Promiscuous intercourse of the sexes was almost universal.

In a report of the Antigua Branch Association of the Society for advancing the Christian Faith in the British West Indies, (for 1836,) the following statements are made: "The number of marriages in the six parishes of the island, in the year 1835, the first entire year of freedom, was 476; all of which, excepting about 50, were between persons formerly slaves.

The total number of marriages between slaves solemnized in the Church during the nine years ending December 31, 1832, was 157; in 1833, the last entire year of slavery, it was 61." Thus it appears that the whole number of marriages during _ten years_ previous to emancipation (by far the most favorable ten years that could have been selected) was but _half_ as great as the number for a single year following emancipation! The Governor, in one of our earliest interviews with him, said, "the great crime of this island, as indeed of all the West India Colonies, has been licentiousness, but we are certainly fast improving in this particular." An aged Christian, who has spent many years in the island, and is now actively engaged in superintending several day schools for the negro children, informed us that there was not _one third_ as much concubinage as formerly.

This he said was owing mainly to the greater frequency of marriages, and the cessation of late night work on the estates, and in the boiling houses, by which the females were constantly exposed during slavery.

Now they may all be in their houses by dark.
Formerly the mothers were the betrayers of their daughters, encouraging them to form unhallowed connections, and even _selling_ them to licentious white and colored men, for their own gain.