Note 669 — Chapter XII · OBLIGATORY CIVIL MARRIAGE IN THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES (continued 2)
Reading edition
Acts and Resolves, I, 209; also Charters and General Laws of Mass., 283. Goddard, Mem. Hist. Bost., II, 415 n. 2, is plainly in error when he says that this act "suggested the leading incident of Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter." It probably originated in the similar law, already mentioned, for the punishment of adultery which is expressed in nearly the same words: see Acts and Resolves, I, 171.