Trouble in Paradise: Milton’s Theology of Marriage in Paradise Lost

First time readers of Paradise Lost are often surprised that the marriage of our first forebearers is far from perfect. Just like in the all too human relationships most people experience in their postlapsarian lives, the seeds of mistrust, vanity, and resentment are visible in the pre-Fall marriage of Adam and Eve as well. Milton, with his idiosyncratic poetic genius, reshapes the narrative of Genesis in order to give his readers an instructive, and cautionary, model of heterosexual relationship.

These cautionary signs first appear in Book Four once Eve recounts the story of her first moments of consciousness in a brilliant re-telling of the Narcissus myth. Telling the story to Adam, she narrates how she woke up in a field of flowers and soon wandered over to a lake within a small grotto. Just like the original Narcissus, whose punishment for spurning the love of Echo was to pine after his own image until he was consumed by the fire of his passion, Eve was soon entrapped in the eyes of her own reflection and “pined with vain desire” (4.461-466).[1] Narcissus’s inability to resist the seductive world of fancy was the result of divine punishment, while Eve’s was instead the foreshadowing to a wonderful divine gift.

After some time of self-gazing, a Voice rang out to Eve, presumably the pre-incarnational voice of the Divine Logos, and warned her that this vision is merely an image. Further, the Voice proclaimed that her true destiny is to go meet the one “whose image [she is]” so she can “enjoy him inseparably” and “bear him multitudes like [herself]” (4.472-474). Thus, from the very outset, God takes responsibility for reorienting Eve’s wayward regard of self, guiding her instead towards a personal union focused on the other. Evidently, this disordered inclination is not the same as sin; Eve does not yet have the knowledge of evil, which the fruit of the tree gives her, but the seed of sin is still there. God operates as a parent would, steering her away from potential danger, while knowing that He cannot yet hold His child accountable for her actions.

Although God leads Eve away from her pool of vanity, He cannot immediately heal her of this vice. Following the Voice, she soon sees the form of her future husband, Adam, standing under a tree. She remarks that he is “fair indeed and tall” but still somehow “less fair, less winning soft, less amiably mild, than that smooth watery image” (4.477-479). Clearly, even the sight of her future husband, it is not enough to turn her back from the precipice of self-centeredness. Instead, she willingly and immediately embroils herself in a game of comparison, judging herself to be more worthy of esteem than him. Because she is still caught up in self-idolatry, she does not understand the appeal of love for another, even if that other is the one whom God has destined for her. Rather than giving her goodness and beauty to the man made to receive it, she wants to hoard it for herself, rejecting the love that Adam has to offer.

Only the fervent summons of Adam himself manage to successfully wake Eve from the oblivion of forgetting her true vocation. He calls to her, “Return fair Eve…to give thee being I lent out of my side to thee, nearest my heart…Part of my soul I seek thee, and thee claim my other half” (4.481-488). Eve is so focused on her own qualities that she does not realize Adam is the one responsible for giving her being in the first place. He gave part of himself, in sacrifice, so that she could have the very qualities she worships in herself. And of course, Adam sees these wonderful qualities, and loves them. All he asks in return is that she submits herself to his love, and in so doing, learns to love him reciprocally.

This invitation to mutual love and submission softens Eve’s heart, freeing her at last from the idolatry of self-adoration. Her newfound freedom gives her the power to see the virtues that are, and always were, present in her husband-to-be: “And from that time see how beauty is excelled by manly grace and wisdom, which alone is truly fair” (4.489-491). Eve now understands that Adam’s true grace rests in his ability to direct her beauty towards its proper ends, i.e., loving him and God, instead of just herself. She correctly identifies this as wisdom, and this acts as a reflection of the Voice that originally guided her away from folly.

This change of consciousness in Eve has the additional effect of making her even more attractive to Adam. After leaning on her husband with “meek surrender,” Eve causes Adam to “[smile] with superior love” on account of his “delight both of her beauty and submissive charms” (4.494-499). Adam’s smile represents the actualization of his love for Eve, marking him as finally able to see her as a partner in mutual love. Eve has added “submissive charms” to her natural beauty because she has offered up that beauty to him, as a token of her love, instead of secreting it away for herself alone. Therefore, these charms are the outward sign of her beauty finally having an end that was impossible for it before. In this way, Adam and Eve’s new reciprocal love for one another has created a positive feedback loop; Adam’s manly virtue and wisdom make Eve more charming and gracious, and Eve’s charm and grace make Adam more virtuous and wise.

The establishment of this reciprocity pains the devil; he is incapable of such love in his damned state. The devil, witnessing the previously mentioned change in status occur, turns away in envy and says to himself, “Sight hateful, sight tormenting! Thus these two imparadised in one another’s arms the happier Eden, shall enjoy their fill of bliss on bliss, while I to hell am thrust” (4.505-508). This remark acknowledges a potential paradise in which Eve does not submit herself to Adam. Eden becomes happier only after she makes this decision. It is as if paradise itself is recreated in the love that Adam and Eve have for one another, striking a second blow deep into the heart of the spiteful Satan.

Having only now truly instituted a mutual love, Adam and Eve are at long last ready to enter into marriage. Milton, refuting those as foolish who would dare to call this type of relation too impure for Eden, uses carnal means of consummation as the seal of their union. He describes Adam turning to his spouse and Eve not refusing “the rites mysterious of connubial love” (4.744). Further, he uses the language of divine invocation to celebrate the mystery of sexual love in human life: “Hail wedded love, mysterious law, true source of human offspring, sole propriety, in Paradise of all things common else” (4.750-752). The parlance of mystery and ritual here serves to underscore Milton’s conception of love as sacramental. Just like a sacrament, it involves a prior preparation meant to ensure those that partake are pure enough to benefit from it. This is what Adam and Eve have undergone in learning what it means to love one another. But with this initiatory cleansing accomplished, the sacrament of marriage serves as a vehicle for its participants to grow in holiness.[2] In addition, this divine purpose has the added result of purifying the form of ritual itself, elevating something like sex from a lowly biological process to a lofty divine good.

Milton’s description of the consummation of Adam and Eve’s marriage further parallels various parts of the Anglican liturgy. First, the divine couple proceeds into the sanctuary of their bower, just like the priest and acolytes do at the beginning of the liturgy (4.689-690). Then, they arrive at their nuptial bed, which is decorated with flowers like some altars in the Anglican church (4.709-710). Finally, a heavenly choir sings as they complete their final preparations for the sacramental offering (4.711-735). With all the preliminaries done, Adam and Eve partake of marital love in the same way that the congregation consumes the Eucharist at the end of liturgy. The Eucharist is directed towards intimate union with God, while conjugal sex is directed towards intimate union with one’s spouse. However, both are the condition and sign of communion. And just like the English word liturgy comes from the Greek word leitourgia, signifying the work of the people, the act of sexual love is the “sole propriety” of Adam and Eve.[3] Neither one of them truly owns it or can be called properly responsible for it—it can only happen in common.

We begin to see cracks in this communal life founded on sexual love in Book Nine; Eve begins to put more emphasis on productivity and independence. Taking too seriously God’s divine injunction to steward the Garden of Eden, Eve asks Adam to “divide our labors” until “more hands aid us” (9.207-214). This request initially seems prudent, splitting up the tasks ordained for them so that they can keep up with their ever-increasing workload. Adam even praises her for her prudential insights into the “household good,” seeing this as good and proper for a wife (9.232-233). However, Adam also immediately understands where Eve has gone wrong, saying “for not to irksome toil, but to delight he made us, and delight to reason joined” (9.242-243). Adam perceives that there is a hierarchy of goods here, and Eve is over-focusing on the lower part. God created paradise so Adam and Eve could dwell within it, giving Him due worship partly in learning to love one another. The decree to work in the garden is not because there is any real necessity for maintenance, but so that they can grow closer together in love through the completion of a common task. True love can only flourish when the couple is able to exercise the sinews of their bond by sacrificially devoting themselves to something external. As Adam says, this higher purpose lends a kind of delight to work, saving it from a mere servile toil.

Having been warned by Raphael of Satan’s intrusion into the garden, Adam goes further and warns Eve that to let her roam free would be a violation of his husbandly role as protector from evil. Adam outlines two pillars on which their blessed life rests, “fealty [to] God” and “conjugal love,” and sees that the disruption of either would bring the entire edifice of paradise crashing down (9.261-263). Adam acknowledges that Satan would be foolish to directly attack the first; they have direct experiential knowledge of God and His messengers, and they are unlikely to be persuaded to abandon their faith in Him or His law. However, he adds that the second pillar, their marriage, is much more susceptible to Satan’s assault. Satan, having cast away the love of God, most deeply envies the love that Adam and Eve have for one another, and as a result will do anything to corrupt it. Adam cannot foresee Satan’s eventual method of temptation, but he knows that he and Eve are much stronger together. And so, if Adam can safeguard the second pillar, then he can most likely prevent the first from toppling as well.

Eve does not see things as clearly as Adam, interpreting his claim of protection over her as a challenge to her ability to protect herself. She accuses Adam of harboring “fear that my firm faith and love can by [Satan’s] fraud be shaken or seduced” (9.286). The inclination that was first exposed in Book Four is once again showing itself; Eve again feels that her virtuous self-image is being threatened. While before her beauty enamored her so much that she tried to take the role of Adam as her lover, now her steadfastness convinces her to such a degree that she is trying to take the role of Adam as the protector. This still does not yet constitute the first sin; it remains an act only in potency, but this clear conceptualization of Eve’s role upsets the balance of their marriage and moves it away from its shared vocation.

In reply to this accusation, Adam reminds Eve that it is not only the husband who is responsible for safeguarding their marriage from temptation. He wants her to realize that he is most able to be virtuous when he is in the “influence of [her] looks” (9.309). Indeed, he becomes “more watchful, stronger” and desires more profoundly to avoid the “shame [of being] overcome or overreached” (9.311-313). From his perspective, he is not calling her faculties into question, or trying to demean her by placing her under him. Instead, he invites her to participate in a mutual witnessing of virtue, which serves as the best bulwark against the temptation of Satan (9.315-317). Looking ahead to the coming consequences for Eve’s disregard of this advice, Adam’s emphasis on mutual support here is remarkably prescient. The major flaw in Eve’s understanding of the roles in marriage is that it is too rigid. She fails to comprehend that the wife may not have a particular vocation for protection, but that does not mean she does not have a part to play in staving off the seductive forces of discord. In so doing, she has once again forgotten the purpose of reciprocal love, exchanging it for a cheap ideal of independence.

Despite Adam’s best efforts to correct Eve’s baser inclinations and invite her back into a communal ascent towards virtue, Eve is not convinced and takes the final step that eventually results in her fall. She justifies her vain pursuit of independence by arguing that Satan’s threat represents a chance to prove their virtue by trusting fully in God, not each other, for protection. She asks “what is faith, love, virtue unassayed alone, without exterior help sustained?” (9.335-336) In her reasoning, Eden cannot truly be paradise if it depends on something so fallible as the mutual support of marriage. Such happiness is “frail” to her; it calls into question the sovereignty of God, who would only put creatures capable of resisting temptation in paradise (9.340-341). If she is right about this, then Satan is the only one who is at fault in tempting their integrity. However, this theory is misguided, and Satan’s plot depends almost entirely on getting her to see things this way. He wants to separate her from Adam, toppling the pillar of conjugal love so that she no longer depends on marriage as a mutual citadel of protection against the forces of evil

Now, all the final fall needs is the cooperation of Adam. If Eve’s great vice is pride and vainglory, then Adam’s is moral permissiveness and an excessive trust in his wife’s virtue. He indicates this in his final decision to let her go, bidding her only to “go in thy native innocence, rely on what thou hast of virtue” (9.373-374). By deciding this, Adam has abandoned his post as protector, and he is even failing his promise to endure the worst with her if that be what is ultimately promised.

Keenly observing these misguided desires grow over time like diseased tumors in the body, Satan approaches Eve like a charlatan who offers false remedies only designed to make the original problem worse. Indeed, he tempts her with the very vices that her marriage to Adam was intended to help her overcome. He tells her that she should rightfully be “a goddess among gods, adored and served by angels numberless, thy daily train” (9.547-548). Satan knows that Eve is no longer content to worship herself, having tasted the beautiful and divine love of Adam. So instead, he offers her the worship of the angels that is only due to the Lord God. The true wickedness of this temptation shines when one realizes that Eve does not even feel that anything is wrong with her marriage. Adam loves her as perfectly as a husband can love his wife. But Eve, in a moment of utmost weakness, completely forgets the love of Adam. Satan submerges her again in the Lethean River of self-love, causing her to re-enter the oblivion that she had initially found herself in. Diabolically, it is at this fateful moment that she also sees herself as about to ascend to new strength. Unfortunately, she is instead destined to realize that Satan’s guile only offers a shortcut on the hard ascent to virtue, which was rightly intended to end in recognition by one’s spouse and by God. A poor substitute, Satan’s shortcut ends only in the empty praise of vainglory.

After Eve eats the fruit, not only is creation wounded, but the Edenic marriage is as well. Just as Eve was originally tempted to see it, her marriage to Adam suddenly transforms into a mere opportunity for comparison. She deliberates on whether to tell Adam about the apple, asking “shall I to him make known as yet my change, and give him to partake full happiness with me, or rather not, but keep the odds of knowledge in my power (9.817-820). Eve wants power over Adam; she knows that his love for her makes him susceptible to worship her as a goddess. Satan has convinced her to see the sort of mutual submission that marriage requires of its partners as only a burden.

After she finally tells him, Adam, blinded by his love for her, and afraid of what life would be like without her, falls prey to his vices almost immediately. Of course, Adam finds a way of rationalizing his fatal decision by telling himself that he has “resolved to die” with her as a last sign of his love for her (9.906-916). Having eaten of the fruit, the consequence of his sin becomes evident when he begins to regard Eve as only an object for carnal possession. He casts “lascivious eyes” on her, which she returns, the two of them “in lust [burning]” (9.1014-1015). Their mutual fall is finally consummated in a session of ravenous lovemaking that completely replaces the sacramental quality of their previously holy conjugal love.

With this final change in condition, Milton has masterfully brought to fruition the loss of this second-order paradise, which the first only existed to provide for. All of the most important consequences of this loss are self-inflicted: the re-conceptualization of marriage as a zero-sum game of comparison, the mutation of sex into the mere means for carnal satisfaction, and the subordination of the lofty partnership of marriage to the utilitarian demands of subsistence. The totality of the punishments that God later decrees are either to make creation reflect this change in the interior life of Adam and Eve or to serve as remedies for their sins. The former is exhibited in the advent of hardship in agriculture and childbirth, while the latter is displayed in the new domination of death (11.99-262). Additionally, God demonstrates His justice by calling down Michael to lead them out of Eden and bar their re-entry with flaming swords; however, He also shows His mercy by not completely dissolving the institution of marriage (12.633-649). Indeed, it is partly Adam’s continued love for Eve that leads them both to repentance at the end of the work and reorients them to seek a new life together outside of Eden.

Thus, Milton brilliantly represents how the nature of marriage has changed with mankind’s new fallen condition. Despite being forced to adapt to previously unencountered challenges, the highest joys of marriage are still as accessible as they were in paradise. Milton wants this to be a model for us, calling us all to do what we can in rebuilding the pillar of conjugal love, toppled though it may be. Just as Christ later regains the paradise of the cosmos through His sacrifice, a husband and a wife are called to regain the paradise of marriage through mutual love and devotion to one another. 

NOTES:

[1] The Narcissus story can be found in Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.474-510.

[2] Article 25 of the Thirty-Nine Articles identifies marriage as among the rites “commonly called Sacraments but not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel.” Milton is certainly known for the unusual nature of his Anglican faith, so it is possible he is deviating from the standard Anglican conception of marriage here. Whether or not he is, the language of sacrament is clearly present.

[3] The Greek word λειτουργία originally comes from λαός (people) and ἔργον (work), and signified the gifts wealthy citizens of the ancient polis would give to serve the public good in exchange for honor and prestige. These gifts often revolved around ancient religious festivals, which is how the word came to semantically transform into the Christian sense of liturgy.

Print