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 makers, and to prevent their unsanctioned lovers from being punished, too. Hear the craft of Sarah Tuttle. On May day in New Haven, in 1660, she went to the house of a neighbor, Dame Murline, to get some thread. Some very loud jokes were exchanged between Sarah and her friends Maria and Susan Murline—so loud, in fact, that Dame Murline testified in court that it "much distressed her and put her in a sore strait." In the midst of all this doubtful fun Jacob Murline entered, and seizing Sarah's gloves, demanded the centuries old forfeit of a kiss. "Wherupon," writes the scandalized Puritan chronicler, "they sat down together; his arm being about her; and her arm upon his shoulder or about his neck; and hee kissed her, and shee kissed him, or they kissed one another, continuing in this posture about half an hour, as Maria and Susan testified." Goodman Tuttle, who was a man of dignity and importance, angrily brought suit against Jacob for inveigling his daughter's affections; "but Sarah being asked in court if Jacob inveagled her, said No." This of course prevented any rendering of judgment against the unauthorized kissing by Jacob, and he escaped the severe punishment of his offence. But the outraged and baffled court fined Sarah, and gave her a severe lecture, calling her with justice a "Bould Virgin." She at the end, demurely and piously answered that "She hoped God would help her to carry it Better for time to come." And doubtless she did carry it better; for at the end of two years, this bold virgin's fine for unruly behavior being still unpaid, half of it was remitted.
Of the etiquette, the pleasures, the exigencies of colonial "courtship in high life," let one of the actors speak for himself through the pages of his diary. Judge Sewall's first wife was Hannah Hull, the only daughter of Captain Hull of Pine Tree Shilling fame. She received as her dowry her weight in silver shillings. Of her wooing we know naught save the charming imaginary story told us by Hawthorne. The Judge's only record is this:
"Mrs. Hannah Hull saw me when I took my Degree and set her affection on me though I knew nothing of it till after our Marriage."
She lived with him forty-three years, bore him seven sons and seven daughters, and died on the 19th day of October, 1717.
Of course, though the Judge was sixty-six years old, he would marry again. Like a true Puritan he despised an unmarried life, and on the 6th day of February he made this naive entry in his diary: "Wandering in my mind whether to live a Married or a Single Life." Ere that date he had begun to take notice. He had called more than once on Widow Ruggles, and had had Widow Gill to dine with him; had looked critically at Widow Emery, and noted that Widow Tilley was absent from meeting; and he had gazed admiringly at Widow Winthrop in "her sley," and he had visited and counseled and consoled her ere his wife had been two months dead, and had given her a few suitable tokens of his awakening affection such as "Smoking Flax Inflamed," "The Jewish Children of Berlin," and "My Small Vial of Tears;" so he had "wandered" in the flesh as well as in the mind.
Such an array of widows! Boston fairly blossomed with widows, the widows of all the "true New England men" whose wills Sewall had drawn up, whose dying bedsides he had blessed and harassed with his prayers, whose bodies he had borne to the grave, whose funeral gloves and scarves and rings he had received and apprized, and whose estates he had settled. Over this sombre flower-bed of black garbed widows, these hardy perennials, did this aged Puritan butterfly amorously hover, loth to settle, tasting each solemn sweet, calculating the richness of the soil in which each was planted, gauging the golden promise of fruit, and perhaps longing for the whole garden of full-blown blossoms. "Antient maides" were held in little esteem by him; not one thornback is on his list.
Not only did he look and wander, but all his friends and neighbors arose and began to suggest and search for a suitable wife for him, with as officious alacrity as if he needed help, which he certainly did not. In March Madam Henchman strongly recommended to him "Madam Winthrop, the Major General's widow." This recommendation was very sweet to the widower, who had turned his eyes with such special approval on this special widow, and further and warm encouragement came quickly.
"Deacon Marion comes to me, sits with me a great while in the evening; after a great deal of Discourse about his Courtship He told me the Olivers said they wish'd I would court their Aunt. I said little, but said 'twas not five Moneths since I buried my dear Wife. Had said before 'twas hard to know whether to marry again or no or whom to marry."
The Olivers' aunt was Madam Winthrop. It would seem somewhat presumptuous and officious for nieces and nephews to suggest courtship, when there were grown up Winthrop children who might dislike the marriage, but in those days everyone meddled in love affairs; to quote Pope: "Marriage was the theme on which they all declaimed." The Judge gossiped publicly about his intentions. He writes: "They had laid one out for me, and Governor Dudley told me 'twas Madam Winthrop. I told him I had been there but thrice and twice upon business. He said cave tertium." Even solemn Cotton Mather proffered counsel in a letter on "paying regards to the Widow."