A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 2 | Page 3

resume in the present volume, I shall begin with that of
Marriage.
The Quakers differ from others in many of their regulations concerning

this custom. They differ also in the manner of the celebration of it. And,
as they differ in these respects, so they experience generally a different
result. The Quakers, as a married, may be said to be a happy, people.
Hence the detailers of scandal, have rarely had it in their power to
promulgate a Quaker adultery. Nor have the lawyers had an opportunity
in our public courts of proclaiming a Quaker divorce.
George Fox suggested many regulations on this subject. He advised,
among other things, when persons had it in contemplation to marry,
that they should lay their intention before the monthly meetings, both
of the men and women. He advised also, that the consent of their
parents should be previously obtained, and certified to these. Thus he
laid the foundation for greater harmony in the approaching union. He
advised again, that an inquiry should be made, if the parties were clear
of engagements or promises of marriage to others, and, if they were not,
that they should be hindered from proceeding. Thus, he cut off some of
the causes of the interruption of connubial happiness, by preventing
uneasy reflections, or suits at law, after the union had taken place. He
advised also, in the case of second marriages, that any offspring
resulting from the former, should have their due rights and a proper
provision secured to them, before they were allowed to be solemnized.
Thus he gave a greater chance for happiness, by preventing mercenary
motives from becoming the causes of the union of husbands and wives.
But George Fox, as he introduced these and other salutary regulations
on the subject of Marriage, so he introduced a new manner of the
celebration of it. He protested against the manner of the world, that is,
against the formal prayers and exhortations as they were repeated, and
against the formal ceremonies, an they were practised by the Parish
Priest. He considered that it was God, who joined man and woman
before the fall; and that in Christian times, or where the man was truly
renovated in heart, there could be no other right or honourable way of
union. Consistently with this view of the subject, he observed, that in
the ancient scriptural times, persons took each other in marriage in the
assemblies of the Elders; and there was no record, from the Book of
Genesis to that of Revelations, of any marriage by a Priest. Hence it
became his new society, as a religious or renovated people, to abandon
apostate usages, and to adopt a manner that was more agreeable to their
new state.

George Fox gave in his own marriage, an example of all that he had
thus recommended to the society. Having agreed with Margaret Fell,
the widow of Judge Fell, upon the propriety of their union as husband
and wife, he desired her to send for her children. As soon as they were
come, he asked them and their respective husbands,[1] "If they had any
thing against it, or for it, desiring them to speak? and they all severally
expressed their satisfaction therein. Then he asked Margaret, if she had
fulfilled and performed her husband's Will to her children? She replied,
the children know that. Whereupon he asked them, whether, if their
mother married, they should not lose by it? And he asked Margaret,
whether she had done any thing in lieu of it, which might answer it to
the children? The children said, she had answered it to them, and
desired him to speak no more about that. He told them, that he was
plain, and that he would have all things done plainly; for he sought not
any outward advantage to himself. So, after he had acquainted the
children with it, their intention of marriage was laid before Friends,
both privately and publicly;" and afterwards a meeting being appointed
for the accomplishment of the marriage, in the public Meeting-house at
Broad Mead, in Bristol, they took each other in marriage, in the plain
and simple manner as then practised, and which he himself had
originally recommended to his followers.
[Footnote 1: G. Fox's Journal, Vol. 2. p. 135.]
The regulations concerning marriage, and the manner of the celebration
of it, which obtained in the time of George Fox, nearly obtain among
the Quakers of the present day.
When marriage is agreed upon between two persons, the man and the
woman, at one of the monthly meetings, publicly declare their intention,
and ask leave to proceed. At this time their parents, if living, must
either appear, or send certificates to signify their consent. This being
done, two men are appointed by the men's meeting, and