20“If a man have a stubborn or rebellious son, of sufficient years and understanding (viz) sixteen years of age, which will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and that when they have chastened him will not harken unto them … such a son shall be put to death.” This law followed the text of Deuteronomy 21:18-21 (King James version). Massachusetts Laws of 1648, 6; Connecticut Laws of 1673, 78; The Compact with the Charter and Laws of the Colony of New Plymouth, 100. Instances of actual punishment appear in the Plymouth Colony Records, III, 201; VI, 20; Mass. Bay Records, I, 155; Essex Records, I, 19; Assistants Records, III, 138-39, 144-45.
21 For a summary of laws and court cases, see Morgan, Puritan Family, 78.
1 Twenty town studies of mean age at marriage yield a normal New England pattern and three regional variations. The norm appeared in the seed towns of Congregational Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Connecticut by the second generation. Variation I in new interior towns combined a near-normal age for men and an early age for women, converging on the regional standard by the 2d or 3d generation. Variation II among Plymouth Separatists, Rhode Island Baptists and Nantucket families was marriage at a slightly earlier age for both sexes. Variation III among Boston elites and Massachusetts ministers was marriage at an advanced age for males and a near-normal age for females. Mean age at marriage was as follows:
Town |
Marriage Cohort |
Men |
Women |
Town |
Marriage Cohort |
Men |
Women |
Dedham |
|
|
|
Ipswich |
|
|
|
(Lockridge) |
(Norton) |
|
|
| |||
Andover |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(Greven) |
|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|
Topsfield |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(Norton) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |||
Rowley |
|
|
|
|
|||
(O’Malley) |
|
|
|
Boxford |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(Norton) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |||
Hingham |
|
|
|
|
|||
(Smith) |
|
|
|
Wenham |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(Norton) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Concord |
|
|
|
Sturbridge |
|
|
|
(Harris) |
|
|
|
(Osterud and |
|
|
|
|
Fuller) |
||||||
Brookline |
|
|
|
Deerfield |
|
|
|
(Linzner) |
|
|
|
(Temkin-Greene |
|||
|
and Swedlund) |
||||||
Hampton, N.H. |
|
|
|
Greenfield |
|
|
|
(Kilbourne) |
|
|
|
(Idem) |
|||
Windsor, Conn. |
|
|
|
Shelburne |
|
|
|
(Auwers) |
|
|
|
(Idem) |
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|
Nantucket |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(Byers) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |||
Plymouth |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(Demos) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Boston elites |
|
|
|
Bristol, R.I. |
|
|
|
(Simmons) |
(Demos) |
|
|
|
Sources include Kenneth Lockridge, “The Population of Dedham, Massachusetts, 1636-1676,” ECHR 19 (1966), 331; Greven, Four Generations, 34; Smith, “Population, Family and Society in Hingham,” 55; Harris, “Concord,” 89; Linzner, “Brookline,” 24; Nancy Osterud and John Fulton, “Family Limitation and Age at Marriage: Fertility Decline in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, 1730-1850,” PS 30 (1976), 481-94; Susan Norton, “Population Growth in Colonial America: A Study of Ipswich, Mass.,” PS 25 (1971), 445; Patricia O’Malley, “‘Beloved Wife’ and ‘Inveigled Affections’: Marriage Patterns in Early Rowley, Massachusetts,” in Robert M. Taylor and Ralph J. Crandall, eds., Generations and Change (Macon, Ga., 1986), 181-202; Demos, A Little Commonwealth, 193; idem, “Families in Colonial Bristol, Rhode Island,” WMQ3 25 (1968), 55; unpublished data by Lawrence Kilbourne on Hampton, Susan Simmons on Boston elites, Edward Byers and Carol Shuchman on Nantucket.