_
Among the regulations suggested by George Fox, and adopted by his
followers, it was determined that persons, belonging to the society,
should not intermarry with those of other religious professions. Such an
heterogeneous union was denominated a _mixed marriage_; and persons,
engaging in such mixed marriages, were to be disowned.
People of other denominations have charged the Quakers with a more than
usually censurable pride, on account of their adoption of this law. They
consider them as looking down upon the rest of their fellow-creatures,
as so inferior or unholy, as not to deign or to dare to mix in alliance
with them, or as looking upon them in the same light as the Jews
considered the Heathen, or the Greeks the Barbarian world. And they have
charged them also with as much cruelty as pride, on the same account. "A
Quaker, they say, feels himself strongly attached to an accomplished
woman; but she does not belong to the society. He wishes to marry, but
he cannot marry her on account of its laws. Having a respect for the
society, he looks round it again, but he looks round it in vain. He
finds no one equal to this woman; no one, whom he could love so well. To
marry one in the society, while he loves another out of it better, would
be evidently wrong. If he does not marry her, he makes the greatest of
all sacrifices, for he loses that which he supposes would constitute a
source of enjoyment to him for the remainder of his life.
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