Note 264 — Chapter XI · HISTORY OF SEPARATION AND DIVORCE UNDER ENGLISH AND ECCLESIASTICAL LAW (continued 2)
Reading edition
Milton, "Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce," Prose Works, III, 181. "And what his chief end was of creating woman to be joined with man, his own instituting words declare, and are infallible to inform us what is marriage, and what is no marriage; unless we can think them set there to no purpose: 'It is not good,' saith he, 'that man should be alone. I will make him a help meet for him.'"—Ibid., 187. Beza holds, says Milton, that divorce (by the Jewish law) is created "only for the help of wives." This leads him to exclaim: "Palpably uxorious! Who can be ignorant, that woman was created for man, and not man for woman, and that a husband may be injured as insufferably in marriage as a wife! What an injury is it after wedlock not to be loved! What to be slighted! What to be contended with in point of house rule who shall be the head; not for any parity of wisdom, for that were something reasonable, but out of a female pride! 'I suffer not,' saith St. Paul, 'the woman to usurp authority over the man.' If the apostle could not suffer it, into what mould is he mortified that can?"—Ibid., 247; cf. also ibid., 209.