What has just been said regarding South Carolina applies equally to Georgia, whose territory had belonged to South Carolina since the original grant of 1663. But the charter issued to James Oglethorpe and his associates in 1732 expressly abrogates the laws of the parent colony,[796] and gives the power to enact new laws to the corporation of associates as trustees for the colony. The Episcopal system was introduced, but it was not rigidly enforced. The charter to Oglethorpe "guaranteed liberty of conscience to all except papists,[797] and the spirit exhibited in ecclesiastical legislation was one of toleration. Hence a considerable Puritan element was drawn to the Colony."[798] The preamble of the act of 1785 shows that it had been the custom for justices, ministers, and "preachers of the gospel" to solemnize marriage. Such marriages are made valid and the practice legalized for the future.[799] [Footnote 796: With an exception relating to military power: POORE, _Charters_, I, 373, 374. Georgia was made a royal province in 1751; but the policy of toleration was maintained: HOLMES, _Annals_, II, 45; STORY, _Commentaries_, I, 102. In early days the province suffered the usual evils from scarcity of women: _Coll. Georgia Hist. Soc._, II, 105; III, 32, 144.] [Footnote 797: POORE, _Charters_, I, 375.] [Footnote 798: COOK, "Mar. Cel. in Col.," _Atlantic_, LXI, 356.] [Footnote 799: _Digest of the Laws of Georgia_ (Philadelphia, 1801), 314.] It appears, then, that throughout the southern colonies matrimonial legislation was tending in the same direction. Everywhere, except in Maryland, the optional civil ceremony was legally or practically recognized, though under various restrictions. Marriage was already a civil contract of mutual partnership; and, notwithstanding an occasional invalidating clause for neglect of the prescribed forms, the common-law marriage by mutual consent was probably valid, though, so far as it appears, the records of the provincial courts are almost entirely silent on that question.[800] In short, in its principal elements, throughout the South matrimonial law had reached or was strongly tending toward the existing American type.