However, they emphasized the avoidance of temptation through Bible study, sermons, laws, and when necessary, after the fact, punishments. But judging from the records, it is apparent that sex between single men and women was quite common and in the majority of known cases, the discovery of pregnancy was followed by marriage. If there was a previous contract of marriage between an accused couple the penalty was often less. However, when the father was unknown, it was customary for midwives to get the mother in her weakness, at the time of childbirth, to disclose the name of the father. Efforts were made to get the father to marry the mother.
Punishment seems harsh, and there was a double standard and bigotry.
She fainted after the first whipping and the second one was cancelled. She was sentenced to be whipped 30 stripes unless she confess. Hannah Tubbs was fined five pounds or 30 stripes for agreeing with James Brown, an Indian, to commit adultery with him. In Stratton's book, he covers the first seven decades of the existence of the colony in chronological presentation, but with emphasis on the arrival of settlers, both from Holland and England, and on the movement of those settlers once they had arrived in New England. This book is invaluable to the genealogist whose roots go back to these settlers.