It is therefore strange at first glance that a thorough-going civil-marriage law should not have been introduced in New Netherland from the beginning. The laws of the mother-country, even after 1656, varied considerably in details among the different provinces. In their content they generally rested on the basis of the later Roman statutes.[801] From the desire to check the evils of clandestine contracts, in many instances rigorous measures had been adopted. Usually parental consent, often publication of banns, was made essential to a valid marriage.[802] The laws of Guelderland were especially severe;[803] and these according to Fernow, "naturally prevailed" in New Netherland; for a "majority of the early settlers" came from that province. "In Guelderland," he declares, "a marriage was void, if the _express_ consent of the father, or if dead of the mother had not been obtained for the marriage of a son. With regard to daughters the law was still more rigorous; even a marriage, entered into by a girl with parental consent, did not emancipate her from parental authority, if she was still under age at her husband's death: she had to place herself again under the guardianship of her father or mother. Neither were parents obliged to give before a Court of Justice any reasons in case they refused consent. This law had its foundation in the Codex Justinianus."[804] [Footnote 801: O'CALLAGHAN, _Introduction to Names of Persons for Whom Marriage Licenses Were Issued_, p. iii.] [Footnote 802: FRIEDBERG, _Eheschliessung_, 478 ff., 485 ff., gives the details, citing the Dutch authorities.] [Footnote 803: Compare the summaries of FRIEDBERG, _op. cit._, 487, 488, 491.] [Footnote 804: FERNOW, _Doc. Rel. to Col. Hist. of N. Y._, XIV, 243, note.] In all respects except the celebration optional civil or ecclesiastical marriage was sanctioned in New Netherland. It is doubtless safe to assume that during the early years of the Dutch colony banns and parental consent, probably according to the law of Guelderland, were required; but legally, so far as the evidence at hand shows, the covenant had to be solemnized by a minister with religious rites. The first legislation by the local authorities appears to have been enacted only ten years before the first establishment of English rule. The occasion was the violation of the "custom of our Fatherland" in the publication of banns by the magistrates of Gravesend, as appears from the following letter addressed to them by Peter Stuyvesant:[805] "Worthy and dear friends.