[748] "The man taking the woman by the Rt hand shall say I A B doe take thee C D to my wedded wife To have and to hould from this day forward for better for worse for Rich or for Poore in sickness & in health till death us do part and thereto I plight thee my troth which being finished lett her hand goe." Similar words are to be used by the woman: ibid., 1664-76, 148.
[749] Ibid., 1666-76, 522, 523.
[750] Lodge, Short History, 105. Elsewhere this writer says the Episcopal church in Maryland was as "contemptible an ecclesiastical organization as history can show." "It is not easy to conceive the utter degradation of the mass of the Maryland clergy. Secure in their houses and glebes, with a tax settled by law, and collected by the sheriffs for their benefit, they set decency and public opinion at defiance. They hunted, raced horses, drank, gambled, and were the parasites and boon companions of the wealthy planters. A common jest was the question:
'Who is a monster of the first renown?
'A lettered sot, a drunkard in a gown.'
"They extorted marriage fees from the poor by breaking off in the middle of the service, and refusing to continue until they were paid."—Ibid., 123, 120-24; cf. Browne, Maryland, 184 ff.
[751] See, however, the case of North Carolina below, where the original toleration of the early years was later somewhat curtailed; and that of West Virginia.
[752] Compare Cook, "Mar. Cel. in the Colonies," Atlantic, LXI, 356, 357.
[753] Archives of Md.: Procds. and Acts of the Gen. Assem., 1684-92, 450, 451.
[754] Bacon, Laws of Maryland, 1702, chap. i, §§ iv, v.
[755] Bacon, op. cit., 1717, chap. xv, §§ i-v. The fee for marriage after license is "10 shillings and no more;" after publication of banns it is 100 pounds of tobacco or 6 shillings and 8 pence current money.