point, and thinks a woman should be out
of ward for all her husband's nonage;
holding it a "mischievous, inconvenient,
unjust, and unnatural law" that should hold
a woman from her husband and her
inheritance when without offence of law
married, because her husband, say of nineteen,
was not fully fit for all manner of
horsemanship. "Be not therefore, good woman,
absterred from a young husband by old
natura brevium," he says encouragingly.

Another curious instance of the precocity
of the times is the fact that from the age
of twelve "a woman" was supposed able to
work, and fit for duty. "By a statute made
5 Eliz. ca. iv., Two justices of peace in the
Countrie, or the head officer and 2
Burgesses in Cities, &c., may appoint any
woman of the age of twelve yeares, and
under forty, being unmarried and out of
service, to serve and bee retained by yeare,
weeke, or day, in such sort and for such
wages as they shall think meet, and if she
refuse they may commit her to prison till
she shall be bound to serve."

The various methods of dividing a female
inheritance were odd, but the oddest of
all was that "wherein, after partition made
of the lands, every part being written in
a scroule and lapped in a bale of wax, is
put into a bonnet, which must be holden
by some indifferent body, and then (as wee
use to choose valintines) every partner
pulleth out a part, the first borne first, the
rest after her in degree of ancientry, and
every one shall hold to her chance."
Another mode was by "hotch-pot," which is
putting all the lands and holdings together,
whether given in frank marriage or left in
heritage, and then dividing according to
a certain fixed valuation.

In those old days, betrothal was a more
serious matter than it is now—something
like the present German betrothal. It was
considered the "first part of marriage,"
and was of two kinds the first, plain and
simple, the two only binding themselves to
contract matrimony hereafter; the second,
when an oath was made, or something
taken as an earnest or pledge on both sides,
which pledge or gifts must be returned in
case of no marriage.

Going on to the question of the time
to be allowed to elapse between promise
and fulfilment, our lawyer says that a
woman may marry some one else as soon
as she likes after the stated period of
betrothment has passed; after two years,
if her betrothment has been made without
specified term, and if both she and
her spouse reside in the same province;
after three years, if her spouse reside in
another province. A judge might prolong
the period of expectancy if he would.
The time of waiting before choosing
another husband, if already married and
deserted, was longer. "In marriage
because it is in some sort dangerous to expect
long the incertaine returne of an absent
yoake fellow, the civil law did ordaine that
aftir a husband had been gone five yeares,
and nothing knowne whether he lived or
no, his wife may marry again;" and so the
husband if his wife had deserted him. But
the common law simply commands to
forbear marriage until the death of the missing
one is really known. There is still the
feeling abroad among the people that a
woman who has not heard of her husband
for five or seven years is entitled to choose
another, and that her marriage with the
first is null and void even should he return.

"I am affraid my feminine acquaintance
will say I writ as I live. I talke much of
marriage, but I came not forward: stay
awhile yet, I pray you. I know many an
honest woman more repenting her hastie
marriage ere she was wooed, than all the
other sinnes that ever she committed. It
were good nature we speak a little of
wooing, but to handle that matter per
genus et species would take up as much
roome as an Indian figge-tree, every thrid
whereof when it falleth to the ground
groweth to a woof." The gloves and rings,
and other pre-nuptial gifts, spoken of
before, must be returned in case of rupture of
betrothal bonds; but a woman had more
favour from the law in this regard than had
the man in the donation of lands, on
account of marriage. For, whatever he gave
to her, she kept, marriage or none; and
whatever she gave to him, she took back. And
the reason was, because of the knaves abroad,
who "with colour of love and collocution
of marriage, cozened heiresses and poor
women of their grounds, and gave them the
boots when they had done, carrying the
gain to their better beloved."

It is curious to mark in this old book the
parrot cry of the "good old times." "It
was, as I suppose, more frequent in the
old time that men gave lands with their
daughters in marriage than at this day,"
says our lawyer, when plunging into the
awful labyrinth of frank marriage, dower,
seisin, &c.: a labyrinth impossible for one
not specially trained to thread. But one
thing we can pick out, concerning "the
courtesy of England." The courtesy of