Documents Relating to the Colonial History of NJ, Vol. 22 SOME PECULIAR MARRIAGE CUSTOMS. The popular application of certain well known principles of law often leads to quaint and curious customs, and marriage is no exception to such interpretation of the law. By the common law "the marriage is an absolute gift of all chattels personals (of the wife) in possession of her own right, whether the husband survive the wife or not."1 Conversely, "a husband was to be charged for all debts of his wife, dum solo."2 These laws led to a peculiar custom in England, which was transplanted to America, and was practiced in New Jersey, as appears by the following entry in our public records: "Thomas Holmes of Woodbridge brickmaker and Lucracia the widow of John Pierce of New York [marriage license issued July 14, 1679] were married at Mr. Moor's house in Woodbridge Thursday 17 July 1679 by James Bollen. "The said Holmes disclaymed any of ye Widow's Estate, but took her naked only her shift."3 The observant Professor Kalm thus entertainingly explains the custom and its practice in New Jersey in the middle of the eighteenth century: "There is a peculiar diverting custom here, in regard to marrying. When a man dies, and leaves his widow in great poverty, or so that she cannot pay all the debts with what little she has left, and that, notwithstanding all that, there is a person who will marry her, she must be married in no other habit than her shift. By that means, she leaves to the creditors of her deceased husband her cloaths, and every thing which they find in the house. But she is not obliged to pay them any thing more, because she has left them all she was worth, even her cloaths, keeping only a shift to cover her, which the laws of the country cannot refuse her. As soon as she is married, and no longer belongs to the deceased husband, she puts on the cloaths which the second has given her. The Swedish clergymen here have often been obliged to marry a woman in a dress which is so little expensive, and so light. This appears from the registers kept in the churches,1 and from the accounts given by the clergymen themselves. I have likewise often seen accounts of such marriages in the English gazettes, which are printed in these colonies; and I particularly remember the following relation: A woman went, with no other dress than her shift, out of the house of her deceased husband to that of her bridegroom, who met her half-way with fine new cloaths, and said, before all who were present, that he lent them his bride, and put them on her with his own hands. It seems, he said, that he lent the cloaths, lest, if he had said he gave them, the creditors of the first husband should come, and take them from her; pretending that she was looked upon as the relict of her first husband, before she was married to the second."2 1 Co. Litt. 351. 2 1 Rol. 321, 1. 25; 3 Mod. 186. 3 E. J. Deeds, Liber No. 3, f. 158.