wives, appear in considerable number, especially in Connecticut papers.
They were sometimes prefaced by the solemn warning: "Cursed be he that
parteth man & wife & all the people shall say Amen." Some very
disagreeable allegations were made against these Connecticut wives--that
they were rude, gay, light-carriaged girls, poor and lazy housewives,
ill cooks, fond of dancing, and talking balderdash talk, and far from
being loving consorts. The wives had something to say from their point
of view. One, owing to her spouse's stinginess, had to use "Indian
branne for Jonne bred," and never tasted good food; another stated that
her loving husband "cruelly pulled my hair, pinched my flesh, kicked me
out of bed, drag'd me by my arms & heels, flung ashes upon me to smother
me, flung water from the well till I had not a dry thread on me." All
these notices were apparently printed in the advertiser's own language
and individual manner of spelling, some even in rhyme. "Timothy hubbard"
thus ventilated his domestic infelicities and his spelling in the
_Connecticut Courant_ of January 30th, 1776:
"Whearis my Wife Abigiel hes under Rote me by saying it is veri
Disagria bell to Hur to Expose to the World the miseris & Calamatis
of a Distractid famely, and I think as much for hur Father & mother
to Witt Stephen deming & his wife acts very much like Distractid or
BeWicht & I believe both, for the truth of this I will apell to the
Nabors. When I first Married I had land of my one and lived at my
one hous but Stephen deming & his Wife cept coming down & hanting
of me til they got me up to thare house but presently I was
deceived by them as Bad as Adam & Eve was by the Divel though not
in the Same Shape for they got a bill of Sail of a most all by
thare Sutilly & still hold the Same. perhaps the Jentlemen will say
it is to pay my debt. Queri. Wherino a man that ows one pound to my
shiling. I dont want it to pay his one, I believe he dos. My wife
pretends to say I abus'd her for the truth of this I will apiel to
all thare nabors."
Anenst this I am glad to add that I have found repentant sequels to the
mortifying story, in the form of humble retractions of the husband's
allegations. Wives were, on the whole, marvellously well protected by
early laws. A husband could not keep his consort on outlying and
danger-filled plantations, but must "bring her in, else the town will
pull his house down." Nor could a man leave his wife for any length of
time, nor "marrie too wifes which were both alive for anything that can
appear otherwise at one time," nor beat his wife (as he could to his
heart's content in old England); he could not even use "hard words" to
her. Nor could she raise her hand or use "a curst and shrewish tongue"
to him without fear of public punishment in the stocks or pillory.
In the first years of the colonies there existed a formal ceremony of
betrothal called in Plymouth a pre-contract. This semi-binding ceremony
had hardly a favorable influence upon the morals of the times. Cotton
Mather states:
"There was maintained a Solemnity called a Contraction a little
before the Consummation of a marriage was allowed of. A Pastor was
usually employed and a sermon also preached on this occasion."
If the prospective marriage were an important or a genteel one, an
applicable sermon was often preached in church at the time of the
"contraction." One minister took the text, Ephesians vi. 10, 11, in
order "to teach that marriage is a state of warfaring condition." It was
also the custom to allow the bride to choose the text for the sermon to
be delivered on the Sunday when she "came out bride." Much ingenuity was
exercised by these Puritan brides in finding appropriate and interesting
texts for these wedding sermons. Here are some of the verses selected:
2 Chronicles xiv. 2: "And Asa did that which was good and right in the
eyes of the Lord"--Asa and his bride Hepzibah sitting up proudly in the
congregation to listen.
Proverbs xxiv. 23: "Her husband is known in the gates when he sitteth
among the elders of the land."
Ecclesiastes iv. 9, 10: "Two are better than one; because they have a
good reward for their labour. For if they fall the one will lift up his
fellow."
I can imagine the staid New England lover and his shy sweetheart
anxiously and solemnly searching for many hours through the great
leather-bound family Bible for a specially appropriate text, turning
over the leaves and slowing scanning the pages, skipping over tedious
Leviticus and Numbers, and finding always in the Song of Solomon "in
almost every verse" a sentiment appealing to all lovers, and worthy a
selection for a wedding sermon.
The "coming out," or, as it was called in Newburyport, "walking out" of
the bride was an important event in the little community. Cotton Mather
wrote in 1713 that he thought it expedient for the bridal couple to
appear as such publicly, with some dignity. We see in the pages of
Sewall's diary one of his daughters with her new-made husband leading
the orderly bridal procession of six couples on the way to church,
observed of all in the narrow Boston street and in the Puritan
meeting-house. In some communities the bride and groom took a prominent
seat in the gallery, and in the midst of the sermon rose to their feet
and turned around several times slowly, in order to show from every
point of view their bridal finery to the admiring eyes of their
assembled friends and neighbors in the congregation.
Throughout New England, except in New Hampshire, the law was enforced
for nearly two centuries, of publishing the wedding banns three times in
the meeting-house, at either town meeting, lecture, or Sunday service.
Intention of marriage and the names of the contracting parties were read
by the town clerk, the deacon, or the minister, at any of these
forgatherings, and a notice of the same placed on the church door, or on
a "publishing post"--in short, they were "valled." Yet in the early days
of the colonies the all-powerful minister could not perform the marriage
ceremony--a magistrate, a captain, any man of dignity in the community
could be authorized to marry Puritan lovers, save the parson. Not till
the beginning of the eighteenth century did the Puritan minister assume
the function of solemnizing marriages. Gov. Bellingham married himself
to Penelope Pelham when he was a short time a widower and forty-nine
years old, and his bride but twenty-two. When he was "brought up" for
this irregularity he arrogantly and monopolizingly persisted in
remaining on the bench to try his own case. "Disorderly marriages" were
punished in many towns; doubtless many of them were between Quakers.
Some couples were fined every month until they were properly married. A
very trying and unregenerate reprobate in New London persisted that he
would "take up" with a woman in the town and make her his wife without
any legal or religious ceremony. This was a great scandal to the whole
community. A pious magistrate met the ungodly couple on the street and
sternly reproved them thus: "John Rogers, do you persist in calling this
woman, a servant, so much younger than yourself, your wife?"
"Yes, I do," violently answered John.
"And do you, Mary, wish such an old man as this to be your husband?"
"Indeed I do," she answered.
"Then," said the governor, coldly, "by the laws of God and this
commonwealth, I as a magistrate pronounce you man and wife."
"Ah! Gurdon, Gurdon," said the groom, married legally in spite of
himself, "thee's a cunning fellow."
There is one peculiarity of the marriages of the first century and a
half of colonial and provincial life which should be noted--the vast
number of unions between the members of the families of Puritan
ministers. It seemed to be a law of social ethics that the sons of
ministers should marry the daughters of ministers. The new pastor
frequently married the daughter of his predecessor in the parish,
sometimes the widow--a most thrifty settling of pastoral affairs. A
study of the Cotton, Stoddard, Eliot, Williams, Edwards, Chauncey,
Bulkeley, and Wigglesworth families, and, above all, of the Mather
family, will show mutual kinship among the ministers, as well as mutual
religious thought.
Richard Mather took for his second wife the widow of John Cotton. Their
children, Increase Mather and Mary Cotton, grew up as brother and
sister, but were married and became the parents of Cotton Mather. The
sons and grandsons and great-grandsons of Richard Mather were ministers.
His daughters, granddaughters, and great-granddaughters became the wives
of ministers. Thus was the name of "Mather Dynasty" well given. The
Mather blood and the Mather traits of character were felt in the most
remote parishes of New England. The Mather expressions of religious
thought were long heard from the pulpit, and long taught in ministerial
homes; and to that Mather blood and that upright Mather character and
God-fearing Mather faith and teaching, we of New England owe more
gratitude than can ever find expression.
We have several meagre pictures of weddings in early days. One runs
thus:
"There was a pretty deal of company present.... Many young
gentlemen and gentlewomen. Mr. Noyes made a speech, said love was
the sugar to sweeten every condition in the marriage state. Prayed
once. Did all very well. After the Sack-posset sung 45th Psalm from
8th verse to end, five staves. I set it to Windsor tune. I had a
very good Turkey Leather Psalm book which I looked in while Mr.
Noyes read; then I gave it to the bridegroom saying I give you this
Psalm book in order to your perpetuating this song and I would have
you pray that it may be an introduction to our singing with the
quire above."
For many years sack-posset was drunk at weddings, sometimes within the
bridal chamber; but not with noisy revelry, as in old England. A psalm
preceding and a prayer following a Puritan posset-pot made a
satisfactorily solemn wassail. Bride-cake and bride-gloves were sent as
gifts to the friends and relatives of the contracting parties. Other and
ruder English fashions obtained. The garter of the bride was sometimes
scrambled for to bring luck and speedy marriage to the garter-winner. In
Marblehead the bridesmaids and groomsmen put the wedded couple to bed.
It is said that along the New Hampshire and upper Massachusetts coast,
the groom was led to the bridal chamber clad in a brocaded night-gown.
This may have occasionally taken place among the gentry, but I fancy
brocaded night-gowns were not common wear among New England country
folk. I have also seen it stated that the bridal chamber was invaded,
and healths there were drunk and prayers offered. The only proof of this
custom which I have found is the negative one which Judge Sewall gives
when he states of his own wedding that "none came to us," after he and
his elderly bride had retired. When the weddings of English noblemen of
that period were attended by most indecorous observances, there is no
reason to suppose that provincial and colonial weddings were entirely
free from similar rude customs.
It was found necessary in 1651 to forbid all "mixt and unmixt" dancing
at taverns on the occasion of weddings, abuses and disorders having
arisen. But I fancy a people who would give an "ordination ball" would
not long sit still at a wedding; and by the year 1769, at a wedding in
New London, ninety-two jigs, fifty contra-dances, forty-three minuets,
and seventeen hornpipes were danced, and the party broke up at quarter
of one in the morning--at what time could it have begun?
Isolated communities retained for many years marriage customs derived or
copied from similar customs in the "old country." Thus the settlers of
Londonderry, New Hampshire--Scotch-Irish Presbyterians--celebrated a
marriage with much noisy firing of guns, just as their ancestors in
Ireland, when the Catholics had been forbidden the use of firearms, had
ostentatiously paraded their privileged Protestant condition by firing
off their guns and muskets at every celebration. A Londonderry wedding
made a big noise in the world. After the formal publishing of the banns,
guests were invited with much punctiliousness. The wedding day was
suitably welcomed at daybreak by a discharge of musketry at both the
bride's and the groom's house. At a given hour the bridegroom,
accompanied by his male friends, started for the bride's home. Salutes
were fired at every house passed on the road, and from each house
pistols and guns gave an answering "God speed." Half way on the journey
the noisy bridal party was met by the male friends of the bride, and
another discharge of firearms rent the air. Each group of men then named
a champion to "run for the bottle"--a direct survival of the ancient
wedding sport known among the Scotch as "running for the bride-door," or
"riding for the kail" or "for the broose"--a pot of spiced broth. The
two New Hampshire champions ran at full speed or rode a dare-devil race
over dangerous roads to the bride's house, the winner seized the
beribboned bottle of rum provided for the contest, returned to the
advancing bridal group, drank the bride's health, and passed the bottle.
On reaching the bride's house an extra salute was fired, and the
bridegroom with his party entered a room set aside for them. It was a
matter of strict etiquette that none of the bride's friends should enter
this room until the bride, led by the best man, advanced and stationed
herself with her bridesmaid before the minister, while the best man
stood behind the groom. When the time arrived for the marrying pair to
join hands, each put the right hand behind the back, and the bridesmaid
and the best man pulled off the wedding-gloves, taking care to finish
their duty at precisely the same moment. At the end of the ceremony
everyone kissed the bride, and more noisy firing of guns and drinking of
New England rum ended the day.
In some communities still rougher horse-play than unexpected volleys of
musketry was shown to the bridal party or to wedding guests. Great trees
were felled across the bridle-paths, or grapevines were stretched across
to hinder the free passage, and thus delay the bridal festivities.
Occasionally the wedding-bells did not ring smoothly. One Scotch-Irish
lassie seized the convenient opportunity, when the rollicking company of
her male friends had set out to meet the bridegroom, to mount a-pillion
behind a young New Hampshire Lochinvar, and ride boldly off to a
neighboring parson and marry the man of her choice. Such an unpublished
marriage was known in New Hampshire as a "Flagg marriage," from one
Parson Flagg, of some notoriety, of Chester, Vermont, whose house was a
sort of Yankee Gretna Green; and such a marriage was made possible by
the action of the government of New Hampshire in issuing marriage
licenses at the price of two guineas each, as a means of increasing its
income. Sometimes easy-going parsons kept a stock of these licenses on
hand, ready for issue to eloping couples at a slightly advanced price.
Such a marriage, without proper "publishing" in meeting, was not,
however, deemed very reputable.
Madam Knight, travelling through Connecticut in 1704, wrote thus in her
diary of Connecticut youth:
"They generally marry very young; the males oftener as I am told
under twenty years than above; they generally make public weddings
and have a way something singular in some of them; viz. just before
joining hands the bridegroom quits the place, who is soon followed
by the Bridesmen and, as it were, dragged back to duty, being the
reverse to the former practice among us to steal Mistress Bride."
Poor-spirited creatures Connecticut maids must have been to endure
meekly such an ungallant custom and such ungallant lovers.
The sport of stealing "Mistress Bride," a curious survival of the old
savage bridals of many peoples, lingered long in the Connecticut valley.
A company of young men, usually composed of slighted ones who had not
been invited to the wedding, rushed in after the marriage ceremony,
seized the bride, carried her to a waiting carriage, or lifted her up on
a pillion, and rode to the country tavern. The groom with his friends
followed, and usually redeemed the bride by furnishing a supper to the
stealers. The last bride stolen in Hadley was Mrs. Job Marsh, in the
year 1783. To this day, however, in certain localities in Rhode Island,
the young men of the neighborhood invade the bridal chamber and pull the
bride downstairs, and even out-of-doors, thus forcing the husband to
follow to her rescue. If the room or house-door be locked against their
invasion, the rough visitors break the lock.
In England throughout the eighteenth century the grotesque belief
prevailed that if a widow were "married in Her Smock without any Clothes
or Head Gier on," the husband would be exempt from paying any of his
new wife's ante-nuptial debts; and many records of such debt-evading
marriages appear. In New England, it was thought if the bride were
married "in her shift on the king's highway," a creditor could follow
her person no farther in pursuit of his debt. Many such eccentric
"smock-marriages" took place, generally (with some regard for modesty)
occurring in the evening. Later the bride was permitted to stand in a
closet.
Mr. William C. Prime, in his delightful book, "Along New England Roads,"
gives an account of such a marriage. In Newfane, Vt., in February, 1789,
Major Moses Joy married Widow Hannah Ward; the bride stood, with no
clothing on, within a closet, and held out her hand to the major through
a diamond-shaped hole in the door, and the ceremony was thus performed.
She then appeared resplendent in wedding attire, which the gallant major
had thoughtfully deposited in the closet for her assumption. Mr. Prime
tells also of a marriage in which the bride, entirely unclad, left her
room by a window at night, and standing on the top round of a high
ladder donned her wedding garments, and thus put off the obligations of
the old life.
In Hall's "History of Eastern Vermont," we read of a marriage in
Westminster, Vt., in which the Widow Lovejoy, while nude and hidden in a
chimney recess behind a curtain, wedded Asa Averill. Smock-marriages on
the public highway are recorded in York, Me., in 1774, as shown in the
History of Wells and Kennebunkport. It is said that in one case the
pitying minister threw his coat over the shivering bride, Widow Mary
Bradley, who in February, clad only in a shift, met the bridegroom half
way from her home to his.
The traveller Kalm, writing in 1748, says that one Pennsylvania
bridegroom saved appearances by meeting the scantily-clad widow-bride
half way from her house to his, and announcing formally, in the presence
of witnesses, that the wedding clothes which he then put on her were
only lent to her for the occasion. This is curiously suggestive of the
marriage investiture of Eastern Hindostan.
In Westerly, R. I., in 1724, other smock-marriages were recorded, and in
Lincoln County, Me., in 1767, between John Gatchell and Sarah Cloutman,
showing that the belief in this vulgar error was wide-spread. The most
curious variation of this custom is told in the "Life of Gustavus
Vassa," wherein that traveller records that a smock-marriage took place
in New York in 1784 on a gallows. A malefactor condemned to death, and
about to undergo his execution, was reprieved and liberated through his
marriage to a woman clad only in a shift.
In spite of the hardness and narrowness of their daily life, and the
cold calculation, the lack of sentiment displayed in wooing, I think
Puritan husbands and wives were happy in their marriages, though their
love was shy, almost sombre, and "flowered out of sight like the fern."
A few love-letters still remain to prove their affection: letters of
sweethearts and letters of married lovers, such as Governor Winthrop
and his wife Margaret; letters like the words of another Margaret--a
queen--to her "alderliefest;" letters so simple and tender that truth
and love shine round them like a halo:
"MY OWN DEAR HUSBAND: How dearly welcome thy kind letter was to me,
I am not able to express. The sweetness of it did much refresh me.
What can be more pleasing to a wife than to hear of the welfare of
her best beloved and how he is pleased with her poor endeavors! I
blush to hear myself commended, knowing my own wants. But it is
your love that conceives the best and makes all things seem better
than they are. I wish that I may always be pleasing to thee, and
that these comforts we have in each other may be daily increased so
far as they be pleasing to God. I will use that speech to thee that
Abigail did to David, I will be a servant to wash the feet of my
lord; I will do any service wherein I may please my good husband. I
confess I cannot do enough for thee; but thou art pleased to accept
the will for the deed and rest contented. I have many reasons to
make me love thee, whereof I shall name two: First, because thou
lovest God, and secondly, because thou lovest me. If these two were
wanting all the rest would be eclipsed. But I must leave this
discourse and go about my household affairs. I am a bad housewife
to be so long from them; but I must needs borrow a little time to
talk with thee, my sweetheart. It will be but two or three weeks
before I see thee, though they be long ones. God will bring us
together in good time, for which time I shall pray. And thus with
my mother's and my own best love to yourself I shall leave
scribbling. Farewell my good husband, the Lord keep thee.
"Your obedient wife,
"MARGARET WINTHROP."
Who can read the beautiful words without feeling for that sweet
Margaret, who died two centuries ago, a thrill of the affection that
must have glowed for her in John Winthrop's heart, when, far away from
her, he first opened and read this tender letter.
Warm eulogies did many a staid New Englander write of his loving
consort, eulogies in rhyme, and epitaphs, elegies, threnodies,
epicediums, anagrams, acrostics, and pindarics, all speaking loudly of
loving, "painful" care, if not of a spirit of poesy. And the even,
virtuous tenor of the life in New England proved too a happiness and
contentment equal to the marital results of more emotional and romantic
love-making. There were some divorces. Madam Knight found that they were
plentiful in Connecticut in 1704, as they are in that State nowadays.
She writes:
"These uncomely Stand-aways 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."
In town records we find that divorces, though infrequent, still were
occasionally given in other New England States; but the causes assigned
therefor, to follow Madam Knight's example, need not be "Related by a
Female Pen."
III
DOMESTIC SERVICE
It is plainly evident that in a country where land was to be had for the
asking, fuel for the cutting, corn for the planting and harvesting, and
game and fish for the least expenditure of labor, no man would long
serve for another, and any system of reliable service indoors or afield
must fail. Whether the colonists came to work or not, they had to in
order to live, for domestic service was soon in the most chaotic state.
Women were forced to be notable housekeepers; men were compelled to
attend to every detail of masculine labor in their households and on
their farms, thus acquiring and developing a "handiness" at all trades,
which has become a Yankee trait.
The question of adequate and proper household service soon became a
question of importance and of painful consideration in the new land.
Rev. Ezekiel Rogers wrote most feelingly in 1656 on this subject:
"Much ado have I with my own family, hard to get a servant glad of
catechizing or family duties. I had a rare blessing of servants in
Yorkshire, and those I brought over were a blessing, but the young
brood doth much afflict me."
The Massachusetts colonists had attempted even before starting, to meet
and simplify the servant question by rigidly excluding any corrupt
element. They even sent back to England boys who had been unruly on
shipboard. But the number of penalties imposed on servants during the
early years are a lasting record of the affliction caused by the young
brood.