[Footnote 728: SPOTSWOOD, _Letters_, I, 128 n. 90; BEVERLEY, _Hist. of Va._, 211; HENING, _op. cit._, III, 45; VI, 84, 85, etc. Earlier the marriage fee was 2 shillings: _ibid._, I, 160, 184.] [Footnote 729: _Acts of the Gen. Assembly_, 203.] Marriages within the "levitical degrees prohibited by the laws of England" were forbidden;[730] and curious and stringent regulations concerning the secret marriage of indented servants were made. Thus in 1642-43, since "many great abuses & much detriment hath been found to arise both against the law of God and likewise to the service of manye masters of families in the collony" by secret marriage of servants, it is provided that a man servant contracting a secret marriage with a maid servant shall serve an additional year after the completion of the term of indenture; while a maid servant so offending is to double the time of her service. A freeman for secretly marrying an indented maid servant must double the value of her service and pay a fine of five hundred pounds of tobacco to the parish where the offense is committed.[731] The unjust discrimination against female servants was done away with in 1657-58.[732] A still more rigorous law was passed in 1661-62. The minister is prohibited under a penalty of ten thousand pounds of tobacco from either publishing the banns or celebrating the contract of marriage without a certificate of consent from the masters of both the persons, who are each to suffer the penalty of a year's extra service, as before; while the freeman clandestinely marrying a servant is to pay to the master fifteen hundred pounds of tobacco or a year's service.[733] But in 1748 for the offending parties the year's extra service is commuted at "five pounds current money."[734] It may be noted that in this Virginia legislation there is no provision like that of Plymouth for compelling the consent of stubborn masters. [Footnote 730: HENING, _op. cit._, IV, 245 (1730). Marriage with a deceased wife's sister is forbidden: _ibid._, XII, 689 (1788).] [Footnote 731: _Ibid._, I, 252, 253.] [Footnote 732: _Ibid._, 438. By this act either the man or the woman suffers a penalty of one year's extra service.] [Footnote 733: _Ibid._, II, 114. The penalty for a freeman was made 1,000 pounds of tobacco in 1705: _ibid._, III, 444.] [Footnote 734: _Ibid._, VI, 83, 84.] The matrimonial history of Virginia begins with the nuptials of Ann Burras and John Laydon, celebrated in 1608.[735] A few years later, in Dale's code, appear the first marital regulations, though to what extent they were ever carried out must remain uncertain. Every minister is required to "keepe a faithful and true Record, or Church Booke, of all Christnings, Marriages, and deaths of such our people, as shall happen within their Fort, or Fortresse, Townes or Towne at any time, vpon the burthen of a neglectfull conscience, and vpon paine of losing their Entertainment."[736]