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.ÿþtwenty-one years of age had to secure the permission of parents or guardian.Licensing or banns also sought to protect against marriages that might violatethe rules of consanguinity.To this concern with blood relationship, Virginiacivil authorities, like their counterparts in other colonies into which Africanslaves had been introduced, added prohibitions of racial intermarriage.68Weddings in Virginia were a monopoly of the Anglican church.69 Parsonsalone could officiate.Growing dissenter presence made manifest what law andcustom had long dictated.A case in point is provided by Col.James Gordon sdiary entry for 9 June 1759: This day my daughter Anne was married toMr.Rich.Chichester about 11 o clock forenoon, had a very agreeable com-pany viz: Col.Conway, Mrs.C.& her children, Col.Tayloe, Dr.Robert-son &his wife, Mrs.Chin, Mr.Armistead, Mr.D ale Carter &his wife.The Parson, Mr.Currie, went off first. 70 Gordon, the prominent Presbyterianmerchant planter, had to engage David Currie, the minister of Christ ChurchParish (Lancaster), to perform the ceremony.The Gordon notation, circumspect as it is, casts additional light on Virginiawedding practices.The time of the ceremony ( about11o clock forenoon ) metthe canonical requirement that weddings be performed between the hours ofeight and twelve in the morning.71 Gordon s entry is less clear about where thewedding took place, but most likely it was in the colonel s home and not at theparish church.This appears to have been the prevalent practice among gentryfamilies.It is also evident that the wedding was the occasion of a family cele-bration.Most important to the father was a listing of guests in attendancethe cream of local society.In recording the early departure of Parson Curriefrom the festivities, Gordon confirmed a longstanding strain in relations be-tween the two men as well perhaps the discomfiture at having to turn to theAnglican parson to perform the ceremony.Parsons presiding at home weddings were responding to local pressures andcircumstances at the expense of canonical purity.Church rubrics were explicit:weddings were to be performed not in any private Place but in a church whereone of the parties dwelleth and in the time of Divine Service anotherrequirement that the Saturday wedding of Gordon s daughter circumvented.72The extent to which Virginia weddings deviated from these canonical andPrayer Book rules cannot be determined, but parish registers offer some clues.Bartholomew Yates Sr., in Christ Church Parish (Middlesex) between1704 and1733, faithfully observed the prohibition of weddings during Lent and withfew exceptions did not marry during the Advent season.Of the 558 weddingsrecorded for these years, only 13 (2 percent) had March dates.Monthly distri-.Rites of Passage 223
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