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:
“The wonder of light is your familiar tale,
Pert wench, down to the nineteenth century:
Mr. Rimbaud the Frenchman’s apostasy
Asserts the argument that you are stale,
Flat and unprofitable, importunate but pale,
Lithe Corpse!”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“My argument is that War makes rattling good history; but Peace is poor reading.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
“Because a person is born the subject of a given state, you deny the sovereignty of the people? How about the child of Cuban slaves who is born a slave, is that an argument for slavery? The one is a fact as well as the other. Why then, if you use legal arguments in the one case, you don’t in the other?”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)