Note 809 — Chapter XIV · OPTIONAL CIVIL OR ECCLESIASTICAL MARRIAGE IN THE MIDDLE COLONIES

Caine, Reports, II, 219, 220. This was a case on appeal by the original defendant who had been sued for damage for debauching the plaintiff's daughter. The defendant won on the ground of connivance of the parents of the girl. "We lay out of view," says the court, "the custom which it is agreed prevails in that part of the country for young people, who are courting, to sleep together." "Nor is it an excuse for the parent to say that promises of marriage had been exchanged." Cf. also Stiles, Origin and Hist. of Bundling, 44 ff., 109-11.