[Footnote 735: On this marriage see WINSOR, _Nar. and Crit. Hist._, III, 132; HOLMES, _Annals_, I, 162; CAMPBELL, _Hist. of Va._, 65.] [Footnote 736: WILLIAM STRACHEY, _For the Colony in Virginea Britannea, Lawes Diuine, Morall, and Martiall_, 11: in FORCE, _Tracts_, III.] The statutes of the Dominion are silent as to the celebration of pre-contract or espousals; and the penalties prescribed for adultery and fornication are in marked contrast with those of early New England. Persons were presented for these offenses by the church wardens at the annual visitations;[737] and the culprits were punished by fines or whipping.[738] Nor do the laws concern themselves with the regulation of courtship and "sinful dalliance" in New England style; although a proclamation of Governor Wyatt shows that his excellency was willing to supply the law's defect in this regard. He announces that "every minister should give notice in his church that what man _or woman_ soever should use any word or speech tending to a contract of marriage to two several persons at one time," such "as might entangle or _breed scruples_ in _their consciences_, should for such their offense, either undergo _corporal correction_, or be punished by fine or otherwise, according to _the quality of the person so offending_."[739] [Footnote 737: HENING, _op. cit._, I, 240, 310, etc. The following curious judgment was rendered by the governor and council sitting as a court in 1627: "Upon the presentment of the church-wardens of Stanley Hundred for suspicion of incontinency betweene Henry Kinge and the wife of John Jackson, they lyinge together in her husband's absence; it is thought fitt that the sayd Kinge shall remove his habitation from her, and not to use or frequent her company until her husband's return."--_Ibid._, 145, note. This may be compared with the following record of the same court in 1631: "Because Edw. Grymes lay with Alice West he gives security not to marry any woman till further order from the Governor and Council."--_Ibid._, 551.] [Footnote 738: _Ibid._, 433; III, 74, 139, 361; _Acts of the Gen. Assembly_, 287. The first representative assembly, which met at Jamestown in the summer of 1619, enacted, "Against excesse in apparell that every man be cessed in the church for all publique contributions, if he be unmarried according to his owne apparell, if he be married according to his owne and his wives, or either of their apparell."--_Col. Rec. of Va._ (ed. BANCROFT), 20. The same assembly provided that "All Ministers in the Colony shall once a year, namely in the moneth of Marche, bring to the Secretary of Estate a true account of all Christenings, burials and marriages, upon paine, if they faill, to be censured for their negligence by the Governor and Counsell of Estate; likewise where there be no ministers, that the comanders of the place doe supply the same duty,"--_Ibid._, 26.]