"It is true an _old_ (or super-annuated) maid in Boston is thought such a curse as nothing can exceed it (and look'd upon as a _dismal spectacle_); yet she, by her good-nature, gravity, and strict virtue, convinces all (so much as the fleering Beaus) that it is not her necessity, but her choice, that keeps her a Virgin. She is now about thirty years (the age which they call a _Thornback_), yet she never disguises herself, and talks as little as she thinks of Love. She never reads any Plays or Romances, goes to no Balls, or Dancing-match, as they do who go (to such Fairs) in order to meet with Chapmen. Her looks, her speech, her whole behaviour, are so very chaste, that but once (at Governor's Island, where we went to be merry at roasting a hog) going to kiss her, I thought she would have blushed to death."[473]
[Footnote 471: Thus Judge Sewall went home with Widow Denison from her husband's funeral and "prayed God to keep house" with her: _Diary_, in 5 _Mass. Hist. Coll._, VII, 179 (March 26, 1718). _Cf._ also EARLE, _Customs and Fashions_, 45, 46.
"The colonists married early and they married often. Widowers and widows hastened to join their fortunes and sorrows. The father and mother of Governor Winslow had been widow and widower seven and twelve weeks respectively, when they joined their families and themselves in mutual benefit, if not in mutual love. At a later day the impatient governor of New Hampshire married a lady but ten days widowed."--EARLE, _op. cit._, 86. On early marriages see WEEDEN, _Ecc. and Soc. Hist. of N. E._, II, 541, 739.]
[Footnote 473: DUNTON'S _Life and Errors_ (Westminster, 1818), I, 102, referring to Boston in 1686. In DUNTON'S _Letters from New-England_ (ed. by WHITMORE for the Prince Society, Boston, 1867), 99, where this passage appears in a modified form, the age of a "thornback" is reduced to twenty-six years. The paragraph is also quoted by WEEDEN, _op. cit._, I, 299, 300; and EARLE, _op. cit._, 38, 39.]
But bachelors and "thornbacks" were not the only people who caused the lawmaker anxiety. He kept a sharp eye on married persons living away from their mates. An act of the Massachusetts general court, in 1647, after reciting that diverse married persons are living in the jurisdiction, whose wives or husbands are in England or elsewhere, and who are guilty of making love to women, of attempting marriage or even attaining it, or are under "suspition of uncleannes"--the vice which seems to have sorely vexed the good people of those days--and all of whom are a great dishonor to God and a reproof to religion, commonwealth, and church--orders that every such person shall be incontinently sent back "by y^e first oportunity of shiping," unless present on transient business or to "make way" for the family to come over.[474] Such complaints were by no means groundless and the courts were often called upon to execute the law. Under the circumstances bigamy was easily committed, though not always permanently concealed. On December 3, 1639, the pretended marriage of James Luxford was declared void; "all that hee hath" was given to his victim; and he himself was fined, set in the stocks, and ordered "sent away to England by the first opportunity."[475] In 1644 the "marriage of John Richardson to Elizabeth Frier was annulled upon proof that he had a former wife living in England."[476] Henry Jackson--whose case seems to justify the act of 1647--was presented in 1672-73 "for lying, in saying he was single and attempting marriage with several," though since confessing that he has a wife beyond the sea; "for living from under family government; and for carrying a fire brand at night near a hay stack;" on all of which counts, we are prepared to hear, he got twenty stripes, had to pay costs, and was ordered away to "England by the next ship."[477]