Note 389 — Chapter XII · OBLIGATORY CIVIL MARRIAGE IN THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES

Green, Short Hist. of Rhode Island, 152, 153; Arnold, Hist. of Rhode Island, II, 113. By the code of 1647 marriages were to be celebrated ("confirmed") before the "head officer of the towne": Staples, Proceedings of the First Gen. Assembly, 1647 (Providence, 1847), 47, 48; R.I. Col. Rec., I, 187. On the head officer see Howard, Local Const. Hist., I, 88, 89. According to the law of 1663 the intentions are to be published, and "afterwards before one of the Generll officers shall they be married": in Rider's reprint of the Laws and Acts (1705), 12. But in Rider's reprint of The Charter and the Laws (1719), 12, it is declared lawful for "any Assistant, Justice of the Peace, or Warden" to perform the ceremony. The act cited is one of a group dated 1662; and it appears to be a modification of the law just cited from the collection of 1705. The act of 1701 reserves the right of Quakers and members of the Church of England to be married according to their own usage: Rider, Charter and Laws (1719), 48; also in Acts and Laws (Newport, 1730), 44, 46.