to profit
by it. The evil was restrained by an act of 1662 which
provided that the maid servant should be sold away
from her master in such cases without compensation to
him for the loss of her time. By a law of 1705 "every
person not a servant or slave, convicted of adultery or
fornication by the oaths of two or more credible wit-
nesses, or confession, shall, for every offense of adultery,
pay 1000 lbs. of tobacco and cost; and of fornication,
500 . . . to be recovered by . . . churchwar-
dens of parish where offense was committed." In de-
fault of payment he should receive twenty-five lashes.
By an act of 1727 the mother of a bastard was subject to
fine or flogging. The person in whose house the birth
occurred was responsible for giving notice. A servant
woman had to serve an extra year or pay her owner one
thousand pounds of tobacco. The reputed father, if
free, had to give security to maintain the child. If he
was a servant he had to render satisfaction to the parish,
after expiration of his term, for keeping the child. If
the master was the father he could claim no extra serv-

Servitude and Sexuality in the South 315

ice but the parish could sell the mother for one extra
year.

North Carolina bastardy laws were similar to Vir-
ginia's. A law of 1715 provided that a woman servant
bearing a bastard was liable to two years extra servitude
besides punishment for fornication. If she came into
the province with child she was not liable. If with
child by the master she was to be sold for two years
after expiration of her time; the money to go to the
parish. The act left the master unpunished except as he •
lost her service or was liable for fornication or adultery.
The act of 1741 was milder. "Whereas many women
are begotten with child by free men or servants, to the
great prejudice of their master or mistress" such must
serve one year extra. If the master is the father the
woman should be sold by the church wardens for one
year. There was no punishment for the seducing mas-
ter. Instructions to Governor Dobbs in 1754 directed
that laws against adultery, fornication, polygamy, and
incest were to be enforced and extended.

A recent writer says that the sanctity of the marriage
vow was inviolable in early Maryland. Citations that
might be given for the period between 1650 and 1657
convey a quite different impression; the extant record
of fornication and adultery is appalling.

Alsop in his Character of Maryland suggests that ,
while male immigrants had less luck than female in get-
ting mates unless they were good talkers and persuaders,
this fluent sort stood a chance of injecting "themselves
in the time of their servitude into the private and re-
served favor of their mistress, if age speak their master
deficient." An Episcopal rector in 1676 wrote of Mary-
land: "All notorious vices are committed ; so that it is

3i6 The American Family ~ Colonial Period

become a Sodom of uncleanness, and a pest house of
iniquity."

In 1685 Anne Thompson, convicted of bigamy, was
pardoned on agreement to abandon the second husband.
In 1696,

Vpon representacon . . . that Thomas Hedge Clerk . . .

had lately been marryed to another woman notwithstanding

his having a wife now living in England and that one Lieut.

Coll. Richardson tho conscious thereof did presume to perform

tht office; ordered thereupon that Mr Attorney and Sollictor

Genii, make due proceedings agt them.

About 1697 Governor Nicholson reported to the Board
of Trade that "some of the men having two wives, and
some of the women, two husbands, whoring . . .
were too much practised in the countrey, and seldom
any were punished for these sins."

A letter of the reverend Thomas Bray in 1702 says:

How else could it be that such an infamous vile man as Holt
who is expelled out of Virginia for adultery should be received
in Maryland and presented to one of the best livings in the
province. And were any one amongst you to govern the clergy
such a miscreant who I hear has attempted to poison his own
wife and has lately had a bastard by the woman he kept would
have been so far from being permitted to enjoy his place and to
exercise the ministry of his holy calling that he would not only
long ere this have been deprived of his living but degraded from
his function. I hear there is another scandalous vagrant come
into the province, one Butt as wicked as the other and yet put
into a place.

In All Saints Parish in 1736,

Mr. Richard Blake, vestryman, reported to this vestry that
himself and Mr. Jas. Hughes church warden forewarned

Greorge and Mary not to cohabit tegether for the

future upon their penalty as the law in that case provides.

In the province at a later date a case of bastardy and
forced marriage was burlesqued by vulgar officials.

Servitude and Sexuality in the South 317

In Virginia persons were presented for adultery and
fornication by the church-wardens at the annual visita-
tions; and the culprits had to submit to fines or whip-
ping. The following judgment was given by the gov-
ernor and council in 1627:

Upon the presentment of the church-wardens of Stanley Hun-
dred for suspicion of incontinency betweene Henry Kinge and
the wife of John Jackson, they lyinge together in her husband's
absence; it is thought fitt that the sayd Kinge shall remove his
habitation from her, and not to use or frequent her company
until her husband's return.

In 1 63 1, "Because Edw. Grymes lay with Alice West
he gives security not to marry any woman till further
order from the governor and council."

Bruce in his Institutional History of Virginia in the .
Seventeenth Century treats at length of sex sin. He as-
serts that one of the commonest sins committed in the
lower levels of society was bastardy. Numbers of
women servants came over either free or bound by in-
denture. These generally belonged to the lowest class
in the home country and not all were trained in virtue.
In Virginia as contract servants it was not easy for them
to marry. Masters did not want this species of cattle
laid by for pregnancy and childbirth with the risk of
death. Licentious masters were in a position also to
utilize the sex services of such as they chose. Morccwer
the unfortunate women were thrown in contact with the
lowest class of men and immorality was practically in-
evitable especially as kinship ties and responsibility had
been broken by the migration.

At a very early period punishment was inflicted for
incontinence even tho the guilty persons had married
and their children had been born in wedlock. In 1642
a couple were arrested for living unlawfully toj^cthcr.

3i8 The American Family - Colonial Period

They were sentenced to thirty lashes each and there-
after were kept apart till legally united. Another man
for like offense was compelled to give one hundred fifty
pounds of tobacco towards the erection of stocks. The
same year a woman was convicted of bearing two bas-
tards. J. Pope, summoned for improper intimacy with
a woman, was tried and sentenced to build a ferry boat
or receive forty lashes and acknowledge his fault in the
parish church. In another case the father of a bastard
was sentenced to go before the congregation and con-
fess. The mother was to receive thirty lashes on her
bare back. One woman led into church was impeni-
tent. She was lashed and required to appear again. It
was generally the man that escaped whipping.

After the middle of the century bastardy became
more frequent than ever, owing to the increase in
number of female domestic and agricultural servants.
The burden of maintaining illegitimates weighed heav-
ily on the colony. In the House of Burgesses Colonel
Lawrence Smith offered a petition in which after stress-
ing "the excessive charge" that rested on the parishes
"by means of bastards born of servant women" he asked
for more stringent measures. The House, however,
deemed the existing laws sufficient.

One of the church wardens' most important duties
was to protect the parish from the expense of bastards.
Sometimes the father of a bastard was required to give
bond to protect the parish from expense while the
mother was in his service. Always the master, if not
guilty of the bastardy, could pay such sum as would
safeguard the parish. Servants would have to serve
extra time.

In 1663 fourteen cases of bastardy were tried at one
county court session. In 1688, at least three servant

Servitude and Sexuality in the South 319

women of one master gave birth to illegitimate chil-
dren. If wardens neglected to bind till the age of
thirty unprovided-for bastards they might be prose-
cuted in county court.

County courts protected women of loose reputation
from undue severity. In 1693 Elizabeth Paine was or-
dered by the wardens of York to leave the plantation
where she was living. She appealed as the ground was
ready for a crop and she did not want to lose it from
herself and her "poor children." The court granted
leave to stay until the crop was secured.

The court of Norfolk County, 1695, too'^ ^^he follow-
ing action :

Whereas Captain J H hath been prsented to this

court by the grand jury for entertaining another man's wife,

contrary to lawe, the woman being the wife of B S

blacksmith late of this county, who hath been sometimes absent

out of this county and the said Capt. J H apearing

upon sumons from this court, pleading in his vindication, this
court hath thought fit and doe order that the church wardens

of Eliza R, parrish doe repair forthwith to the said Capt H

house and admonish him and the said woman not to frequent or
be seene in each other's company for the future and that the said

Capt H put her away from his house imeadiately after such

admonicon and make report of theire soe doing at the next court

and that the said H doe accordingly put the sayd woman

away from his house and that they doe not frequent each other's
company hereafter upon payne of the penalty of the lawcs in

such cases provided and Sd. H pay cost.

Stories of scandal in high society can be found in the
histories of all old Virginia and Carolina towns.""

The contemporary authorities usually speak in un-
favorable terms of the morals of the first settlers in
North Carolina. Graffenried speaks of lewd fellows

1*" Giddings. Natural History of American Morals, 34.

320 The American Family - Colonial Period

among the Palatines. The reverend Mr. Urmstone in

a letter from the colony dated 171 1 says:

This is a nest of the most notorious profligates on earth.
Women forsake their husbands come in here and live with other
men they are sometimes followed then a pull is given to the
husband and madam stays with her gallant a report is spread
abroad that the husband is dead then they become man and wife
make a figure and pass for people of worth and dignity. What
to do with such I know not . . . for I have not been
wanting in my endeavors.

Brickell says of the North Carolinians in 1737:
"The generality of them live after a loose and lascivious
manner." In 1760 Woodmason said:

The manners of the North Carolinians in general are vile and
corrupt and the whole country is a stage of debauchery dissolute-
ness and corruption, and how can it be otherwise? The people
are composed of the outcasts of all the other colonies. . .
Marriages (through want of Clergy) are performed by every
ordinary magistrate - poligamy is very common - celibacy much
more — bastardy no disrepute, concubinage general.

The reverend gentleman quoted above was later
forced to turn his son adrift. "He got a servant wench
with child who had two years to serve rendered her not
only useless but even a burden to me yet am forced to
keep her not knowing where to get a better." But a let-
ter to the secretary accuses this clerical gentleman of
drunkenness, profanity, and lewdness.

A Carolina general court in 1727 entertained

A presentment against Solomon Hews for leaving his lawful
wife and cohabiting with another woman in which time the
woman have had two children. . . A presentment against
John Brown for having left his wife . . . and cohabits
with another which he acknowledges to be his lawful wife both
of said women within this Grovernment.

On another occasion a grand jury presented James Boul-
ton for cohabiting with and seducing Mary Jennings

Servitude and Sexuality in the South 321

from her husband. Brickell notes an Indian's attempt
to seduce a planter's maid. Locke's Carolina Memoirs
refer to one "O'Syllivan . . . illnatured buggerer
of children." At one time, probably about 1760, a
minister complained against his vestry:

One of them declared that the money he is obliged to give to
the maintaining a minister he would rather give to a kind girl.
Another is a person who committed incest with his own uncle's
widow and has a child by her which he owns publicly.

The House in 1766 appointed a committee to investi-
gate a complaint of Solomon Ewell of the elopement of
his wife and her living in adultery. Solomon asked
divorce.

Charges of loose living in early North Carolina may
have been exaggerated. But probably the inaccessi-
bility of the settlements and the lack of religion and ed-
ucation favored the coming of undesirables.

Georgia was not free from sex sin. For Savannah,
1735, we find the following record:

Att our last Court Wm. Watkins . . . was prosecuted
for misdemeanor and the late wife of James Willoughby for
Bigamy. . . Watkins in April had procured a person un-
known ... to marry him to the widow ... in con-
sequence of which she proved with child ; soon after this, he re-
ceived advice by letter and message that his wife was alive and
well in England; and he had not made his marriage publick,
he proposed to her, that as he had a wife in F'ngland, he should
be liable to be troubled, and therefore dared not own it; and
as she was with child the world would soon discover it, and be-
lieve she had played the whore, therefore persuaded her to
marry R. Mellichamp. They were married by Mr. Irving
Watkins being present; Mellichamp soon discovered her being
with child, and his own misfortunes in marrying her; Watkins
and the woman were at Richard Turner's one night, when
Mellichamp came in and desired her to go liotne, but as she
was not willing, he said, that In- would sell sucli a wife for a

322 The American Family -Colonial Period

groat at any time, declaring he believed she loved Watkins
better than he; one in the company jocularly said he would
give a shilling for her, severall others bidding by way of auc-
tion she was declared to be sold for £5 sterling; Mellichamp
seemed satisfyed, and the woman declared she would go with the
buyer and behaved immodestly. One Langford then in com-
pany at their desire conveyed them to his lodging, where they
were bedded in publick, and the £5 paid and accepted of. . .
Watkins was whipt (unpittyed) on a muster day at the carts
tail round the town and remains in gaol for want of surety.
The woman is held in gaol as being with child ; but as we think
her crime is within the benefit of the clergy her confinement is
enlarged ; Langford was very instrumental in the discovery of
the whole matter and gave a clear evidence therefore was only
bound over for his future good behavior, and Mellichamp, be-
ing a sufferer was acquitted.

One of the Wesleys' first experiences was with two
coarse women with tainted virtue who they supposed
had repented. The brothers persuaded Oglethorpe to
accept the women as respectable and then attempted to
reform the other female colonists.

Illegitimacy sometimes led to infanticide. In Mary-
land, 1656, a woman was accused (probably on sus-
picion of bastardy) of murdering her child. A jury
of women was appointed to examine her. They testi-
fied that she had not had a child within the time in
question. In other case a wretched girl bore an ille-
gitimate child in secret. It died soon and was privately
buried by the mother. According to English law this
furtiveness was proof presumptive of infanticide and
the girl was condemned to death. But the council,
considering that the body showed no marks of violence
and that its being wrapped in clean linen showed "a
tender care and affection on the part of the mother,"
commuted the sentence to a fine of six thousand pounds
of tobacco. Thereupon her old father sent a pathetic

Servitude and Sexuality in the South 323

petition to the council representing that he was miser-
ably poor and crushed with grief and shame. The fine
was then reduced to five hundred pounds, or between
four and five pounds sterling. In 171 1 in Virginia
there was an act to prevent murder of bastard children.
In North Carolina at an early date occurred the case of
a woman accused of killing her bastard child. She was
found not guilty.

The Revolution doubtless brought a degree of the sex
vice that is inseparable from warfare. In seaboard
Georgia, women and children were driven from their
homes. "The obscene language which was used and
personal insults . . . offered to the tender sex soon
rendered a residence in the country insupportable."
They were obliged to abandon the country in great
distress.

The presence of African slaves and Indians early
gave rise to the problem of miscegenation. It took
some time for standards of race integrity to become
thoroly set and indeed while they did take shape in
sanctimonious professional abhorrence they never elim-
inated intercourse between the male white and women •
of the inferior race. It was otherwise with the females .
of the white race. They belonged to their males.

In 1609 a sermon was preached at Whitechapel in
presence of many adventurers and planters for Virginia
from Genesis, xii, 1-3. The sermon taught that

Abrams posteritie [must] keepe to themselves. They may not
marry nor give in marriage to the heathen, that arc utuir-
cumcised. . . The breaking of this rule, may brcake tin*
necke of all good successe of this voyage, whereas by kt-eping
the feare of God, the planters in shorte time, by the blessing of
God, may grow into a nation formidable to all the enemies
of Christ.
The only marriage with an Indian during tin- com-

324 The American Family -Colonial Period

pany's rule was in the case of Pocahontas. But in the
early days no great antipathy to amalgamation with the
Indians was shown. Through most of the seventeenth
century there was no prohibition of marriage with In-
dians. Numerous instances of marriage with Indians
are on record. There are instances in which the county
courts granted express permission to a white man to
espouse an Indian servant.

Pocahontas's marriage was thought to be a surety of
peace and so it turned out to be. Sir Thomas Dale
(with a wife in England) asked Powhatan for the hand
of a favorite daughter. He meant to live for the re-
mainder of his days in Virginia, he said, and he wanted
to conclude with Powhatan a "perpetual friendship."
Powhatan was not beguiled; he replied that his daugh-
ter was already disposed of. But the incident is an in-
cisive commentary on the standards of the day. Rolfe,
even, failed to provide in his will for his child by
Pocahontas.

Governor Charles Calvert wrote to Lord Baltimore
in 1672:

Major Fitzherberts' brother who maryed the Indian Brent,
has ciuilly parted with her and (as I suppjose) will neuer care
to bed with her more, soe that your Lopp need not to fear any
ill consequence from that match butt what has already happened
to the poore man who vnaduisedly threw himself away vpon her
in hopes of a great portion, which now is come to little.

Doctor Brickell wrote of North Carolina:

I knew an European man that lived many years amongst the In-
dians and had a child by one of their women, having bought
her as they do their wives, and afterwards married a Christian.
Sometimes after, he came to the Indian town [and wanted] to
pass away a night with his former mistress as usual, but she
made answer, that she then had forgot that she ever knew him,
and that she never lay with another woman's husband ; so fell
a crying, took up the child she had by him, and went out of the

Servitude and Sexuality in the South 325

cabin in great disorder, altho he used all possible means to
pacify her. . . She would never see him afterwards, or be
reconciled. . . There are several Europeans and other trad-
ers which travel and abide amongst them for a long space of
time, sometimes a year, two or three, and those men commonly
have their Indian wives or mistresses, whereby they soon learn
the Indian tongue and keep in good friendship with them, be-
sides having the satisfaction they have of a bed-fellow, they find
these girls very serviceable to them upon several occasions;
especially in dressing their victuals, and instructing them in the
affairs and customs of the country. . . One great misfor-
tune that generally attend the Christians that converse with
these women as husbands, is that they get children by them,
which are seldom otherwise brought up or educated than in the
wretched state of infidelity [for according to Indian custom, the
children go to the mother, and it is hard for the white men to
get them away. Some white men stay thus permanently among
the Indians]. These Indian girls that have frequently con-
versed with the Europeans, never much care for the conversa-
tion of their own countrymen afterwards.

One trader from the Carolinas is said to have boasted
that he had upwards of seventy children and grand-
children among the Indians.

Bosomworth, chaplain in Oglethorpe's regiment,
married a half-breed much respected by the Indians.
He hoped thus to get a great fortune.

Mixture with negroes was a more serious southern
problem and called forth severe penalization. White
servitude, assimilating European men and women to the •
servile status, was a potent factor in the demoralization.
Planters sometimes married women servants to nci^rocs
in order to transform the women and their offspring
into slaves.'"'*'

Something of the colonial attitude in the South on the
question of miscegenation may be gathered from sut li •
terminology as "unnatural," "inordinate" unions. The

150 Compare McCormac. While Servitude in Maryland, 67-70.

326 The American Family -Colonial Period

offending white "defiled his body" and "abused himself
to the dishonor of God and shame of Christianity."

Slavery of course had small regard for sex morality
on the part of the chattels. Something of the economic
spirit at work may be seen even in the legal protection
given to the slaves. In Virginia even before 1705 the
courts attempted to check the growth of the right to sep-
arate husband and wife and larger children. Devises
of children, particularly of children not born before the
testator's death (which devises were adjudged void),
were declared by the general court in 1695 to be neither
"convenient nor humanitarian" as the mother's owner
would not be careful of her in pregnancy nor of the
child "and many children might hence die; and besides
it was an unreasonable charge" without benefit to the
owner of the mother.

In North Carolina in the first half of the eighteenth
century in disposing of slaves some care was used not to
part the men and their wives and children. Such an in-
stance is shown in the will of Cullen Pollock in 1749.
Doctor Brickell wrote that negro marriages had little
ceremony. If the woman returned the pledge the union
was ruptured. If a woman proved unfruitful by her
first husband the planter required her to take a series if
necessary for the sake of procuring offspring. Rivals
fought desperately. Slave children, he said, were care-
fully brought up and provided for by planters. Negro
children wore little or no clothing save in winter.
Many young men and women worked in hot weather
nude save for a piece of cloth to "cover their nakedness."

The author of Itinerant Observations in America
who visited Maryland, Virginia, and Carolina, wrote
that with slavery

Several brutal and scandalous customs . . . are too much

Servitude and Sexuality in the South 327

practised: such as giving them a number of wives, or in short,
setting them up for stallions to a whole neighborhood ; when it
has been prov'd, I think, unexceptionably that polygamy rather
destroys than multiplies the species . . . and were these
masters to calculate, they'd find a regular procreation would
make them greater gainers.

John Woolman in 1757 wrote after a trip through
Maryland to Virginia:

Many of the white people in these provinces take little or no
care of negro marriages ; and when negros marry after their own
way, some make so little account of these marriages that with
views of outward interest they often part men from their wives
by selling them far asunder, which is common when estates are
sold by executors at vendue. . . Men and women have
many times scarcely clothes sufficient to hide their nakedness,
and boys and girls ten and twelve years old are often quite
naked amongst their master's children. Some of our society,
and some of the society called Newlights, use some endeavors
to instruct those they have in reading; but in common this is
not only neglected, but disapproved.

Instructions by Richard Corbin to an agent for the
management of a plantation in Virginia in 1759 direct
as follows:

The breeding wenches more particularly you must instruct the
overseers to be kind and indulgent to, and not force them when
with child upon any service or hardship that will be injurious to
them and that they have every necessary when in that condition
that is needful for them, and the children to be well l<M)ked
after and to give them every spring and fall the Jerusalem oak
seed for a week together and that none of them suflfer in time
of sickness for want of proper care.

In North Carolina the reverend Mr. Reed wrote in
1760:

I baptise all those blacks whose masters become sureties for
them, but never baptize any negro infants or children upon any
other terms.
An advertisement of a runaway in the Virginia Gn-

328 The American Family - Colonial Period

zette, 1767, illustrates the scattering of slave families:
''Has a wife at Little Town, and a father at Mr. Philip
Burt's quarter." A slave-owner in North Carolina in
1774 wrote: "I have a Congoer who wants to be sold
along with his wife and two children. I do not wish
to sell him, tho I would not refuse to do so, if I find he
will not stay here." A letter of John Peck (presum-
ably in Virginia) in 1788 says: "My man George
Jones has a wife at Colespoint."

The conditions of slavery and servitude were condu-
cive to rape by negroes and whites. In Virginia in the
seventeenth century we find reference to strong meas-
ures to be taken for apprehending Robin, a negro that
had ravished a white woman. In the latter half of the
eighteenth century the rigor of the criminal code was
lessened. Slaves attempting rape, etc., had been cas-
trated. But later the ability of county court to order
castration was limited to cases of blacks convicted of at-
tempt to ravish white women.

The efifect of slavery on the morals of white children
was beginning to be evident. The author of the Itin-
erant Observations previously cited says with reference
to the using of negro males as "stallions:"

A sad consequence of this practice is, that their childrens morals
are debauched by the frequency of such sights, as only fit them
to become the masters of slaves.

They suffer the children when young "too much to prowl
amongst the young negros, which insensibly causes them
to imbibe their manners and broken speech."

Chastellux, a French traveler, frequently remarks on
the masses of the poverty-stricken people he saw in Vir-
ginia, some dressed in rags and living in miserable huts.
They were indolent and hopeless, a product of the slave

Servitude and Sexuality in the South 329

system, which degraded useful efifort. From them
sprang many of the "poor whites" of later days.

The record of southern servile institutions even in
colonial days shows with sufficient plainness that funda-
mental morality is a very scarce commodity among peo-
ple of the ruling class. At best they are willing to skim
the surface of moral issues provided this can be done
with advantage to their pocketbooks or their public
treasury. It becomes evident from the study of servi-
tude and slavery if not before that the family is the
creature of economic conditions and that sentimental
morality is an aftergrowth of economic improvement.
The large reason why the ethics of the aristocratic fam-
ily dififered from that of the slave union was that the
members of the former were a product of economic
prowess while the latter were the victims of economic
exploitation. The indictment that enlightened judg-
ment brings against the industrial system in the colonial
South is precisely that which to-day is due against the
capitalist system as the subverter of family morality and
the enemy of the home.

XX. FRENCH COLONIES IN THE WEST

The French settlements in the Gulf region, unlike
those in the northern part of the Mississippi Valley,
left an impress sufficiently permanent and important to
make them worthy of special attention.

A colony was established at Mobile in 1701 and New
Orleans was founded in 171 8. From the outset there
was a constant appeal to the mother country for wives.
The Canadians of standing that were married brought
their families to Louisiana. Many had grown daugh-
ters and these married young Canadians of good posi-
tion. The French officers, younger sons of the nobility,
could not condescend to lower grade so they lived in
gay and careless bachelorhood. Some of them perhaps
were relieved rather than distressed by the lack of
wives. But the crude pioneers of the wilderness needed
wives. "With wives," wrote Iberville, "I will anchor
the sorry coureurs de bois into sturdy colonists." "Send
me wives for my Canadians," write Bienville ; "they are
running in the woods after Indian girls."

In the summer of 1703 twenty-three young women of
good character and appearance arrived. In 1706 Louis
XIV. sent a number of girls to Louisiana. They were
to have good homes and to be well married. It was
thought that they would soon teach the squaws many
useful domestic employments. But the girls rebelled
against Indian corn, threatened to run away, and stirred
up an imbroglio known as the Petticoat Rebellion,
bringing much ridicule on the governor.

332 The American Family -Colonial Period

In 171 3 the commissary-general wrote to the minister
that twelve girls had lately arrived from France who
were too ugly and badly formed to win the affections of
the men and that only two of them had found husbands.
He feared that the other ten would remain in stock for
a long time. He thought fit to suggest that in future
those that sent girls should attach more importance to
beauty than to virtue as the Canadians were not partic-
ular about what sort of lives their spouses had formerly
led whereas if they were supplied only with such ugly
girls they would prefer to take up with Indian women,
especially in the Illinois country where the Jesuits sanc-
tioned such alliances by the marriage ceremony.

The same year Governor Cadillac wrote that the in-
habitants were "a mass of rapscallions from Canada, a
cut-throat set, without subordination, with no respect
for religion and abandoned in vice with Indian women
whom they prefer to French girls" and that the soldiers
all had Indian wives who cooked for them and waited
on them. With regard to a consignment of girls from
Europe the sea-captain had seduced more than half the
girls on the passage and this was why they had not
found respectable husbands. It seemed to him best
under the circumstances that the soldiers should be al-
lowed to marry them lest their poverty should drive
them to prostitution.

In 1714 the Curate La Vente suggested to the min-
ister that Louisiana be colonized with Christian fam-
ilies or else that the French be allowed to marry the
Indian women with religious rites; or if these ideas
were not feasible that a large number of girls "better
chosen than the last, and especially some who will be
sufficiently pleasing and well-formed to suit the officers

French Colonies in the TVest 333

of the garrisons and the principal inhabitants" should
be sent over from France as a partial remedy.

From time to time the paternal government respond-
ed to such requests with cargoes of women. In 1721
twenty-five prostitutes came from Salpetriere, a house
of correction at Paris, sent as wives for the colonists.
In 1726 the Company of the Indies contracted with the
Ursuline sisters to teach girls and to serve as the means
of transporting girls of good character and training to
supply the need of suitable wives for the officers and for
the farmers and artisans of "the better sort." The de-
graded women first sent over had often been not only
unfit but unwilling for marriage and domesticity. Even
the policy of granting discharges to the soldiers and
offering them land and exemption from taxation as an
inducement to marry these women had failed to solve
the problem. The colony needed mothers.

The strength of the demand is illustrated in a passage
by Dumont in reference to one cargo of women :

When landed all were lodged in the same house, with a sentinel
at the door. They were permitted to be seen during the day in
order that a choice might be made, but as soon as night fell,
all access to them was guarded. . . It was not long before
they were married and provided for.

Indeed the supply never went round. The last one Ictt
on one occasion became the object of dispute between
two bachelors that wanted to fight for licr tho she was
somewhat of an Amazon. The commandant reiiuired
them to draw lots for the prize. Once a girl refuseil to
marry tho "many good partis had been offered her."

The year after the Ursulines a cari^o of girls came
who had been chosen for character and skill in house-
wifery. They came of their own accord. I^ach was
dowered with a chest of clothing. They came wiih tlie

334 ^^^^ American Family -Colonial Period

understanding that their vocation was to be wifehood
and motherhood but the choice of husbands was to be
voluntary from among such suitors as the sisters, under
whose care the girls were, should approve.

Louisiana must have been indeed a region of loose
morals. Sieur Charle, merchant, admitted that he had
a child in 1709 by an Indian slave. Herve mentions
one, Jean Baptiste, child of an Indian woman of Sieur
d'Arbanne, "whose son it is held to be, not only by pub-
lic rumor, but by the voluntary account of the mother."
The church did not sanction marriages with Indians
but such unions occurred and were classed in the church
records as mariages naturels. We find record also in
Herve's writings of one Capinan's forsaking a slave
woman with whom he had lived in a marriage of this
irregular species. The man had found a more desir-
able partner.

Cadillac refers to women of irregular life. Mere
transplanting of the refuse of hospital and prison to the
New World could not metamorphose them into good
wives and mothers. In spite of great influx of people
to Louisiana in the boom days, population does not seem
to have grown fast. Gradually, however, there grew
up an American generation of women ready for matri-
mony. Girls were often married at twelve or fourteen,
some of them "not even knowing how many gods there
are and you can imagine the rest." ^^^ Girls of bad con-
duct were "severely punished by putting them upon
wooden horses and having them whipped by the regi-
ment of soldiers that guard the town."^" A house for
the detention and reform of immoral women was built
and intrusted to the sisters. Gradually the imported
dregs of vice were submerged by the natural conse-

1^^ Phelps. Louisiana, 83.

152 _ I^gjji,

French Colonies in the JVest 33;

quences of degeneracy. Many officials had their wives
and families with them and kept clear of inferior mix-
ture. On the Mississippi the Germans had German
homes. Only a few Louisiana settlers had been per-
sons of rank. Many of the population descended from
the "casket girls" and from stock that society considers
no account.

Family life was subject to pioneer exigencies. In
the first half of the eighteenth century t\vo hundred
fifty women and children taken by the Natchez, and
retaken, were brought to New Orleans. The orphan
girls were adopted by the Ursulines. The boys found
homes in well-to-do families. All the refugees were
absorbed, many of the widows finding new husbands.
In 1734 occurred the marriage of one Baudran with the
publication of only one ban. The reason for this
abridgment of the preliminaries was doubtless that the
priest came so seldom. In 1720 provision was made
(Mobile) for registration of baptisms, marriages, and
deaths.

A side-light on the desire for growth in numbers in
the colony is seen in the fact that during the Spanish
regime the governor arrested the grand inquisitor and
packed him off to Spain in order not to scare off pop-
ulation.

A Spanish precontract of marriage in 1786 is interest-
ing for comparison with English usage. The instru-
ment provides for a Catholic marriage, to take place as
soon as either person requests it. Neither is to be liable
for the ante-nuptial debts of the other; but they shall
hold in common all property, movable and immovable,
according to the custom of Spain, all other customs be-
ing renounced. In case of death of either without i^-^ue
the survivor is to receive the whole property.

336 The American Family - Colonial Period

Children brought up on the coarse rough frontier
were also spoiled by slavery. The girls caught less
coarseness from slavery and less roughness from the
w^ilderness. They were thus, in a way, superior to the
men. In old Louisiana before annexation to the United
States the lives of the women of the well-to-do were
taken up mainly with the supervision of their servants
and in exaggerated devotion to their children. Tho
they were personally attractive and of natural intelli-
gence they appeared but little interesting to the French
traveller, or indeed to their husbands. Quadroons at-
tracted the men.

This brief view of the southern French colony is use-
ful in two ways : it shows the origin of the unique social
institutions of New Orleans and it illuminates by way
of contrast the English development on the Atlantic
coast and helps us to appreciate the distinctive quality
of the English institutions from which the American
family derives its main features. There was apparent-
ly less solidity and seriousness in the French territory.
The Puritan blood of France, or, if that be too strong a
term, the bourgeois fibre of the nation, was by short-
sighted intolerance excluded from French America, and
English America profited by the Huguenot strains.
Thus the foundations for the modern, as contrasted with
the medieval family, were laid on the Atlantic coast
rather than in the valley of the Mississippi. By the
same token England was destined to possess the con-
tinent.

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