her leave to goe abroade." "I may boldly say," he remarks, "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, maketh 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 preferred 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 influence 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. Moreover, 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. Moreover, the Pilgrims had during their twelve years in Hol

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.

For [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 drawn away by evil examples into extravagant and dangerous courses, getting the reins off their necks, and departing from their parents.

were

This was one of the considerations that led to migration 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.38 These sturdy Englishmen came, not as individual adventurers, but as families. 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 Hampshire and Huguenots in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. This homogeneity of the North Atlantic colonies makes it possible to study them as a group and simplifies 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, fru38 Smythe. Conquest of Arid America, 12, 14.

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 opportunities for young New Englanders to become acquainted with prospective mates were apparently few. But even in New England, maidens enjoyed large liberty, for the neighborhoods were at first composed of approved 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 American 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 interest 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 credentials, 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

till the nine o'clock bell rings them home to their respective habitations."

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

There is a young gentlewoman of incomparable accomplishments. 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 extraordinary 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 salvation, 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 faithfully to set before her all the discouraging circumstances attending 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 gentlewoman. 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 meantime, 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 disadvantage. 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? "9

39

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