"From man's effeminate
slackness it begins": Uxoriousness and the Expansion of Genesis in John Milton's Paradise
Lost
© Copyright 1999, Skylar
Hamilton Burris
Note: This paper was presented at the Southwest Conference on Christianity & Literature in Abilene, Texas on October 1st, 1999.
In writing Paradise Lost, John Milton expands the Genesis account of man's creation and Fall. to develop both plot and character beyond the mere skeletal frame of Genesis. Because his goal is to "justify the ways of God to men," he must also consider theodicy when making his additions (1.26). Milton addresses many concerns through his expansion, but one of the most prominent is man's uxoriousness, his devoted submission to a wife he should instead rule. This sin is not as apparent in Genesis, which contains ample evidence of the equality of man and woman and little indication that Adam chooses to eat the forbidden fruit because of his devotion to Eve. In Paradise Lost, however, Milton adds details to the Genesis account that undercut the implied equality of Adam and Eve and emphasize Adam's uxoriousness, which is a sin precisely because the woman to whom he devotes himself is inferior.
Chapters one and two of Genesis imply the equality of man and woman. In Genesis 1:27, "God created man in his own image . . . male and female created he them" (emphasis added). Both are "created in the image of God, indicating an equality of position with reference to the image" (Hindson and Kroll 14). Furthermore, God grants them both dominion over the earth: "And God blessed them, and God said unto them . . . replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over . . . every living thing that moveth upon the earth" (1.28; emphasis added).
Another sign of equality is the creation of Eve from Adam's rib. According to Hard Sayings of the Bible, this word usually means "side" in Hebrew; therefore, "as some Reformers put it, woman was not taken from man's feet, as if she were beneath him, or from his head, as if she were over him, but from his side, as an equal with him" (Kaiser 95). This saying was known in Milton's own time, though perhaps without the precise words "equal with him." It originated as early as Thomas Aquinas, who concluded that "man and woman should be conjoined as allies" (Nolan 12). It was paraphrased by John Donne in a 1620 sermon, in which he said that woman "was not taken out of the foot to be trodden upon" (290).
The rib is also significant because in contrast to "an ancient view that the gods played a trick on man by creating woman of inferior material," God's choice of the rib "affirms the woman to be of the same essence as man ('bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,' Gen 2:23)" (Kaiser 666). This phrase, "bone of my bones," connotes "'a very close relative,' 'one of us,' or in effect 'our equal'" (Kaiser 94). Furthermore, God says He is creating a "help meet" from this rib (Gen 2:18). The Hebrew term translated "help meet" in the King James Bible signifies power and strength; one scholar translates Genesis 2:18 as "I will make a power [or strength] corresponding to man." (Kaiser 93). Another scholar, Freedman, "even suggests on the basis of later Hebrew that the second word in the Hebrew expression found in this verse should be rendered equal to him" (Kaiser 93-4).
Faced with this plethora of evidence, Milton adds details that deny the implied equality of Genesis. Although he consents in Paradise Lost that in both man and woman shines "[t]he image of their glorious maker" (4.292), Milton makes it clear that Eve "resemble[s] less / His image who made both" (8.543-4; emphasis added). Indeed, it appears that Eve is made in Adam's image. Adam tells her, referring to himself, "[w]hose image thou art, him thou shall enjoy" (4.472). He also calls her "[b]est image of myself" (5.95). When God tells Adam that He will create a help meet for him, He says, "What next I bring shall please thee, be assured, / Thy likeness" (8.449-50; emphasis added); He does not say, "My likeness."
In addition to an inequality with regard to God's image, in Paradise Lost there exists an inequality with regard to intellect. Adam, and not Eve, is formed for "contemplation" (4.297). Eve recognizes that her "beauty is excelled by manly grace / And wisdom, which alone is truly fair," suggesting that Adam's wisdom excels not only her wisdom but her most extraordinary quality, her beauty (4.490-1). Eve is "the inferior, in the mind / And inward faculties" (8.541-2). Milton claims that Eve does not depart from the conversation of Adam and Raphael because "her ear" is incapable of hearing "what [is] high," but her reason for leaving seems to imply precisely that; she can not endure "thoughts abstruse" unless they are intermixed with the explanations, the "[g]rateful digressions," and the "conjugal caresses" of Adam (8.39-57). Eve has no need for knowledge, since "God is [man's] law, [man hers]: to know no more / Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise" (4.637-8).
This last quote implies yet another level of inequality: the spiritual inferiority of Eve. Susanne Woods points out that Adam and Eve praise God directly together, but this is not enough to counteract the implications of spiritual inequality (18). Eve relates to God's law through her husband, who is her law. She is not told about the prohibition by God, but by her husband. (In Genesis, we are not told how she learns of the prohibition.) In Paradise Lost, Eve does not learn from God's angel Raphael, but again through her husband. Adam is made "for God only, she for God in him" (4.299). This hierarchy, argues Maureen Quilligan, "negates a direct relationship between God and woman" (Woods 18).
Finally, although Milton pays lip service to the co-dominion of Genesis, the Eve of Paradise Lost actually assumes a lesser role in the rule of the earth. It is Adam's "fair large front and eye sublime" that declares "[a]bsolute rule" (4.300-1). He is "[p]re-eminent by so much odds" (4.447). Eve, "less expressing / The character of that dominion given / O'er other creatures," assumes the traditional role of preparing dinner and tending a flower garden (8.544-6).
Milton does not so powerfully compound Eve's inferiority--in image, intellect, spirit, and dominion--merely because he is a product of his times. As A.L. Rowse writes, it "is all very well to excuse Milton for this assertion of women's inferiority to men as being the customary attitude in his time; but I know of no one else who so constantly and unwearingly asserts it all through his work" (74). Rowse thinks the reason for the assertion lies solely in Milton's misogynistic nature, but in Paradise Lost, the reason rests at least partly on Milton's desire to emphasize the sinfulness of man's uxoriousness. For Milton, excessive devotion to one's equal could never be so great a sin as excessive devotion to one's inferior. Indeed, Milton may even be willing to consent to Satan's claim that equals over equals should not rule (5.794-7). The falsity lies not in Satan's claim, but in his assumption that he equals Christ. In Milton's view, it is appropriate to submit to a superior, but it is unacceptable to submit to an inferior. As Abdiel tells Satan,
This is servitude,
To serve the unwise, or him who hath rebelled
Against his worthier, as thine now serve thee,
Thyself not free, but to thyself enthralled. (6.178-181)
This is not just the sin of the fallen angels; it is Adam's sin. He serves the unwise (or at least the less wise) Eve, even when she has rebelled against both him and God by eating the forbidden fruit.
The inferiority of Eve also increases Adam's sin by increasing his duty to her, which he violates because of his uxoriousness. Milton, according to Rowse, "allowed that, if the woman were the wiser and more intelligent partner, and the man was willing to let her, she might rule the household" (79). But if Eve is the inferior, then Adam's duty to rule, protect, and instruct her can not be disputed. Richard Corum asserts that "since the idea that Milton's God has of man includes an obligation on man's part to shape his subordinates to the measure of a divine idea, a man's survival depends in part on . . . [his ability to] translate himself and his subjects into perfect referents for his God's word, whether with persuasive education or with discipline and punishment" (121). Adam begins to fail in this duty the moment he allows Eve to part from him despite his knowledge that a tempter is afoot. Man's fall begins as early as the separation scene; as Michael tells Adam, mankind's woe does not originate from woman, but from the "effeminate slackness" of man, "who should better hold his place" (11.634-5).
Adam is even forewarned against such a dismissal by Raphael, who tells him,
. . . she deserts thee not, if thou
Dismiss not her, when most thou need'st her nigh,
By attributing overmuch to things
Less excellent, as thou thyself perceiv'st. (8.563-6)
This warning is prompted by Adam's admission that although he knows Eve to be his inferior, he is sometimes so overcome by her loveliness that her reason actually seems "wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best" (8.550). Adam allows himself to be thus overcome in the separation scene. Although he at first heeds Raphael's admonition to "warn / Thy weaker," Adam eventually consents to the separation (6.908-9). He attributes to Eve, the "less excellent," the right to make the final decision, even though he already knows that separation is unwise. "But if thou think," he says, "trial unsought may find / Us both securer than thus warned thou seem'st / Go" (9.370-2). Adam should insist on accompanying Eve in order to protect her; instead, he so fears to offend her that he allows her reasoning to supplant his own. Milton reveals the sinful nature of Adam's dismissal when he refers to Eve as "hapless" and writes that she is walking into an "ambush" laid by Satan (9.404-8). Satan, who shuns Adam's "higher intellectual," is only too glad to find Eve severed from "her best prop" (9. 483, 423). Adam himself admits, after the reconciliation following the Fall, that Eve's frailty, which had been committed to him, was also by him "exposed" (10.957).
This separation scene marks another departure from the Genesis narrative. In Genesis 3:6, Eve "took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat." Since her husband is with her, it "requires considerable ingenuity to infer separate and independent temptation from this text" (Gallagher 68). Yet the separation is necessary if Milton is to emphasize Adam's uxoriousness. As we have seen, it gives Milton a chance to show Adam setting aside his better judgement out of devotion to Eve and enables him to affix more of the blame for the Fall on Adam, despite the fact that Eve eats first. But Milton also needs the separation scene because it would be technically difficult for him "to orchestrate Eve's deceived transgression and Adam's undeceived repetition of it as virtually simultaneous events transacted in a single space of shared temptation" (Gallagher 68). The separation scene enables us to see, without technical complications, that Adam's sin is not deception, but uxoriousness. Adam eats the forbidden fruit "[a]gainst his better knowledge" (9.998), just as he had dismissed Eve against his better knowledge, both times foolishly "overcome with female charm" (9.999).
This emphasis on Adam's uxoriousness seems to make him the dominant sinner of the pair. As Philip J. Gallagher writes, "fallen Eve is less culpable than fallen Adam" (101; original emphasis). The Bible teaches that "unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required" (Luke 12.48). Because Milton has gifted his Eve with less than he has his Adam, he also requires less of her. And if Milton requires less of Eve, her deception can not constitute the central sin of Paradise Lost; but Adam's uxoriousness can and does. Walter Lim writes that "[t]he wisdom of native innocence is lost when Adam's uxoriousness transforms Eve into his idol" (120). Indeed, God makes Adam’s uxoriousness the main issue when He confronts the fallen man.
Milton significantly alters the Genesis account of this confrontation. In Genesis, Adam answers God's question of whether he ate the forbidden fruit with these words: "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat" (Gen. 3.12; emphasis added). This statement draws attention to Adam's insolent nature because he appears to accuse God of his own sin; he does not take responsibility for his choice, but instead blames Eve, whom, he points out, was given to him by God. In Paradise Lost, however, Milton tempers this response because he prefers to focus on Adam's uxoriousness. In Milton’s version, Adam does not accuse God of giving him the woman, as if to intentionally harm him, but instead refers to the woman whom God "mad'st to be my help," an observation which is separated by five lines from "[s]he gave me of the tree, and I did eat," effectively separating the chain of association which in Genesis imputes blame to God (10.137, 143). Adam says he eats the forbidden fruit because Eve seems "so good / So fit, so acceptable, so divine, / That from her hand I could suspect no ill" (10.138-40). Of course he does suspect ill, and eats anyway, but the point is that his devotion to Eve persuades him to set aside his better judgement; Adam virtually confesses his uxoriousness while attempting to defend himself.
God's response to Adam in Paradise Lost also centers on uxoriousness more than it does in Genesis. In Genesis, the only hint of uxoriousness lies in God's condemnation of Adam as one who has "harkened unto the voice of [his] wife"; the main emphasis, however, is on the fact that Adam has "eaten of the tree, of which [God] commanded [him], saying, Thou shalt not eat" (3.17). Milton's God, on the other hand, emphasizes the uxoriousness rather than the actual eating:
Was she thy God, that thou didst obey
Before his voice, or was she made thy guide,
Superior, or but equal, that to her
Thou didst resign thy manhood, and the place
Wherein God set thee above her made of thee,
And for thee, whose perfection far excelled
Hers in all real dignity. . . . (10.145-151)
Straight from God's own mouth, we are told that Adam's sin is uxoriousness. God's response also tells us that Adam sins because he is excessively devoted to an inferior, not to an equal. Were Eve "but equal," Adam's sin might not have been so terrible, but he far excels her in "all real dignity."
Whatever reasons Milton may have for adding to the Genesis account of creation, emphasizing man's uxoriousness is certainly one of them. The added details of Eve's inferiority, the separation scene, and the expanded dialogue between fallen Adam and God all serve to upbraid Adam for devoting himself to his inferior wife rather than to his superior God. Yet, for all that, Milton's God shows more mercy to Adam than to the fallen angels who follow Satan into rebellion, presumably because Eve was deceived by Satan. Yet Satan's angels were also deceived by him. It seems that Milton's God has a particularly soft place in His heart for the man who was made in His own image, however much He may upbraid him for his uxoriousness.
Works Cited
Corum, Richard. "In White Ink: Paradise Lost and Milton's Ideas of Women." Milton and the
Idea of Woman. Ed. Julia M. Walker. Chicago: U of Illinois P, 1998.
Donne, John. "From a sermon preached at Sir Francis Nethersole's marriage (February 1620)." John Donne: A Critical Edition of the Major Works. Ed. John Carey. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1990.
Gallagher, Philip J. Milton, The Bible, and Misogyny. Ed. Eugene R. Cunnar and Gail L.
Mortimer. Columbia: U of Missouri P, 1990.
Hindson, Edward E., and Woodrow Michael Kroll, eds. The KJV Parallel Bible Commentary. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1994.
Kaiser, Walter C., Jr., et al. Hard Sayings of the Bible. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1996.
Lim, Walter S.H. "Adam, Eve, and Biblical Analogy in Paradise Lost." Studies in English Literature 30.1 (1990): 115-131.
Milton, John. Paradise Lost. John Milton: A Critical Edition of the Major Works. Gen. Ed. Stephen Orgel and Jonathan Goldberg. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1991.
Nolan, Michael. "What Aquinas Never Said About Women." First Things 87 (1998): 11-12.
Woods, Susanne. "How Free Are Milton's Women?" Milton and the Idea of Woman. Ed. Julia M. Walker. Chicago: U of Illinois P, 1998.