Marriage in Early New England

EVERY one knows that among the Pilgrims of New England marriage was performed by civil authority; but the story of the origin, nature, and consequences of this practice has never been fully and accurately told. The Encyclopedia Americana (ed. 1927), for instance, says: tractate on divorce and his denunciation of ecclesiastical 'meddling' with marriage borne fruit in the Civil Marriage Ordinance of Cromwell in 1653. ... The action of the Puritans and Independents of England found ready followers in America. Inasmuch as civil marriage been both advocated and practised among the Independents of England before Milton was born, this statement is misleading to say the least; indeed even in America marriage was made by magistrate twenty years before the first of Milton's notorious divorce tracts was published. Nor will it do to say, as some have, that the Pilgrims had adopted the views of the Dutch Calvinists as to marriage,1 since civil marriage was well established among the Independents in England a generation before the Scrooby congregation emigrated to Holland

Denunciation · Magistrate · New england · Political science · Politics · American Constitutional Law and Politics · History · Law · Mormonism, Religion, and History · Religion, Gender, and Enlightenment

• Social Boundary Systems

  Yehudi A Cohen•Current Anthropology•1969

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