Customs and Fashions in Old New England

								


     Gallants, a little before sunset, walk with their Marmalet-Madams

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

     habitations."
This simple and quaint picture of youthful love in the soft summer
twilight, at that ever beautiful trysting-place, gives an unwonted touch
of sentiment to the austere daily life of colonial New England. The
omnipotent Puritan law-giver, who meddled and interfered in every
detail, small and great, of the public and private life of the citizen,
could not leave untouched, in fancy free, these soberly promenading
Puritan sweethearts. A Boston gallant must choose well his
marmalet-madam, must proceed cautiously in his love-making in the
gloaming, obtaining first the formal permission of parents or guardians
ere he take any step in courtship. Fines, imprisonment, or the
whipping-post awaited him, did he "inveigle the affections of any maide
or maide servant" by making love to her without proper authority.
Numberless examples might be given to prove that this law was no dead
letter. In 1647, in Stratford, Will Colefoxe was fined £5 for "laboring
to invegle the affection of Write his daughter." In 1672 Jonathan
Coventry, of Plymouth town, was indicted for "making a motion of
marriage" to Katharine Dudley without obtaining formal consent. The
sensible reason for these courtship regulations was "to prevent young
folk from intangling themselves by rash and inconsiderate contracts of
maridge." The Governor of Plymouth colony, Thomas Prence, did not
hesitate to drag his daughter's love affairs before the public, in 1660,
by prosecuting Arthur Howland for "disorderly and unrighteously
endeavouring to gain the affections of Mistress Elizabeth Prence." The
unrighteous lover was fined £5. Seven years later, patient Arthur, who
would not "refrain and desist," was again fined the same amount; but
love prevailed over law, and he triumphantly married his fair Elizabeth
a few months later. The marriage of a daughter with an unwelcome swain
was also often prohibited by will, "not to suffer her to be circumvented
and cast away upon a swaggering gentleman."
On the other hand, an engagement of marriage once having been permitted,
the father could not recklessly or unreasonably interfere to break off
the contract. Many court records prove that colonial lovers promptly
resented by legal action any attempt of parents to bring to an end a
sanctioned love affair. Richard Taylor so sued, and for such cause, Ruth
Whieldon's father in Plymouth in 1661; while another ungallant swain is
said to have sued the maid's father for the loss of time spent in
courting. Breach of promise cases were brought against women by
disappointed men who had been "shabbed" (as jilting was called in some
parts of New England), as well as by deserted women against men.
But sly Puritan maids found a way to circumvent and outwit Puritan law