Argument
The overarching argument is that private divorce by mutual consent for incompatibility is consonant with Christian Scripture, specifically Matthew 19:3-9, where Christ seems to specifically forbid divorce. Yet although buttressed by Scriptural authority, much of Milton's argument hangs on his view of human nature and the purpose of marriage, which rather than the traditional ends of procreation or a remedy against fornication, he defines as "the apt and cheerful conversation of man with woman, to comfort and refresh him against the evils of solitary life". Milton argues that if a couple be "mistak’n in their dispositions through any error, concealment, or misadventure" for them "spight of antipathy to fadge together, and combine as they may to their unspeakable wearisomnes and despaire of all sociable delight" violates the purpose of marriage as mutual companionship.
Read more about this topic: Milton's Divorce Tracts
Famous quotes containing the word argument:
“A striking feature of moral and political argument in the modern world is the extent to which it is innovators, radicals, and revolutionaries who revive old doctrines, while their conservative and reactionary opponents are the inventors of new ones.”
—Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (b. 1929)
“The argument ad feminam, all the old knives
that have rusted in my back, I drive in yours,
ma semblable, ma soeur!”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Argument is conclusive ... but ... it does not remove doubt, so that the mind may rest in the sure knowledge of the truth, unless it finds it by the method of experiment.... For if any man who never saw fire proved by satisfactory arguments that fire burns ... his hearer’s mind would never be satisfied, nor would he avoid the fire until he put his hand in it ... that he might learn by experiment what argument taught.”
—Roger Bacon (c. 1214–1294)