“They (the country women) generally stand after they come in a great while speechless, and sometimes don’t say a word till they are asked what they want, which I impute to the awe they stand in of the merchants, who they are constantly almost indebted to; and must take that they bring without liberty to choose for themselves; but they serve them as well, making the merchants stay long enough for their pay....”

But even as late as 1780 Samuel Peters states in his General History of Connecticut that he found the restrictions in Connecticut so severe that he was forced to state that “dancing, fishing, hunting, skating, and riding in sleighs on the ice are all the amusements allowed in this colony.”

In Massachusetts for many years in the seventeenth century a wife, in the absence of her husband, was not allowed to lodge men even if they were close relatives.  Naturally such an absurd law was the source of much bickering on the part of magistrates, and many were the amusing tilts when a wife was not permitted to remain with her father, but had to be sent home to her husband, or a brother was compelled to leave his own sister’s house.  Of course, we may turn successfully to Sewall’s Diary for an example:  “Mid-week, May 12, 1714.  Went to Brewster’s.  The Anchor in the Plain; ... took Joseph Brewster for our guide, and went to Town.  Essay’d to be quarter’d at Mr. Knight’s, but he not being at home, his wife refused us."[208] When a judge, himself, was refused ordinary hospitality, we may surmise that the law was rather strictly followed.  But many other rules of the day seem just as ridiculous to a modern reader.  As Weeden in his Economic and Social History of New England says of restrictions in 1650: 

“No one could run on the Sabbath day, or walk in his garden or elsewhere, except reverently to and from meeting.  No one should travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep house, cut hair, or shave on the Sabbath day.  No woman should kiss her child on the Sabbath or fasting day.  Whoever brought cards into the dominion paid a fine of L5.  No one could make minced pies, dance, play cards, or play on any instrument of music, except the drum, trumpet, and jews-harp.

“None under 21 years, nor any not previously accustomed to it, shall take tobacco without a physician’s certificate.  No one shall take it publicly in the street, or the fields, or the woods, except on a journey of at least ten miles, or at dinner.  Nor shall any one take it in any house in his own town with more than one person taking it at the same time."[209]

We must not, however, reach the conclusion that life in old New England was a dreary void as far as pleasures were concerned.  Under the discussion of home life we have seen that there were barn-raisings, log-rolling contests, quilting and paring bees, and numerous other forms of community efforts in which considerable levity was countenanced.  Earle’s Home Life in Colonial Days copies an account written in 1757, picturing another form of entertainment yet popular in the rural districts: