Colonial days in old New York

								

that “the parties comport themselves as they ought, in order that they
win back each other’s affections, leaving each other in meanwhile
unmolested”--which was very sensible advice. Another married pair
having “met with great discouragement” (which is certainly a most
polite expression to employ on such a subject), agreed each to go his
and her way, after an exact halving of all their possessions.
Nicasius de Sille, magistrate of New Utrecht and poet of New
Netherland, separated his life from that of his wife because--so he
said--she spent too much money. It is very hard for me to think of a
Dutch woman as “expensefull,” to use Pepys’ word. He also said she was
too fond of schnapps,--which her respected later life did not confirm.
Perhaps he spoke with poetic extravagance, or the nervous irritability
and exaggeration of genius. Albert Andriese and his wife were divorced
in Albany in 1670, “because strife and difference hath arisen between
them.” Daniel Denton was divorced from his wife in Jamaica, and she was
permitted to marry again, by the new provincial law of divorce of 1672.
These few examples break the felicitous calm of colonial matrimony,
and have a few companions during the years 1670-72; but Chancellor
Kent says “for more than one hundred years preceding the Revolution no
divorce took place in the colony of New York;” and there was no way of
dissolving a marriage save by special act of Legislature.
Occasionally breach-of-promise suits were brought. In 1654 Greetje
Waemans produced a marriage ring and two letters, promissory of
marriage, and requested that on that evidence Daniel de Silla be
“condemned to legally marry her.” He vainly pleaded his unfortunate
habit of some days drinking too much, and that on those days he
did much which he regretted; among other things, his bacchanalian
love-making of Greetje. François Soleil, the New Amsterdam gunsmith,
another recreant lover, swore he would rather go away and live with the
Indians (a terrible threat) than marry the fair Rose whom he had left
to droop neglected--and unmarried.
One curious law-case is shown by the injunction to Pieter Kock and
Anna van Voorst. They had entered into an agreement of marriage, and
then had been unwilling to be wedded. The burgomasters and schepens
decided that the promise should remain in force, and that neither
should marry any other person without the permission of the other and
the Court; but Anna did marry very calmly (when she got ready) another
more desirable and desired man without asking any one’s permission.
It certainly gives us a great sense of the simplicity of living in
those days to read the account of the suit of the patroon of Staten
Island in 1642 against the parents of a fair young Elsje for loss
of services through her marriage. She had been bound out to him as
a servant, and had married secretly before her time of service had
expired. The bride told the worshipful magistrates that she did not