"They are governed by the same laws as we in Boston (or little differing), throughout this whole colony of Connecticut ... but a little too much independent in their principles, and, as I have been told, were formerly in their zeal very rigid in their administrations towards such as their laws made offenders, even to a harmless kiss or innocent merriment among young people.... They generally marry very young: the males oftener, as I am told, under twenty than above: they generally make public weddings, and have a way something singular (as they say) in some of them, viz., just before joining hands the bride-groom quits the place, who is soon followed by the bridesmen, and as it were dragged back to duty--being the reverse to the former practice among us, to steal mistress bride....
"They (the country women) generally stand after they come in a great while speechless, and sometimes don't say a word till they are asked what they want, which I impute to the awe they stand in of the merchants, who they are constantly almost indebted to; and must take that they bring without liberty to choose for themselves; but they serve them as well, making the merchants stay long enough for their pay...."
But even as late as 1780 Samuel Peters states in his _General History of Connecticut_ that he found the restrictions in Connecticut so severe that he was forced to state that "dancing, fishing, hunting, skating, and riding in sleighs on the ice are all the amusements allowed in this colony."
In Massachusetts for many years in the seventeenth century a wife, in the absence of her husband, was not allowed to lodge men even if they were close relatives. Naturally such an absurd law was the source of much bickering on the part of magistrates, and many were the amusing tilts when a wife was not permitted to remain with her father, but had to be sent home to her husband, or a brother was compelled to leave his own sister's house. Of course, we may turn successfully to Sewall's _Diary_ for an example: "Mid-week, May 12, 1714. Went to Brewster's. The Anchor in the Plain; ... took Joseph Brewster for our guide, and went to Town. Essay'd to be quarter'd at Mr. Knight's, but he not being at home, his wife refused us."[208] When a judge, himself, was refused ordinary hospitality, we may surmise that the law was rather strictly followed. But many other rules of the day seem just as ridiculous to a modern reader. As Weeden in his _Economic and Social History of New England_ says of restrictions in 1650: