The ordinary experience of life was singularly accelerated in that new
state of society, though in the one particular of the age attained by
the primitive adventurers, the community may be regarded as favored.
Death made a great sweep of the patriarchs at last--shortly before
the Tragedy--but an unusual proportion of elders presided over social
affairs for seventy years after the date of the second charter. The
chief seats in the meeting-house were filled by gray-haired men and
women, rich or poor as might happen; and they were allowed to retain
their places, whoever else might be shifted in the yearly "seating."
The title "Landlord" distinguished the most dignified, and the eldest
of each family of the "Old Planters;" a "Goodman" and "Goodwife"
(abbreviated to "Goody") were titles of honor, as signifying heads
of households. The old age of these venerable persons was carefully
cherished; and when, as could not but happen, many of them departed
near together, the mourning of the community was deep and bitter.
Society seemed to be deprived of its parents, and in fear and grief
it anticipated the impending calamity. Except in regard to these
patriarchs, and their long old age, the pace of events was very rapid.
Early marriages might be looked for in a society so youthful; but the
rapid succession of second and subsequent marriages is a striking
feature in the register. The most devoted affection seems to have had
no effect in deferring a second marriage so long as a year. No time
was lost in settling in life at first; families were large; and
half-brothers and sisters abounded; and as they grew up they married on
the portions which were given them, as a matter of course,--each having
house, land, and plenishing, until at last the parents gave away all but
a sufficiency for their own need or convenience, and went into the town
or remained in the central mansion, turning over the land and its cares
to the younger generation. When there was a failure of offspring, the
practice of adoption seems to have been resorted to almost as a natural
process, which, in such a state of society, it probably was.