From the beginning the Quakers seem to have been allowed to solemnize marriage in their own way; and this they contrived to do even after the English forms were prescribed by statute. According to Hawks, the "Friends were entitled, by express grant from the proprietors, thus to adhere to their peculiar usage; for they had declared to them as an inducement to emigrate, 'there is full and free liberty of conscience granted to all, so that no man is to be molested or called in question for matters of religious concern; but every one to be obedient to the civil government, worshipping God after his own way.'"[767] The records of the monthly meeting in North Carolina reveal the Friends using the same simple rites as elsewhere in the colonies. The betrothed man and woman proclaimed their own banns, "passing the meeting" twice as in Pennsylvania. Thus at a monthly meeting of Friends "in Pasquotank y^e 11^{th} of y^e first month 1707/8," held "as their manner is, to Inspect into y^e affairs of y^e Church," Zachariah Nixon and Elizabeth Symons appear the "second time & declare their Intentions of taking Each Other in Marriage and being approved by the said meeting are left to their liberty to take each other."[768] [Footnote 767: HAWKS, _op. cit._, II, 154. These are nearly the words of the charter of 1665: POORE, _op. cit._, II, 1397. _Cf._ also WEEKS, _op. cit._, 244, 245.] [Footnote 768: "Records of the Friends Monthly Meeting in Pasquotank Precinct": in _N. C. Col. Rec._, I, 688. There is a similar entry in 1711: _ibid._, 813. Two years earlier we find a "precinct" court--about the only part of the machinery of the "Fundamental Constitutions" which was ever made use of (HOWARD, _Local Const. Hist._, I, 129)--sentencing for adultery: "Ordered that Ellinor Mearle be punished by receiving Ten Stripes on her Back well laid & pay cost also Ex[=o]."--Records of Perquiman's Precinct Court, in _N. C. Col. Rec._, I, 626 (1705).]