Note 374 — Chapter XII · OBLIGATORY CIVIL MARRIAGE IN THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES

But publication of banns on the sabbath was not ordinarily prohibited, the laws being usually silent as to that, while naming other days. Probably in some towns from the beginning sabbath publication may have been customary, as it was, apparently, at Andover: Bailey, Hist. Sketches of Andover, 75. Cf. Bacon, Genesis of the New England Churches, 339-41, who also seems to misapprehend the attitude of the Separatist and Puritan in his anxiety to show that early New England marriages were not "godless."