“Domestic or Personal Liberty” 1642–1645On August 1, 1643 Milton published The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce: Restor’d
to the Good of Both Sexes, From the bondage of Canon Law, and other mistakes, to Chris-
tian freedom, guided by the Rule of Charity. Wherein also many places of Scripture, have
recover’d their long-lost meaning. Seasonable to be now thought on in the Reformation in-
tended. The tract carried no signature, no preface, and only the initials of two print-
ers and a place of purchase;^45 in defiance of the recent law, it was neither licensed
nor registered with the Stationers. In his Judgement of Martin Bucer a year later,
Milton claims that he had wanted his argument to be taken on its own merits rather
than that his name “should sway the reader either for me or against me” (CPW II,
434). No doubt there were other reasons for anonymity and illicit publication: the
certainty that a license would be refused, and Milton’s worry that his treatise might
be discounted as the railings of a deserted husband. His argument is based almost
wholly on scripture and on the painful experience of incompatible wedlock, with a
few supporting citations from Hugo Grotius and some rabbinical commentary.
Milton seems to have expected, naively, that his argument would be welcomed or
at least respectfully heard: he proffers it to the “candid view both of Church and
Magistrate” (DDD 1, 145–6) – that is, to parliament and the staunchly Presbyterian
Westminster Assembly. The work proved popular. The entire first edition, a print-
ing of perhaps twelve hundred or more copies, was exhausted within five or six
months.
This tract contains Milton’s core argument for divorce and his most passionate
and emotionally charged language. The subtitle previews the tract’s scope, purpose,
and loose structure. In both editions Milton presents himself as a laborious and
learned scholar, a courageous hero, and a public benefactor,^46 who has “with much
labour and faithfull diligence first found out, or at least with a fearlesse and commu-
nicative candor first publisht to the manifest good of Christendome,” the true mean-
ing of the relevant biblical texts (CPW II, 226). Moreover,
In this generall labour of reformation... he that can but lend us the clue that windes
out this labyrinth of servitude to such a reasonable and expedient liberty as this, de-
serves to be reck’n’d among the publick benefactors of civill and humane life; above
the inventors of wine and oyle. (DDD 1, 145–6)In the formal proposition, Milton offers to prove, “either from Scripture or light of
reason,”
That indisposition, unfitnes, or contrariety of mind, arising from a cause in nature
unchangable, hindring and ever likely to hinder the main benefits of conjugall society,
which are solace and peace, is a greater reason of divorce than naturall frigidity, espe-
cially if there be no children, and that there be mutuall consent. (147)He marshals his reasons and rhetorical strategies against two projected opponents:
those who place the essence of marriage in the physical union, and those who hold