A History of Matrimonial Institutions, Vol. 2 of 3Howard, George Elliott
History
A History of Matrimonial Institutions, Vol. 2 of 3
Howard, George Elliott
Families; Marriage -- History
That there was something grotesque in using the solemn ritual of
the church in the marriage of slaves was faintly realized. In 1748
Rev. Noah Hobart "challenged the want of flexibility in the forms
of the Liturgy of the Church of England, as tending 'to introduce
irreligion and profaneness'--especially in the use of the office
of Matrimony for marriages contracted between slaves." The use of
the phrase "with all my worldly goods I thee endow, in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" he regarded as
particularly sacrilegious, although the prayers employed by the
Congregational minister at slave weddings were equally profane.[702]
[Footnote 702: MOORE, _Slave Marriages in Mass._: DAWSON'S _Hist.
Mag._, 2d series, V, 136, reprinting HOBART'S _Serious Address
to the Episcopal Separation in New England_ (1748), 77, 78;
and quoting in reply DR. JOHN BEACH'S _Calm and Dispassionate
Vindication_, 39, who in logic characteristic of the age argues
in "substance that as a Slave was capable of being made free,
and so of having property in a large estate, there was no
profaneness" in the use of the phrase mentioned.]
In at least one instance a sufficiently flexible special ritual was
composed which very frankly discloses the idea of its author, and
probably also that of a majority of his brethren, as to the real
character of a slave marriage. According to Moore, it was discovered
at Northampton, N. H., in 1868, by Mr. J. Wingate Thornton; and
it was prepared and used by Rev. Samuel Phillips, of Andover,
Mass., whose ministry there, beginning in 1710 and ending with his
death in 1771, was a prolonged and eminently distinguished service
of more than half of the eighteenth century." This "Form of a
Negro-Marriage" is a decidedly safe and practical service from the
master's point of view. The minister says:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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