Parents from South Holland, on the other hand, strictly watched their daughters. Lovers often resorted to ruse to meet one another, something that might be helped by bribing the maidservant, for example. If no servant was available, then the suitor might leave a flower, bouquet or wreath on the front door. Social customs dictated certain responses to a suitor's advances. Apparently the residents of New Amsterdam were lax in keeping the laws of the Fatherland.
Records show that the betrothal was very binding in the eyes of the law.
A promise of marriage also involved the exchange of a pledge, usually in the form of a ring or a coin. If the engagement were broken after the publication of the banns, the punishment could be severe. In order to publish the banns, the couple had to have parental consent, and also had to have parental consent for the marriage to be legal. In 1648, a case occurred which shows this. William Harck, Sheriff of Flushing, married Joan Smith, without her parents' consent, to Thomas Nuton, widower.