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"An act for the more effectuall suppressing the severall sins and offences of
swaring, cursing, profaineing Gods holy name, Sabbath abuseing, drunkenness,
ffornication, and adultery" (1691)
In this law, "An act for the more effectuall suppressing the severall
sins and offences of swaring, cursing, profaineing Gods holy name, Sabbath abuseing,
drunkenness, ffornication, and adultery," passed in its April 1691 session, the General Assembly addressed the
perennial problems of swearing, drunkenness, and extramarital sex. The act would be
revised in the 1696 session.
WHEREAS notwithstanding the many good
laws before this time made and still in force prohibiting swearing, curseing,
prophaneing Gods holy name,
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Sabbath
abuseing, drunkenness, fornication and adultery, perticularly the 13th act of
assembly, entituled, Church wardens to make presentments, the 9th act of assembly
entituled, Sundays not to be prophained, with severall other acts against the
aforesaid crimes and vices, partly for want of due observation of the same laws, have
not produced the desired effect, and partly for the imperfection that is found and
doth appeare in them in not directing what method shall be followed to bring the
offenders to condign punishment, and for want of sufficient penalties being appointed
in the said lawes; and as the said acts and statutes were at the time of makeing
them, thought to be very good and beneficiall to the commonwealth (as all of them yet
are) so as if the substance of as many of the said lawes as are necessary to be
continued, shall be digested and reduced into one sole law and statute, and in the
same a method prescribed for the punishment of offenders with an account of what
penalties the offenders therein shall incur, there is good hope that it will come to
pass that the same law, being duly executed, will suppress the aforementioned vices,
reforme our lives, and be a means that the blessings of Almighty God be showred down
upon us; forasmuch therefore as all swareing, curseing and prophaining Gods holy
name, is forbidden by the word of God, Bee it enacted by their
majesties leiutenant governour, councell and burgesses of this present general
assembly, and the authority thereof, and it is hereby enacted That no person
or persons whatsoever shall from henceforth swear, curse, or prophaine Gods holy
name, and if any person or persons shall offend herein, and shall thereof be
convicted by the oath of two witnesses, or by confession of the party, then every
such offender shall for every time soe offending, forfeit and pay the summ of one
shilling; and forasmuch as nothing is more acceptable to God then the true and
sincere service and worship of him according
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to his holy will, and that the holy keeping of the Lords day is a
principall part of the true service of God, which in very many places of this
dominion hath been, and is now prophained and neglected, by a disorderly sort of
people, Bee it enacted by their majesties leiutenant Governour,
Councell and Burgesses of this present General Assembly, and the authority
thereof, and it is hereby enacted, That there shall be no meetings,
assemblies, or concourse of people out of their own parishes on the Lords day, and
that no person or persons whatsoever shall travell upon the said day, and that no
other thing or matter whatsoever be done on that day which tends to the prophanation
of the same, but that the same be kept holy in all respects, upon pain that every
person and persons so offending and being convicted as aforesaid shall loose and
forfeit twenty shillings.
And whereas that loathsom and odious sin of drunkenness is of too common use within
this dominion, being the root and foundation of many other enormous sins, as blood
shed, stobbing, murther, swearing, fornication, adultery and such like, to the great
dishonor of God and of this dominion, the overthrow of many good acts and manuall
trades, the disableing of divers workmen, and the generall impoverishing of many of
their majesties good subjects, abusively wasting the good creatures of God. Bee it enacted by their majesties leiutenant governour, councell and
burgesses of this generall assembly, and the authority thereof, and it is hereby
enacted, That all and every person and persons who shall from henceforth be
drunk, and of the same offence of drunkenness be lawfully convicted as aforesaid
shall for every such offence forfeit and pay ten shillings, and if the offender or
offenders of any, or of all the aforesaid vices or crimes be not able to pay the said
fines and forfeitures aforementioned, then every offender or offenders therein, shall
be committed to the stocks for every offence, there to be and remaine for the space
of three full hours; and whereas fornication and adultery are two filthy and greivous
sins and offences as well against the law of God, as of the law of man, Bee it enacted by their majesties leiutenant governour, councill and
burgesses of this generall assembly and the authority hereof, and it is hereby
enacted, That
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every person
and persons committing fornication, and being convicted as aforesaid, shall for every
time so offending forfeit and pay the summ of ten pounds sterling, and that every
person and persons committing adultery, and being convicted as aforesaid, shall for
every time so offending forfeit and pay the sume of twenty pounds sterling, and if
the offender or offenders of any of the aforesaid two sins and offences of
fornication and adultery be not able to pay the fines and forfeitures for the said
offences mentioned, then every offender and offenders therein shall for every time so
offending receive on his, her, or their, bare backs, thirty lashes well laid on, or
three moneths imprisonment without bail or maineprise; and whereas many inhabitants
of this countrey of dissolute and ill lives and conversations entertain many times in
their houses women of ill names and reputation, suspected of incontenency or by other
indirect meanes provide for the maintenance of such women whose company they
frequent, Bee it enacted by their majesties leiutenant governour,
councell and burgesses of this generall assembly and the authority thereof, and it
is hereby enacted, That every person and persons who shall so harbour,
entertaine or provide for the maintenance of such women or women, or frequent her or
their company, or the company of any other lewd, after publique admonition to avoid
the same, given by the minister and Church wardens, by and with the consent of the
vestrey and vestryes of the parish or parishes wherein such person or persons shall
dwel, and in case there be no minister then the Church wardens of the same, by the
consent aforesaid, shall forfeit and pay for every time it shall be proved, that he
or they have been in company of such woman or women after such admonition as
aforesaid, as if he or they had really been convicted of adultery, and every woman or
women guilty of the same offence shall receive the like punishment. And be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, and it is hereby enacted, That
the grand juries of every respective county within this dominion do twice yearly make
presentments against the offenders of this law, to the court of the county where the
offence shall be committed, and that the justices of
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the same punish the offenders according to this act, all which said
forfeiture shall be divided into three equall parts, one third thereof towards the
building and repairing the Church or Chappel of ease in the parish where the said
offence shall be committed one third towards the maintenance of the minister of the
same, and the other third for him or them that will sue or informe for the same by
bill, plaint, or information, or action of debt in any court of record within this
dominion, in which no essoign, protection or wager of law shall be allowed.