proper and essential acts or ends of marriage- it preserves chastity, it increases the
legitimate brood in the world, and & it provides a means for the affection of the
married couple.” Further, due benevolence “must bee performed with good will and
delight, willingly, readily, and cheerfully.”^92 Perkins adds this description to due
benevolence, “by an holy kind of rejoicing and solacing themselves each with other,
in a mutuall declaration of the signes and tokens of love and kindness.”^93 Perkins
employs both Proverbs 5:18-19 and Genesis 26:8 that figured prominently in the
Puritan marriage manuals reflecting their understanding of the enjoyment of sex.
Third, the Puritan teaching on marriage celebrates intimacy and the enjoyment
of sex. Packer speaks of the “erotic agape of romantic marriage”^94 and asserts that the
Puritans frequently made use of Proverbs 5:18-19 in their preaching on the joys of
marriage “[m]ay you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer-
--may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love.”^95
Thomas Gataker exegetes this text and declares that one of the duties of a husband
was take pleasure in his wife:
‘Joy and delight in her. Drink,’ saith the wise man, ‘the water of thine own
cistern: Let thy fountain be blessed: ... and rejoice in the wife of thy youth:
let her bee unto thee as the loving Hind, and the pleasant Roe: Let her brests
or her bosome content thee at all times: & delight continually, or as the word
there is, even such private daliance and behaviour to married persons betweene themselves doate on the love of her.’ As if the holy Ghost did allow some
as to others might seem dotage: such as may be Isaacke sporting with
Rebecka.^96
(^92) Gouge, Domesticall Duties (^) , 224. (^)
(^93) Perkins, Christian Oeconomie, 122.
(^94) Packer, Quest for Godliness, 263.
(^95) Packer, Quest for Godliness, 265-6.
(^96) Gataker, Certaine Sermons, 2:206. The reference to Isaac sporting Rebekah is Gn
26:8. cf. Cleaver, Godly Form of Household Government, 175 and Smith, Sermons,
12 for sanctioning love play using Gn 26:8 and Frye, “Puritanism on Conjugal Love,” 153 for the usage of Prv 5:18-19.