Note 406 — Chapter XII · OBLIGATORY CIVIL MARRIAGE IN THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES

In Hutchinson's time marriages were usually performed by the clergy. "Although," he says, "the law admits of its being done by a justice of the peace, yet not one in many hundred is performed by them;" and he adds in a note: "Perhaps, in a few years, the people of England will be equally well satisfied with the provision made by the late marriage act, and no body will be at the pains of a journey to Scotland to avoid conformity to it."—Hutchinson, Hist. of Mass., I, 392, 393.