There were throughout New England regular marriages of white men with Indian women. In slavery days in Massachusetts it was to the advantage of negroes 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 3 prepared and used by Reverend Samuel Phillips of Andover (1710-1771):

43

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 you promise that you will love her; and that, as you 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.

43 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 sixteen or under. Old maids were ridiculed or even despised. A woman became an "antient maid" at twentyfive. 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 sentiment, 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 unattached 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 forbade hiring any person for less than a year unless he were a "settled housekeeper." In Hartford solitary

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 dwelling 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 employment, 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 constable, 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 question 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 questioned. 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 allowing 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

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 parents" 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

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 wilderness 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 husband, and she survived Peter, and also her third husband, who had three wives. His father had four, the last three of whom were widows. One reverend gentleman, facing death, confidently told his wife that she would soon be well provided for. "She was very shortly 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 ascertain whether a bride was a widow. But it is certain that widows were at a premium in colonial days. Perhaps the principal reason for this fact was the one indicated in the previous chapter in the discussion of economic marriage. It is hard to explain otherwise why 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 emphasized again the importance of normal family connections. So we need not be surprised to find a choice widow whose love for her departed husband was reputed to be "strong as death" speedily marrying again.