Note 614 — Chapter XII · OBLIGATORY CIVIL MARRIAGE IN THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES (continued 2)

An example is afforded by the Plym. Col. Rec., IV, 163, where a stipulation is entered into between a widow and a widower about to marry. By this agreement the children are to remain "att the free and proper and onely dispose of theire owne naturall parents, as they shall see good to dispose of them." The wife is to retain "all her house and land goods & cattles, that shee is now possessed of, ... to dispose of them att her owne free will." If the husband die first, she is to have "one third pte ... of his estate that hee dieth possessed of ... during her life;" while in case of her death, the husband's property is to go to his heirs, "excepting her wearing apparrell and her bed and bedding ... which shee shall and may giue att her death to whom she pleaseth." For another such marriage agreement see MSS. Early Court Files of Suffolk (1671), No. 1063. In the MSS. Records of the Superior Court of Common Pleas for Middlesex (1707), I, 103, is a suit to recover a gift made to a fiancée as legacy.