[Footnote 388: "A good story is told of Wm. Wanton--governor of Rhode Island, 1732-3--in Deane's Scituate. Before his removal from that place to Newport, prior to 1700, he had married Ruth Bryant, daughter of a Congregational deacon. Wanton's family were Quakers. Religious objections were made to the match on both sides. He said, 'Friend Ruth, let us break from this unreasonable bondage--_I_ will give up _my_ religion, and _thou_ shalt _thine_, and we will go over to the Church of England, _and go to the devil together_.' They fulfilled this resolution so far, says our author, as to go to the Church of England, and marrying and adhering to the Church of England during life."--ARNOLD, _Hist. of Rhode Island_, II, 113, note.] [Footnote 389: GREEN, _Short Hist. of Rhode Island_, 152, 153; ARNOLD, _Hist. of Rhode Island_, II, 113. By the code of 1647 marriages were to be celebrated ("confirmed") before the "head officer of the towne": STAPLES, _Proceedings of the First Gen. Assembly, 1647_ (Providence, 1847), 47, 48; _R.I. Col. Rec._, I, 187. On the head officer see HOWARD, _Local Const. Hist._, I, 88, 89. According to the law of 1663 the intentions are to be published, and "afterwards before one of the Gener^{ll} officers shall they be married": in RIDER'S reprint of the _Laws and Acts_ (1705), 12. But in RIDER'S reprint of _The Charter and the Laws_ (1719), 12, it is declared lawful for "any Assistant, Justice of the Peace, or Warden" to perform the ceremony. The act cited is one of a group dated 1662; and it appears to be a modification of the law just cited from the collection of 1705. The act of 1701 reserves the right of Quakers and members of the Church of England to be married according to their own usage: RIDER, _Charter and Laws_ (1719), 48; also in _Acts and Laws_ (Newport, 1730), 44, 46.] [Footnote 390: "This requirement was sufficiently answered when spectators were present; and usually marriages were solemnized at the home of the bride."--ATWATER, _Hist. of the Colony of New Haven_, 363.] [Footnote 391: _New Haven Col. Rec._, II, 599, 600.] [Footnote 392: The civil-marriage form is recognized by the code of 1650: see TRUMBULL, _Blue Laws_, 167; COOK, in _Atlantic Monthly_, LXI, 351; SANFORD, _Hist. of Conn._, 125; and HOLLISTER, _Hist. of Conn._, I, 438. By the code of 1673 no person is to solemnize marriages "but the Magistrates, or such other as the General Court shall Authorize in such places where no Magistrate is near": see the reprint of _The Book of the General Laws of 1673_ (Hartford, 1865), 46.]