Colonial Period, 1600-1800

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>The Colonial Period

People

• Arthur Howland Jr. (Mr. Howland was found making love to Elizabeth Pence without being married to her and without her fathers permission.  He was fined fifty pounds.)
• John Carter (Carter is the founder of the clan.  He was married five times and 50,000 of his descendants are alive today.)
• Susanna White and Samuel Jackson (first marriage celebrated in Plymouth)
• Thomas Jefferson (Jefferson married a rich widow who bought him property worth more than $100,000)
• William Byrd (Mr. Byrd wrote his daughter off as an “old maid” because she had not married by the age of 23.)

Events

1660: Connecticut courts make it mandatory for all men to live their wives.  Anyone not in compliance was expelled from the colony.

1704: The separation of a married coupled was legalized in Maryland but only by a clergyman.
1705: In Massachusetts Bay intermarriage between whites and blacks is outlawed.  

Resources

The Family in Various Cultures The Family in Various Cultures by Stuart A. Queen and Robert W. Habenstein was very helpful in writing my paper.  It gave information about the colonial period and the people of the colonial period.  This was a primary source.  It was helpful also by giving insight on other topics other than marriage so that marriage would be better understood in this text.

A Social History of the American Family from Colonial Times to the Present   Chapter three from A Social History of the American Family from Colonial Times to the present was also helpful. The chapter was on Courtship and Marriage in Colonial New England.  Although the information was good it was not that helpful because it was repetitious.  It was not a primary source, but a secondary source instead. 

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© Mark Canada, 2001
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Marriage in the Colonial Time

By Cook, Stacey
Student, University of North Carolina at Pembroke, year

            Marriage has always been essential in America.  Among other aspects marriages greatly shaped the American family during the colonial period.  Colonial marriage is not solely nor largely based on love because it is considered through the couples parents, wealth, and religion.

Obviously the pursuit of a marriage was not based on one’s feelings for the other.  Instead, “the principle of marriage were wealth, social position, and love- usually in that order’’ (Miller 414). Miller in his book entitled This New Man, the American informs us, “In the Colonial America, most parents considered marriage too serious a matter to be left to the young people directly concerned”.  The law required that a man receive the parent’s permission to date a young woman (Miller 413).  Legally the father had the right to permit or deny consent to marry. (Foner and Garraty 700). Sometimes daughters would choose to disobey their parents.  They would marry someone their parents did not choose because of love or sometimes just to prove a point.  Miller also tells us that a father could discourage unwanted suitors by letting it be known that they intended to withhold financial assistance if their daughters married without parental consent.  Couples were limited indeed.

 There were not many ways to get out of a marriage.  Once you were married it was “presumably indissoluble,” meaning in all probability everlasting, a marriage could not be ended (Habenstein and Queen 323).  Many laws also denied or made it difficult for married couples to divorce or separate.  To keep marriages more secure, Connecticut courts forced men to abide with their wives and if they disobeyed this by being estranged from their wife for more than three years then they were expelled from the colony (Kross 278).  This made it difficult to be separated or to divorce.

            Slaves were not allowed to legally marry in some colonies and any marriages performed had to be approved by the slave owner (Foner and Garraty 701). Although slaves were treated unfairly they also had some laws that were lenient towards them.  “No master shall unreasonably deny marriage to his Negro with one of the same nation” (Calhoun 65).  Intermarriage in most places was prohibited.  In Massachusetts in 1705 marriage between a white person and a Negro or mulatto was prohibited and fined fifty pounds if disobeyed (Calhoun 65).  Slaves and immigrants were not given justice in choosing when, where and who to marry.  When we think of this injustice we must first remember that during this period more could not have been expected considering that even white colonial population could not completely choose when, where, and who they chose to marry.

            While we look at how marriages where arranged, who had the final say, and who could and could not get married we also note circumstances in which remarriage was permitted.  “Death provided almost as much occasion for remarriage as divorce does today” (Miller 415). Women quickly remarried.  Unmarried women were looked at as sad.  Miller also informs us later in his work that instead of some mean learning a trade or doing some type of hard work or work in general some young men chose to marry a rich widow.  Women once again received the worst end of the marriage because once a widow married all her possessions legally became her husband’s possessions (Miller 415).

Colonial marriages overall were not based on love.  They were instead based on money and how parents felt.  Marriages of the colonial period denied women and minorities, the right to be choose and be independent in deciding when, and who to marry.  The colonial marriage was very significant in shaping the colonial society.

Works Cited

Calhoun, Arthur W. A Social History of the of the American Family From Colonial

Times to the Present. New York: Barnes and Noble Inc., 1945. 51-66.

Foner, Eric and John A. Garraty, eds. The Readers Companion to American History.

Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991. 700-701.

Habenstein, Robert W. and Stuart A. Queen. The Family in Various Cultures.

Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1974. 301-323.

Kross, Jessica. American Eras, The Colonial Era 1600-1754. Detroit: Gale Research,

1998. 278-279.

Miller, John C. This New Man, The American. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974. 413-416.