Note 471 — Chapter XII · OBLIGATORY CIVIL MARRIAGE IN THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES

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.