a set of rules governing her own conduct in such
affairs, and some of these have come down to us through her husband's
_Memoir_ of her:

"I would admit the addresses of no person who is not descended of
pious and credible parents."

"Who has not the character of a strict moralist, sober,
temperate, just and honest."

"Diligent in his business, and prudent in matters. Of a sweet and
agreeable temper; for if he be owner of all the former good
qualifications, and fails here, my life will be still
uncomfortable."

Whether the first of these rules would have amounted to anything if she
had suddenly been attracted by a man of whose ancestry she knew nothing,
is doubtful; but the catalog of regulations shows at least that the
girls of colonial days did some thinking for themselves on the subject
of matrimony, and did not leave the matter to their elders to settle.

_XIII. Matrimonial Irregularities_

There is one rather unpleasant phase of the marriage question of
colonial days that we may not in justice omit, and that is the irregular
marriage or union and the punishment for it and for the violation of the
marriage vow. No small amount of testimony from diaries and records has
come down to us to prove that such irregularities existed throughout all
the colonies. Indeed, the evidence indicates that this form of crime was
a constant source of irritation to both magistrates and clergy.

The penalty for adultery in early Massachusetts was whipping at the
cart's tail, branding, banishment, or even death. It is a common
impression that the larger number of colonists were God-fearing people
who led upright, blameless lives, and this impression is correct; few
nations have ever had so high a percentage of men of lofty ideals. It is
natural, therefore, that such people should be most severe in dealing
with those who dared to lower the high morality of the new commonwealths
dedicated to righteousness. But even the Puritans and Cavaliers were
merely human, and crime _would_ enter in spite of all efforts to the
contrary. Bold adventurers, disreputable spirits, men and women with
little respect for the laws of man or of God, crept into their midst;
many of the immigrants to the Middle and Southern Colonies were
refugees from the streets and prisons of London; some of the indented
servants had but crude notions of morality; sometimes, indeed, the Old
Adam, suppressed for generations, broke