[495] Goodwin, op. cit., 597.
[496] Dec. 16, 1679. At a court held at Charlestown, George Parminter and his wife convicted of fornication before marriage, court respited their sentence till next court, and ordered that their parents be summoned then to appear to give answer why they denied them the consummation of their marriage for so many months after they were in order thereto: MSS. Records of the County Court of Middlesex, III, 316.
[497] Acts and Laws of Conn. (New Haven, 1769), 144. Substantially the same provision appears in the Code of 1643: Trumbull, Blue Laws, 106, 107; Conn. Col. Rec., I, 92; in The Book of General Laws, 1673 (Hartford, 1865), 46; and in Acts and Laws (New London, 1715), 75.
[498] New Haven Col. Rec., II, 600; Trumbull, op. cit., 242. Cf. Atwater, Hist. of Col. of New Haven, 362.
[499] Whitmore, Col. Laws of Mass. (1660-72), 172; ibid. (1672-86), 101; Mass. Col. Rec., II, 207. Cf. Friedberg, Eheschliessung, 477, note; Newhall, Ye Great and General Court, 349-65, giving interesting examples.
[500] MSS. Records of the County Court for Middlesex, I, 131.
In 1662 Marmaduke Johnson, who by his own confession had a wife in England, was convicted of trying to steal the affections of the daughter of Samuel Green without his knowledge and consent; and he was ordered to join his spouse by the first oportunity: ibid., I, 206. The next year Johnson was "fined £20 unless he give security" so to depart, in the meantime being "committed until the order is performed": ibid., 249. It may be further noted that on April 7, 1674, a Marmaduke Johnson is spoken of as "late constable of Cambridge": ibid., III, 87.
[501] MSS. Records of the County Court of Suffolk, 106.
[502] Irons was fined 20 shillings, and Barnum half that sum: MSS. Records of the County Court of Suffolk (July 28, 1674), 255, 256. On the same day "Edward Peggy being bound over for using indirect means 'by powders or other wayes unlawfull to Engage the affections or desires of women kinde to him' and for begetting a bastard child"—in particular for illegally "drawing away the affections of two girls"—was assessed 10 pounds and put under bonds for good behavior: ibid., 261.
[503] Ibid. (Feb. 4, 1674-75), 301. The records of the court of assistants in Mass. Col. Rec. (Sept. 1, 1640), I, 299, 300, contain a similar case.