Fornication Cases before the General Sessions of Middlesex County, Mass., for Each Quinquennium, 1726-80[588]
| Quinquennium | ||||||||||||
| 26 | 31 | 36 | 41 | 46 | 51 | 56 | 61 | 66 | 71 | 76 | Total | |
| - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | ||
| 30 | 35 | 40 | 45 | 50 | 55 | 60 | 65 | 70 | 75 | 80 | ||
| Single women | 523 | |||||||||||
| Appeared and confessed | .. | 13 | 2 | 4 | 12 | 4 | 10 | 6 | 5 | 13 | 21 | ... |
| Confessed on recognizance | 2 | 3 | 12 | 3 | 9 | 7 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 2 | ... |
| Pleaded guilty | 9 | 2 | 3 | 12 | 10 | 4 | 11 | 11 | 13 | 5 | 2 | ... |
| Pleaded guilty and named man | 1 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 21 | 18 | 16 | 7 | 3 | ... |
| Conf. on recogniz'nce and named man | 10 | 4 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 16 | 11 | 15 | 9 | 1 | ... |
| Appeared, confessed, and named man | 4 | 15 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 9 | 15 | 16 | 45 | ... |
| Married couples | 160 | |||||||||||
| Appeared and confessed | 37 | 65 | 16 | 3 | 1 | .. | 1 | .. | .. | .. | .. | ... |
| Pleaded guilty | 15 | 9 | 8 | 1 | 1 | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | ... |
| Pleaded not guilty, but convicted | 2 | .. | 1 | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | ... |
| Wives[589] | 31 | |||||||||||
| Appeared and confessed | 2 | 1 | 3 | .. | 1 | .. | .. | .. | 1 | .. | .. | ... |
| Pleaded guilty | 3 | .. | .. | .. | 1 | 2 | 6 | 7 | 4 | .. | .. | ... |
| Total | 85 | 115 | 57 | 32 | 48 | 33 | 77 | 68 | 73 | 52 | 74 | 714 |
This is especially true during the decade following 1715, there being five such confessions at one sitting of the court, four of them on one page of the record.
The results for the later period (Table V) are still more striking. Before the Middlesex court alone, during the fifty-five years commencing in 1726, were 523 cases of single women and 191 cases of married couples; but 189 of these couples were tried during the twenty-five years ending in 1750—there being but two isolated cases of confession after that date—and 181 within the first fifteen years. On the
TABLE VI
Penalties Imposed in Cases Comprised in Table V[590]
| Fine | Single | Married | Wives |
| Women | Couples | ||
| £12½ | .. | 1 | .. |
| £9 | 1 | .. | .. |
| £6 | 1 | 2 | .. |
| £5 | 18 | 37 | .. |
| £4 | 48 | 61 | 3 |
| £3 | 6 | .. | .. |
| 50s | 10 | .. | 1 |
| 40s | 24 | 2 | 4 |
| 30s | 9 | .. | 3 |
| 25s | 8 | 1 | .. |
| 20s | 43 | 3 | .. |
| 15s | 20 | .. | .. |
| 10s | 96 | 2 | 2 |
| 5s | 169 | .. | 16 |
| 4s | 11 | .. | .. |
| 3s | 13 | .. | 2 |
| 2s | 7 | .. | .. |
| 1s | 10 | .. | 1 |
| Total | 494 | 109 | 32 |
other hand, 337 single women were convicted during the twenty-five and 257 during the same fifteen years. Again, 118 out of the 181 married couples tried between 1726 and 1740 appeared and, presumably, freely confessed their faults. The leading years in this regard are 1730 with twelve, 1732 with twenty-nine, and 1734 with sixteen confessions. The leading quinquennium is the second (1731-35) with sixty-six confessions as compared with thirty-nine in the first (1726-30) and nineteen in the third (1736-40). To offset these figures we find thirteen presumably voluntary confessions by single women in the second quinquennium, none in the first, and two in the third. These facts seem to point directly to the action of special causes in producing this kind of immorality, or, at any rate, its confession. Whether this action was local for Middlesex cannot positively be determined from these documents alone; although, as will soon appear, other evidence shows that this cannot be assumed. After 1725 the records for Suffolk are incomplete; but it is surprising that during the seven years (September, 1725, to October, 1732) covered by Table VII there were in that county only seven convictions of married couples, not one of whom freely confessed, as compared with forty-eight cases of single women, including one confession.
There can be little doubt that in the eighteenth century, just as in the age preceding, the general cause of this ante-nuptial immorality—and probably also of some part of the similar misconduct of single persons whose engagements were not followed by wedlock—was the custom of solemn pre-contract which still survived. During the second quarter of the eighteenth century the penalties were relatively severe, though not so rigorous as during the period of the first charter; but the facts exhibited in Table VI show that the courts still treated pre-nuptial offenders more mercifully than those who were not married.
To determine the special cause of the sudden rise in the number of confessions during the same period is a more difficult matter. It is not improbable that a suggestion of Charles Francis Adams, regarding another aspect of the problem, may give us a clue to its right solution. Already the practice of church confession of these offenses, in obedience to judicial decree, has been noticed; and independently of the courts, as a religious expiation, such acknowledgments were required by the authority of particular churches. In the eighteenth century, if not earlier, under the "seven months rule," the culpable parents were forced to humble