"And as I am sure this is most agreeable to the Virgin Modesty which should make Marriage an act of their obedience rather than their choice. And they that think their Friends too slow-paced in the matter give certain proof that lust is their sole motive. But as the Damsel I have been describing would neither anticipate nor contradict the will of her parents, so do I assure you she is against Forcing her own by marrying where she cannot love; and that is the reason she is still a Virgin."
The ideas of the old critic would hardly commend themselves in their entirety to modern times; yet they hold a germ of truth.
Marriage customs among the early colonists presented some curious contrasts. The practice of "bundling," probably imported from Wales, was long extant in the rural districts; yet in the same district in which this custom was most prevalent there was another practice of the opposite extreme of prudery, whereby those who were passing through the first and even intermediate stages of courtship were forced to "do their spiriting" in the presence of the household, the only license of propinquity granted to them being the privilege of whispering their words through a hollow stick about six feet long, known as a "courting-stick." The use of this as a conductor ensured secrecy to the speech of love; but the enforced separation must have been terribly disheartening at times, and there must have been occasions when the lover longed to lay the stick upon the backs of the company and put them to flight. It must have been as difficult to be impassioned through this medium as nowadays to propose through a telephone.
There was abundant protection for wives in the early laws of the northern colonies. Bigamy was forbidden in a law which forbade a man to "marrie too wifes which were both alive for anything that can appear otherwise at one time," which strikes one as more well-meaning than lucid. The husband must not beat his wife or even abuse her with angry words, while she, on the other hand, if she gave vent to "a curst and shrewish tongue" was in danger of the stocks or the ducking-stool. The husband was not allowed to desert his wife for long or even to keep her in an outlying and dangerous situation, else the town "will pull his house down." Woman may have been regarded as the weaker vessel by the old Puritans, but they were determined that her interests should not be neglected, at least so far as in that age was well and customary.
Though marriage was in many ways hedged about with safeguards, there existed in the earliest times at Plymouth a form of public betrothal which too often was considered as sufficient by the parties thereto. It was called a pre-contract, but was not entirely binding. There was usually a sermon preached on the occasion of the ceremony, and it was the custom to allow the bride to choose the text which she thought most applicable to the general or particular circumstances of the case. Marriage was for long by banns, and the ceremony was at first performed by magistrates and not by clergymen. This fact, as well as the further fact that any "man of dignity" came under the generic title of "magistrate" in the meaning of the custom, gave rise to many complications and no little scandal--as in the case of old Governor Bellingham, who when a widower of forty-nine married himself to Penelope Pelham, who was not half his age. This acting in the dual capacity of bridegroom and magistrate was a little too much for the patience of the community, and the governor was called upon to stand trial for his offence; but as he insisted upon his prerogative of occupying the bench the result was not edifying.
There were many local customs at marriages which were by no means admirable, such as the scrambling for the bride's garter, the bedding of the newly wedded pair, and like fashions, imported from the rural districts of England. These things were carried to such a length that restrictive laws were found necessary, and in 1651 "mixt and unmixt" dancing at taverns during wedding ceremonies was distinctly forbidden. Dancing may seem to us incongruous with the spirit of the old Puritan life; but dance they did, as is evident from the law referred to and from the fact that dancing persisted as an accompaniment of all weddings. Though a little out of its period, it may be recorded here that in 1769 there were danced at one wedding ninety-two jigs, fifty contra-dances, forty-three minuets, and seventeen hornpipes, all being safely accomplished by a little past midnight.
Enough of the general for the present; let us come to the particular in exemplification of the status of women among the old Puritans. In the beginning of this chapter the statement was made that women played a most prominent part in the religious polity of the northern colonies, and it is well that the assertion should now be established. The early history of New England holds the stories of more than one remarkable woman, and one of the most remarkable among them was Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, who may be selected as in many regards a typical New England woman of the early colonial days. It is true that Mrs. Hutchinson was not an American by birth and had even passed some forty years of life when she first stood upon the shores of our country; but she was of those who invaded this land filled with the spirit of liberty that afterward took such strong root, and in the genius of her nature she was emphatically American. The old New England spirit found no better exposition than in this daughter by adoption, and it is for this reason that she has been chosen, being of one stock with the native Puritans, as typical of the woman of her time and country.
Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, who had been born in England about 1590, landed at Boston on September 18, 1634. She came in the name of religious liberty, seeking that freedom which she was denied in the land of her birth; but even on her voyage to our shores she had excited suspicions as to her orthodoxy, and there was some delay, probably at the instance of the Rev. Mr. Symms, her fellow passenger, in granting her membership in the first church of Boston. She had been somewhat free, according to Mr. Symms, in "venting her revelations" on the outward voyage; but her kindly attitude toward friends and acquaintances soon reconciled most of the Bostonians to her presence in their midst. The fact was that Mrs. Hutchinson was what was in those days known as a "notable" woman. She could be helpful to those in trouble in mind, body, or spirit, and she was skilful in a very comprehensive pathology. Welde, of Roxbury, tells us that she was "a woman very helpful in the time of childbirth and other occasions of bodily disease, and well furnished with means for those purposes." True, he also calls her "the American Jezabel;" but even in his blame of her he admits, though he probably did not mean it as a compliment, that she was "of a nimble wit and active spirit and a very voluble tongue, more bold than a man, though in understanding and judgment inferior to many women." The latter part of this description simply meant that Master Welde did not agree with the theories promulgated by Mrs. Hutchinson.
And indeed it needed not to be very prejudiced to agree with Master Welde herein. For Mrs. Hutchinson, though she "sat under" Mr. Cotton and professed great love for his doctrines, was undoubtedly more than tainted by Antinomianism,--a word, in its broad acceptation, signifying the consciousness of "justification by faith," and an abiding justification that could not be shaken even by the commission of sin. Hence, said the enemies of the Antinomians, these latter took advantage of their presumed state of grace to live as they pleased, licentiously or cleanly, they being surely saved by their faith and therefore free to mould their works as they chose. This was carrying to its extreme the theory of sanctification professed by the Antinomians; yet it was not an unfair deduction from the tenets of that body. The Antinomians were looked upon as menaces to the morality of any land in which they took root, as pursuing pleasure and vice under the cloak of fanaticism. To make matters worse in the Boston colony just at this time with which we are concerned, the new governor, Henry Vane, was vehemently suspected of being an advocate of the hated sect; and therefore when Mrs. Hutchinson began to hold women's meetings at which she set forth her religious tenets, which were perilously close to Antinomianism,--though she, as well as her chief ally and brother-in-law, John Wheelwright, never admitted the applicability of the title,--there arose an outcry against these proceedings. Wheelwright was brought to trial on certain counts, and he and Governor Vane, with Cotton himself,--he having been gradually brought into the controversy in a rather singular manner,--formed a party which was opposed to the mass of the Puritans and was considered little less than a scandal. At the end of a three weeks' session, held in Cambridge to deal with this matter of heresy, the first American clerical synod condemned the opinions of the recalcitrants, and then proceeded to adopt a resolution which is of more importance to us than was their general condemnation; it ran thus:
"That though women might meet (some few together) to pray and edify one another, yet such a set assembly (as was then in practice at Boston) where sixty or more did meet every week, and one woman (in a prophetical way, by resolving questions of doctrine and expounding Scripture) took upon her the whole exercise, was agreed to be disorderly and without rule."