Anenst this I am glad to add that I have found repentant sequels to the mortifying story, in the form of humble retractions of the husband's allegations. Wives were, on the whole, marvellously well protected by early laws. A husband could not keep his consort on outlying and danger-filled plantations, but must "bring her in, else the town will pull his house down." Nor could a man leave his wife for any length of time, nor "marrie too wifes which were both alive for anything that can appear otherwise at the time," nor beat his wife (as he could to his heart's content in old England) he could not even use "hard words" to her. Nor could she raise her hand or use "a curst and shrewish tongue" to him without fear of public punishment in the stocks or pillory.

In the first years of the colonies there existed a formal ceremony of betrothal called in Plymouth a pre-contract. This semi-binding ceremony had hardly a favorable influence upon the morals of the times. Cotton Mather states:

If the prospective marriage were an important or a genteel one, an applicable sermon was often preached in church at the time of the "contraction." One minister took the text, Ephesians vi. 10, 11, in order "to teach that marriage is a state of warfaring condition." It was also the custom to allow the bride to choose the text for the sermon to be delivered on the Sunday when she "came out bride." Much ingenuity was exercised by these Puritan brides in finding appropriate and interesting texts for these wed ding sermons. Here are some of the verses selected:

2 Chronicles xiv. 2: "And Asa did that which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord"—Asa and his bride Hepzibah sitting up proudly in the congregation to listen.

Proverbs xxiv. 23: "Her husband is known in the gates when he sitteth among the elders of the land."

Ecclesiastes iv. 9, 10: "Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall the one will lift up his fellow."

I can imagine the staid New England lover and his shy sweetheart anxiously and solemnly searching for many hours through the great leather-bound family Bible for a specially appropriate text, turning over the leaves and slowing scanning the pages, skipping, over tedious Leviticus and Numbers, and finding always in the Song of Solomon "in almost every verse" a sentiment appealing to all lovers, and worthy a selection for a wedding sermon.

The "coming out," or, as it was called in Newburyport, "walking out" of the bride was an important