Marriage and Divorce in the Works of John Milton

In my paper I plan to discuss in a limited yet general way Milton's views on women's role in marriage. I will discuss and cite from Paradise Lost, those books directly connected with Eve and those views on woman's role in relation to men. Also, from Samson Agonistes, the person of Delilah, the sonnet 23, and it is necessary to include his first wife, Mary Powell, in reference to the Divorce Pamphlets. My main point will be that one should not try to read into every work of Milton what one thinks are obvious references to his married life. This would be a very subjective view and not fair to the work itself.

I will include various quotes from Dame Rose Macauley who in her book on Milton, denounces his every passage which deals with women as being anti women. She considers Milton an egotistic monster, of insatiable demands on his wives. All quotations from her will be cited in my discussion followed by book and page citation.

I had begun with a somewhat hazy notion of whether or not it is true that Milton considers women to be inferior, however, her bombastic denouncement of Milton, the overwhelming pity she showered on his poor unfortunate wives and daughters, convinced me that I should take the opposite position and try, hard as it may seem, to defend Milton.

Taking my tongue out of my cheek, of course, a genius such as Milton needs no defense. His works support themselves. And his Divorce Pamphlets will startle no one today, On the contrary, many of their supporters will be women. I would like to touch on his thoughts that man is responsible for woman's actions as is depicted in Paradise Lost. Are women in Milton's works inferior to men? The answer to such a question would be to many people, yes. However, I feel that in answering such a question one must first explain what Milton might mean in placing women lower than men.

In stating something to be inferior one must have some equality in mind. Inferior in relation to what? If we are comparing two equals, and we find that though both are of the same creation, substance, and were given equal opportunity, yet, one is better than the other, that the other is inferior. However, in comparing two objects that are obviously different and appear to have a different function, we in comparing them must use a different set of rules. We must judge each object in relation to its own merit. Obviously, our findings aside from being prejudiced in favor of one or the other that we feel is better, will never be exact, and we will be able to merely list the functions of each and show where one is better suited than the other. My point in all of this is simply an attempt to show that Milton in making his world plan from the highest to the lowest did not, I think, consider an object as being inferior simply because it comes lower in the order of creation. To him, it was perfectly logical that man was greater than woman in the same way that God is greater than man. Man though less than God, is perfect in himself as being created in God's own image. Conversely woman though less than man is perfect in herself as the female part of God's creation. God created Adam in his image, Eve, created by God from Adam's rib, is not completely in God's image, she is one step removed. She is what God ordered for his world, the female partner to the male. She is once removed from God and lacks the closeness to God that Adam feels.

However, there is another angle here, in creating the world, God created first the lesser creatures and then Adam. Eve was created last . This can be seen as giving Eve the distinction of being the best of the creations if we anthropomorphosize God and claim that he improved with practice. Eve, however, unfortunately, had been made from an already created object, Adam's rib.

God had given Adam responsibility over Eve, as much responsibility as God had over Adam. However, both Adam and Eve were given free will, Adam with the advantage of possessing wisdom and discretion according to Milton.

In Paradise Lost we find that man was created from the beginning with some amount of discretion whereas woman was deprived of even this innate masculine trait. Milton seems to feel that woman should be accepted as woman and that qualities that are associated with man, such as wisdom, discretion, intelligence, can hardly be attributed to woman, as they are not part of her nature. In the first books of Paradise Lost, Eve is shown as being a beautiful being, "at least on her bestowed/ Too much of ornament, in outward show/ Elaborate, of inward less exact." (Book VIII, line 537). She is willing for a while to do Adam's desires, and her curiosity has as yet not been aroused. When the angel, Raphael, comes to deliver God's warning to Adam, Eve, as Milton imagines, prepares dinner and is willing to wait until Adam tells her all she needs to know. She is for a while the best of wives. In her Milton presented a genial companion. Adam was lucky in his mate for she had all that Milton could wish for in a wife. She enjoyed having a husband who was so intellectually superior to her and was content to stand by Adam's side like the modern clinging vine. In the first introduction of Adam and Eve, Milton presents things as he perhaps had idealistically hoped that marriage would be. Eve is really unaware or at least not concerned about her status in Eden. She is, perhaps, what Milton thought he wanted in his mate. Yet, Milton, I think purposefully shows this type of overly submissive Eve to show more dramatically Eve's ruin. When women disobey their husband's desires and wish to assert their independence and try to further their own personal status, Satan is surely to have been around.

Milton is here including the events of his first marriage to Mary Powell, who left her husband's side and committed what Milton thought was the same train of sins that Eve had done, and just as Eve caused Adam's downfall, Mary had caused his downfall. Adam forgives Eve, and Milton forgives Mary; however, the forgiveness is given weakly for Milton cannot forgive the original sin. His heart had gone out of his life and his love. Man's responsibility to woman caused Adam to follow Eve's sin, conscious that such an act would lead him to his ruin. Milton forgave Mary but not before he had proclaimed in his Divorce Pamphlets that she had been the road to his ruin. Therefore, woman who should be subservient to man causes man's ruin by committing sin and man because of his responsibility to her cannot see her punished alone and joins her. Man's
responsibility to woman seems to be a prevalent theme in Paradise Lost, but it conflicts with the attitude Milton shows in the Divorce Pamphlets.

In these he states that if a couple are incompatible they should divorce and, yet, Milton does conceive of marriage as something spiritual. One author says that it was because of his idea that marriage is spiritual rather than physical that Milton desires divorce on grounds of incompatibility.

However, it seems to deny his earlier assertion of man's responsibilities.

Women's actions as free will would not permit John Milton the satisfaction of divorcing his wife when after all, it is man's duty to see to it that woman obeys. If a marriage is spiritual,it cannot be dissolved by physical means. The role of free will comes into the picture. Eve though dependent on Adam possesses free will and if she chooses to leave, Adam cannot stop her. Therefore, if a wife wishes to leave her husband she should be allowed to exert her free will and man relieved of his responsibility should be allowed to divorce her and marry again. It seems then that woman's role in relation to man is far from playing the subservient slave, rather Milton envisions a type of relationship where woman is aware of man's superiority but does not have to necessarily submit to man. She possesses free will, her vanity will at times cause her to sin, in so doing she will learn what man has supposedly, innately, discretion.

Woman's main weapon is her virtue, yet Milton does not give her much credit for that. For virtue in women is limited to the standards set by men, whereas according to Milton, man's virtue is divine. She is in other words sharing man's world; she should be interested mainly in keeping house and tending the garden, but she should also be a good listener. She has all that man has but in a limited degree. She can be knowledgeable but not as intellectual as man. She can be virtuous but it is not so important. She has free will but cannot use it wisely. After saying all this I don't know why I continue to believe that Milton is really not so hard on women. I suppose it's because in all that I have read aside from an occasional sneer at women, he is really quite logical in his assertions. Perhaps, his main difficulty is his inability to see things from a women's viewpoint. Yet, his upbringing may have caused his one sided view of the roles of men and women. Having chosen to lead a chaste life, he obviously had little discourse with women. His early poems are filled with nymphs and dancing girls.

It seems he had a most naive view of women and such thinking would obviously lead to disillusionment when he finally faced life and took a realistic step, marriage. I can imagine that after such lofty thinking of women as confidante, playful mistress, beautiful temptress, his own ideas of man's weary and dignified role, what a shock marriage must have seemed to him. Another point which can show that Milton while acknowledging women as the cause of man's ruin is still, however, aware that the blame is shared by both.

Him who to worth in women overtrusting
Lets her will rule; restraint she will not brook,
And left to herself, if evil thence ensue,
She first his weak indulgence will accuse.
Thus fruitless hours, but neither self condemning
And of their vain contest appeared no end

This last line of Book IX: Paradise Lost is most interesting, "but neither self condemning." Milton in his part as narrator is aware that the blame for the event is in both. The final point I wish to make in regards to Milton's views on women is that to read Milton with the obsession that he is pouring out his own personal emotions into his works is doing him an injustice. To read any author with a clear knowledge of his personal life will inevitably lead me to read things into the works which the author perhaps had never intended. Therefore, to show this better I will use Milton's representation of Delilah in Samson Agonistes and the sonnet XXIII: "Methought, I saw my late espoused saint." Also I will refer to one source who is positive that Milton is dead set against women, Dame Rose Macauley.

When first reading Milton I did not get the impression that he was so bitter against women. Of course, I was not then aware of his terrible family life. I found his view on women not startling in the least, many other authors have had similar appraisals of women. However, once reading about his family life, inevitably, as it seems, I find myself comparing his motives for what he is writing with his own life. His characters begin to take shape as acquaintances of his own. With this in mind, I will try to show that Milton if read without any reference to his personal life will prove to be as fair on women as an man can possibly be who has suffered such an experience as he has.

Delilah is shown to be not completely wicked but as a woman who had broken her marriage vows and is, if not repentant, at least, aware that she has sinned. She comes to Samson expecting to be forgiven and once more accepted, however, she is fooled. Milton steps out of character here and does what he probably wished he had done during his first marriage. Unlike Eve Delilah is shunned and actually sworn at and has no hopes of a reconciliation with Samson. Of course, Samson unlike Adam is under public display and his manner must be manly and weakly forgiving. Yet, Samson, is not the Adam who recognized that man was responsible for woman, he is the bitter man who has been sinned against and Delilah merely serves to awaken his appetite for revenge. Delilah enters beautifully dressed as Eve was beautiful. Eve was naked, Delilah was dressed. Delilah has lost the innocence of the original woman. She sinned not because of ignorance as Eve did, but from woman's first sin, vanity, fully aware of good and evil. Like Eve she begs forgiveness. Does Milton consider it woman's role to beg to be forgiven? She will inevitably sin. Milton is simply taking historical data adding his own conception of what happened and exaggerating it like all good dramatist. If Milton had truly considered women to be foul creatures who men were forced to care for he would not have expressed himself so warmly in his sonnet to his late wife. Perhaps Milton had softened and discovered that not all women were to be stereotyped as not all men are similar. Or, perhaps, this is the true Milton who could say of his late wife:Came vested all in white, pure as her mind,Her face was veiled, yet to my fancied sight Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined.

Milton's attitude toward women can be compared to any boy's thoughts on women changing as they age to men with experience. He is different from most boys though for his early years he loved to study and an extremely romantic leaning is evident in his early works. He supposedly lived chaste saving himself for marriage, and found his wife unworthy of his sacrifice, supposedly his virginity. His conception of woman as fair creature to sport with, to talk to, someone to admire, fell flat.

His second marriage must have been more pleasant for he seems to develop a realistic yet pleasant view of women as shown in the person of Delilah and in the person of his late wife. In Delilah, Milton seems to create a person with a mind of her own. Naturally, greed and vanity led her to betray Samson, but she also did it for her country and for her people. She is at peace with herself and not distraught as was Eve after the Fall. Milton finally allows women to take their seat next to man without any chains and man can enjoy woman without being responsible for her every action. In his sonnet to his wife she comes pure in mind with love, sweetness, goodness and tries to embrace him. The picture of a loving wife as remembered by a loving husband. In saying that her mind was pure does he assume pure to mean untouched or ignorant? She is still to him as innocent as when she first came to him as a bride, one assumes.

Dame Rose Macaulay considers that throughout Samson Agonistes, a bitter invective runs against all women and wives. She feels that Milton had not bettered his views on the sex by familiarity with his latest spouse (Milton, 127).

I include the following quote to further illustrate my point that to read Milton with the intention of reading in his works one's own interpretation of his feelings towards something can distort the work. I believe that Macaulay deliberately chose parts of his works to prove her contention that Milton was a blatant woman hater.

Then there is Delilah, the unsatisfactory wife chosen from the enemy's ranks, the embodiment of the treachery of her deplorable sex, in addressing whom Samson seems to hint that Mary Powell, despite the reconciliation and her feign'd remorse, had been as annoying as ever during her subsequent married life. (Milton, 132)

Samson is remorseful over the fact that he has married one of the enemy, he is not, I think, angry with all women. If he had chosen one of his own tribe such a tragedy would not have come upon him. Milton is using historical data as it is although one author states that Samson had never married Delilah. Milton has changed that one fact to better serve his purpose. However, he could never have changed the role of Delilah.

He could exaggerate certain qualities in her but the basic qualities of her role are history. He is depicting a ruined giant, the part of blindness could have been Milton's own feelings put into the mouth of Samson and yet, what better authority to explain a blind man's anger that another blind man? But to insist that Delilah is Mary Powell, proves nothing to the point that Milton despises all women. On the contrary, it merely emphasizes that authors do rely on their own experiences and that the reader can read just about anything he wants into any piece of clever writing.

Does Milton consider women to be inferior? I would answer, No. I would say that he does think of women as being less than men, as man is less than the angels, and the angels

less than God. Milton needed a world order, and woman's place seemed designated as it is in the Bible, to be less than man. There is nothing illogical about this or Milton's

belief of man's responsibility over woman. After all woman is made from man's rib.

She is the last of His creations, the most outwardly beautiful, but is not greater than Adam because being made from his rib, she lacks the complete image of God and for Milton God seemed to skim over her mind.

Man, says Milton, should not be overcome by a pretty face. He should admire woman, but not to the extreme of imagining her to be wise and reasonable. Milton does overplay

woman's role of submissiveness in the open but susceptible to fall and to sin because of her natural vanity. It would be nice if women could be content to merely be content, to stand

by the side of their husbands and to run the household as smoothly as possible. But, says Milton, not all women can do this , if any. He would be one of the first to have claimed

that indeed women have a mind of their own.

Marriage according to Milton should be an idyllic honeymoon with the wife content to be her husbands listening post. Milton being devoted to the more quiet way of living

had obviously made a poor choice in Mary Powell. He had let a pretty face influence him, and as it should be expected, she being the daughter of the enemy, caused her husband's

ruin. A Delilah in the eyes of Milton, perhaps, however, he did forgive Mary. Perhaps he saw his forgiveness as a sign of weakness, the same weakness that Adam had shown.

However, he like Adam, had no choice, for the divorce laws of his time were formidable. Speaking of divorce, they sound to me hardly extreme. Today, the most frequent cause

for divorce is incompatibility. Yet, if adultery could be cause for divorce why didn't Milton commit the crime or did he?

He calls his wife a dunce, unfit for anything but the sexual act. He couldn't stand her. Why then did he marry her in the first place? Love then must have been at work. His

storming over one woman does not mean that he is storming against all women. For he did have another candidate in mind. He had made a mistake and did not feel that he should

have to pay for it for a lifetime. If he had lost all faith in women, he would not have married again and again. Milton saw woman as being a part of man's world and a pretty

interesting part at that. She cannot achieve on man's level, but she doesn't have to be stupid! In fact, I think, that Milton does believe that woman should be educated and a

fit companion, not merely a bed partner.

Milton does have some difficulty seeing things from a woman's point of view He does succeed though in giving Delilah a distinct personality. His early naive view of woman

changed, but, not drastically to a more realistic view. One point that seems to emphasize that Milton can see women as being on the same plane as man is that though conscious of their frailty insists that the blame for man's pathos is to be shared by both.

My final point, if you have been reading my laborious work on Milton, is that one can read whatever one wants into any work. The fact that Milton's marital affairs were messy does not make it absolutely necessary that his work as a Biblical interpreter, as it were, is clouded by his personal affairs. I insist, that Milton is not unfair to women as his most cited critic Macauley insists.

When he makes Eve, beautiful, but not as mentally competent as Adam, some might take as a sneering attitude towards women. Yet, it is said that Eve did commit the first sin, and was therefore the more gullible. Milton, took what he had and dramatised it.

When Delilah enters the stage, beautifully decked out, but obviously not penitent over her sin, many say that this shows Milton's scorn for women, who are unable to feel trully penitent. I felt, however, that for once he was showing a really strong woman, one capable of many actions, and not a clinging vine.

Milton did recognize that some women are good and intelligent. The sonnet to his late wife is one example. I agree with Marjorie Nicolson who states that it would have been written for his late wife if not for the fact that Milton could not have gone soft in his old age towards the one person who caused him so much grief. He praises the young lady as being as like minded as her illustrious father and as honorable. To read Milton unaware of his marital life is to find him as fair to women as any man can be expected to feel.

I am not saying that Milton is not a personal poet. For, it is obvious, particularly in his sonnets and in his prose work that he writes what he feels. But to continually insist that he degrades women or considers them inferior to men is what I object. For in reality, as it would be illogical to compare all of mankind against all of womankind. It's also illogical to compare on equal terms two objects that are not the same. To compare his wife to either Eve or to Delilah is in the same category as comparing him to Adam or to Samson.