[Footnote 806: O'CALLAGHAN, _Laws and Ordinances_, 152, 153. For this ordinance see also _New York Colonial MSS._, XII, 40; and compare _ibid._, IV, 456; V, 197; VIII, 647. Consult WEBSTER, _Opinion on the Law of Marriage prevailing in the Colony of N. Y._, 1772, 19, 20 (Lauderdale Peerage Case), who discusses these ordinances.] This important measure was supplemented by another four years later. The preamble recites that it had become common for betrothed persons to put off marrying for a long time after the proclamation of their banns, "which is directly in contravention of, and contrary to the excellent order and customs of our Fatherland." Therefore it is ordered that thenceforward all persons must be married within one month after publication, unless they can give a good excuse.[807] Light is thrown on the real motive for the adoption of this act by its provision that no man and woman are henceforth to live together until lawfully married. It seems to have been the custom, in too many instances, for betrothed couples whose banns had been asked the first time to begin living together as if already man and wife. They looked upon themselves as at least half married; and we are thus confronted by a state of affairs strikingly similar to that which we have found existing in New England in consequence of the laws governing pre-contract. Doubtless couples through indifference, the refusal to fulfil the contract on the part of an unscrupulous lover, or for other reasons, were now and then led to protract the irregular marital relation beyond the completion of the term prescribed for the publication of banns. Moreover, as in New England, the custom of queesting or bundling imported from the old home may have proved a snare for the unwary feet of the young men and maidens of New Netherland. Indeed, the practice of bundling has been assigned by New York writers as the proximate cause of the singular provision referred to. "It was one of the ordinances of the time," says Valentine, "that upon an agreement of marriage, the bans should be published from the pulpit three times, before the marriage could be solemnized. Impatient of the delay, however, the youthful couple were often inclined to be satisfied with their moral obligations towards each other, and to waive the immediate fulfillment of the legal ceremony; in the meantime ... the indulgence of cohabitation, then called 'bundling,' was practiced. It was for a long time winked at by the community, but its violence against the tenets of propriety was obvious, and at the time [1656] before spoken of, in which the city authorities resolved to set themselves to the reformation of abuses, this custom came under their prohibatory decrees." There were "those who still maintained its advantageous results, even though the contract of marriage were subsequently violated. The latter instances, it was contended, were comparatively few, and were set off by the increase of population