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Introduction: Milton's Divorce Tracts and the Temper of the Times
- Duquesne University Press
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1 Introduction Milton’s Divorce Tracts and the Temper of the Times TS Of all the controversial arguments Milton advanced in his poetry and prose, his justification of divorce was perhaps the most shocking to seventeenth century readers. The initial attacks (1644–45) came from eminent clergymen and one anonymous pamphleteer, and opposition would continue long after Milton’s death. Not until the Divorce Reform Act (1969–73) would Parliament accept Milton’s call for reform of marital law and legalize no-fault divorce on the ground of “irretrievable breakdown of the marital relationship ”—or, to use Milton’s words, “That indisposition, unfitness, or contrariety of mind, arising from a cause in nature unchangeable , hindring and ever likely to hinder the main benefits of conjugal society, which are solace and peace.”1 Milton also argued that divorce with the right to remarry (a vinculo)2 should be the law in England as it was in the other Protestant nations of Europe, and that divorce should not be adjudicated in religious courts. A proposal to permit divorce with the right to remarry had been rejected during the reign of Henry VIII. Although the king’s divorce effected the separation of the Church of England from the Church of Rome, only England among Protestant nations retained the tradition of canon law and ecclesiastical courts to regulate marriage. Milton’s tracts marked one extreme in the ensuing debate about divorce in early modern England, a debate that began the slow shift in English ideas about marriage from sacrament to secular contract. The issue of divorce was central to a larger debate about social values and policies. Milton’s efforts to reform divorce law 2 The Divorce Tracts of John Milton were grounded in his concept of liberty. As an institution, marriage linked the individual to the state, both in social practice and in the metaphorical framework of political theory. Advocating divorce disrupted that social paradigm. Milton’s arguments for divorce as a Christian doctrine and discipline helped articulate a new paradigm of marriage as a private institution designed to foster personal spiritual growth. The Divorce Tracts of John Milton: Texts and Contexts brings together for the first time in a single volume the complete texts of Milton’s divorce pamphlets and four documents that represent the first responses to his argument. In a short span of 18 months, Milton published five tracts on divorce: The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (August 1, 1643), a much enlarged edition (February 2, 1644), The Judgement of Martin Bucer (August 6, 1644), Tetrachordon (March 4, 1644/45), and Colasterion (March 4, 1644/45).3 Our collection is the first to include full-length presentations of both the 1643 and 1644 editions of The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce as complete, separate works.4 The Complete Prose Works of John Milton, the standard modern edition from Yale University Press, offers a hybrid document that combines the 1643 original version and the greatly expanded 1644 text of The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. The Yale editor, Lowell W. Coolidge, shows exactly which passages were added or omitted in 1644. The conflated text, however, is difficult to decipher, especially for readers not already familiar with the complexities of Milton’s prose tracts. We present The Divorce Tracts of John Milton: Texts and Contexts as an accessible, lightly modernized text for interested readers in a variety of fields within and beyond seventeenth century literary studies. This collection also provides the first modern transcription of An Answer to a book, intituled, The doctrine and discipline of divorce, or, A plea for ladies and gentlewomen, and all other maried women against divorce (1644). This anonymous pamphlet — the only full-length contemporary document to engage thoroughly with Milton’s argument—elicited Milton’s last divorce tract, Colasterion (1645). In addition to the whole text of An Answer, [34.229.173.107] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 16:38 GMT) Introduction 3 our volume includes selected passages from three other contemporary publications. Our transcriptions are arranged chronologically according to their appearance in print: William Prynne’s Twelve Considerable Serious Questions (September 16, 1644); Herbert Palmer’s The Glasse of Gods Providence (November 7, 1644); the anonymous tract, An Answer (November 14, 1644);5 and Daniel Featley’s The Dippers Dipt (February 7, 1645). Those are the four pamphlets to which Milton responded most clearly and directly in the pages of his divorce tracts.6 Tetrachordon presents Milton’s response to...