Page:An English Garner Ingatherings from Our History and Literature (Volume 1 1877).pdf/397

 Chapter VII.

A return to the rest of the English, with some further ''accounts of them. And some further discourse of the Authors course of life.''

Let us now make a visit to the rest of our countrymen; and see how they do.

They reckoning themselves in for their lives, in order to their future settlement, were generally disposed to marry; concerning which we have had many and sundry disputes among ourselves: as particularly, concerning the lawfulness of matching with heathens and idolaters, and whether the Cingalese marriage were any better than living in whoredom, there being no Christian priests to join them together; and it being allowed by their laws, to change their wives and take others, as often as they pleased.

But these cases we solved for our own advantage, after this manner, "that we were but flesh and blood;" and that it is said "it is better to marry than to burn;" and that, "as far as we could see, we were cut off from all marriages anywhere else, even for our lifetime, and therefore that we must marry with these or with none at all: and when the people in Scripture were forbidden to take wives of strangers, it was then when they might intermarry with their own people, and so no necessity lay on them; and that when they could not, there are examples in the Old Testament upon record, that they took wives of the daughters of the land, wherein they dwelt."

These reasons being urged, there were none among us, that could object ought against them: especially if those that were minded to marry women here did take them for their wives during their lives; as some of them say they do, and most of the women they marry are such as do profess themselves to be Christians.