Note 738 — Chapter XIII · ECCLESIASTICAL RITES AND THE RISE OF CIVIL MARRIAGE IN THE SOUTHERN COLONIES

Ibid., 433; III, 74, 139, 361; Acts of the Gen. Assembly, 287. The first representative assembly, which met at Jamestown in the summer of 1619, enacted, "Against excesse in apparell that every man be cessed in the church for all publique contributions, if he be unmarried according to his owne apparell, if he be married according to his owne and his wives, or either of their apparell."—Col. Rec. of Va. (ed. Bancroft), 20. The same assembly provided that "All Ministers in the Colony shall once a year, namely in the moneth of Marche, bring to the Secretary of Estate a true account of all Christenings, burials and marriages, upon paine, if they faill, to be censured for their negligence by the Governor and Counsell of Estate; likewise where there be no ministers, that the comanders of the place doe supply the same duty,"—Ibid., 26.