The slide gives a brief look of John Milton's interlinked polemical pamphlets about divorce.

1. Milton’s Divorce Tracts

2. Introduction
 Four interlinked polemical
pamphlets
 The Doctrine and Discipline of
Divorce
 The Judgment of Martin
Bucer
 Tetrachordon
 Colasterion

3. Introduction
 written in 1643-45
 argues for the
legitimacy of divorce
on grounds of spousal
incompatibility
 bears importance in
analyzing the
relationship between
Adam and Eve in his
epic Paradise Lost

4. Context
 Desertion by his newly
married wife Mary
Powell
 Pursued “Miss Davis,”
but his inability to
appeal for divorce failed
his want for marriage
 Attempt to revamp the
outmoded – if not non-
existent – English
divorce tracts

5. Mary Powell
 Daughter of Richard Powell, an Oxfordshire
Justice of the Peace
 A young but irresponsible young women
 Married Milton in 1641
 Lived at Aldersgate Street in London
 Felt imprisoned during the course of their union
 Milton agreed to let her go in the condition of
coming back to him, but she did not
 Embarrassed to be associated with a radical like
Milton

6. Mary Powell
 Plan backfire after two years
 Association with a distinguished Parliamentary
would be advantageous
 Milton was writing The Doctrine… and was
seeing a “handsome and witty gentlewomen”
 Her family knows one of Milton‟s beloved
 She hid during one of his visit at her friend‟s
home
 Asked forgiveness and was taken back by Milton
 Died after seven years after the birth of their third
daughter

7. Argument
 „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‟

8. Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce
 Published on August 1, 1643
 Second edition on February 2,
1644
 did not abrogate the permission
for divorce found in Deuteronomy
24:1 because in Matthew 19 he
was just addressing a specific
audience of Pharisees.

9. Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce
 An imperative reason for divorce
 It is the fault of men that there were not able to
discern whether or not problems with their spouses
leading to a divorce, will arise from their marriage but
there is simply no way in determining what happens
after marriage
 Only the divorcer can understand his situation
 Regarding papists, „who are the strictest forbidders of
divorce‟
 Regarding the noisome divorce courts

10. Martin Bucer
 German Protestant
Reformer
 His reformation efforts
resulted in his
excommunication from the
Roman Catholic Church
 Attempted to unite
Catholics and Protestants
to create a Church
separate from Rome
 Exiled to English and died
at age 59
 Pioneer of Ecumenism

11. Judgment of Martin Bucer
 Milton felt that using a popular
Protestant figure would persuade
the Parliament to change their
views on divorce
 Taking from Bucer‟s De Regno
Christi
 Published in August 13, 1644

12. Tetrachordon
 Connects four passages from the
Biblical Scripture to rationalize divorce
 Genesis 1: 27-28
 Deuteronomy 24: 1
 Matthew 5: 31-32. 19: 2-9
 I Corinthians 7: 10-16
 Focused on satirizing his critics

13. Tetrachordon
 Genesis 1: 27-28
So God created man in his own image, in
the image of God he created him; male
and female he created them. God
blessed them and said to them, "Be
fruitful and increase in number; fill the
earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish
of the sea and the birds of the air and
over every living creature that moves on
the ground."

14. Tetrachordon
 Deuteronomy 24: 1
When a man hath taken a wife, and
married her, and it come to pass
that she find no favour in his eyes,
because he hath found some
uncleanness in her: then let him
write her a bill of divorcement, and
give it in her hand, and send her
out of his house.

15. Tetrachordon
Matthew 19: 3-9
And some Pharisees came to Him, tempting Him, and
saying, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for
any cause at all?"
And He answered and said , "Have you not read, that
He who created them from the beginning made them
male and female, And said, 'For this cause a man
shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to
his wife: and the two shall become one flesh'?
Consequently they are no longer two, but one flesh.
What therefore God has joined together, let no man
separate."

16. Tetrachordon
They say unto him, "Why then did Moses
command to give her a certificate and
divorce her?"
He said to them, "Because of the hardness
of your heart, Moses permitted you to
divorce your wives; but from the beginning
it has not been this way. And I say to you,
Whoever divorces his wife, except for
immorality, and marries another woman,
commits adultery.

17. Tetrachordon
 1 Corinthian 7: 10-16
To the married I give this command (not I, but the
Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband.
But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else
be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must
not divorce his wife.
To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother
has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to
live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a
woman has a husband who is not a believer and he
is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him.

18. Tetrachordon
For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified
through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has
been sanctified through her believing husband.
Otherwise your children would be unclean, but
as it is, they are holy.
But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A
believing man or woman is not bound in such
circumstances; God has called us to live in
peace. How do you know, wife, whether you
will save your husband? Or, how do you know,
husband, whether you will save your wife?

19. Tetrachordon
 Title
 To Parliament
 Genesis Places
 Deuteronomy Places
 Matthew Places
 1 Corinthian Places

20. Colasterion

21. Colasterion
 „The place of punishment‟
 Published in March 4, 1645 with
Tetrachordon
 Response to an anonymous pamphlet
attacking The Doctrine…
 Does not pose new arguments, but to
berate the pamphlet author
 Thrashes the “Champarty” (William
Prynne, Herbert Palmer and Joseph Caryl)

22. Colasterion
“wind-egg”
So that whether his meaning were to inform his own
Party, or to confute his Adversary, instead of shewing
us the true Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, he
shews us nothing but his own contemptible
Ignorance. For what is the Mosaic Law to his
Opinion? And what is the Canon, utterly now
antiquated, either to that, or to mine? Ye see already
what a faithful Definer we have of him. From such a
wind Egg of definition as this, they who expect any of
his other Arguments to be well hatch'd, let them
enjoy the virtue of their worthy Champion.

23. Colasterion
 “serving-man”
It was then told me that the Doctrine of
Divorce was answered, and the Answer
half printed against the first Edition, not by
one, but by a pack of Heads; of whom the
chief, by circumstance, was intimated to
me, and since ratified to be no other, if any
can hold laughter, and I am sure none will
guess him lower than an actual Serving-
man.

24. Colasterion
 “conspicuous gull”
His Arguments are spun; now
follows the Chaplain with his
Antiquities, wiser if he had
refrained, for his very touching
aught that is learned, soils it,
and lays him still more and
more open, a conspicuous
Gull.