[Footnote 644: The judge was almost tempted to bargain with his intended spouse for affectionate treatment. Speaking with "Mr. Dan Oliver," Feb. 2, 1722, he says: "Told, I hoped she was not so Attached to her children, but that she would carry it Tenderly to me; or else there would soon be an end of an Old Man. I said, I su[=p]osed they would clothe her, Answered, no question; And would be Tender of me."--_Ibid._, 302. On Sewall's courtships and New England wedding customs see HOWE, _The Puritan Republic_, chap. v, 111 ff.] VI. SELF-GIFTA, CLANDESTINE CONTRACTS, AND FORBIDDEN DEGREES The Separatist and the Puritan, regarding marriage as "purely a civil contractual relation," logically conceded that "the parties may marry themselves as they may make other contracts." But, "like all other civil institutions, this may be regulated by municipal law. It should therefore be sanctioned by the civil authority;" and for that reason persons may be fined for marrying without observing the forms prescribed by the statutes.[645] Nevertheless such legal restraint, however wholesome and reasonable, seems to have been resented by the more radical as an interference with individual liberty; though doubtless the disregard of the marriage laws was in part due to the rudeness of an early society. [Footnote 645: SHIRLEY, "Early Jurisprudence of New Hamp.," _Procds. New Hamp. Hist. Soc._ (1876-84), 307.] Instances of self-betrothal and self-_gifta_ seem to have been frequent in all the New England colonies. Thus, in 1678, Edward Wanton was fined £10 by the general court of Plymouth for "marrying himself," and Thomas Boarman paid £5 for the same offense. In 1684 William Gifford was fined fifty shillings for contracting a "disorderly marriage."[646] More interesting is the case of Edward Perry, on Cape Cod, who appears to have been guilty of self-marriage in 1654. For this he was fined £5; and Thomas Tupper, of Sandwich, for neglecting to perform the ceremony, "was 'disallowed' by the court from solemnizing marriages in future."[647] Then "magistrate Prence, when passing by on his return from court to Eastham, was to marry him rightly. Perry refused to be re-married, and was fined £5 more, with the discouraging notice that his fine would be repeated every three months till he complied."[648] [Footnote 646: For these cases see GOODWIN, _Pilgrim Republic_, 599.] [Footnote 647: FREEMAN, _Hist. of Cape Cod_, I, 208.] [Footnote 648: GOODWIN, _loc. cit._]