Note 423 — Chapter XII · OBLIGATORY CIVIL MARRIAGE IN THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES

Mass. Col. Rec., I, 275; Whitmore, Col. Laws of Mass. (1660-72), 51, 52; ibid. (1672-86), 101.

The meeting-house on Sunday or lecture-day was a general clearing-house for news and gossip; and not the least inviting topics were supplied by the marriage notices. "There they read, as from an old newspaper, of an intention of marriage between persons known to everybody; and although the town clerk had stood up in the congregation and screamed it at the top of his voice, it was an endless subject of comment, especially if the woman had as publicly renounced the intention—as women sometimes did."—Bliss, Colonial Times on Buzzard's Bay, 77, 78.