Re: Marriage

There is an unspeakable beauty in marriage, an element transcending meagre pomp and circumstance, so that whether it be between a king and queen—weeks preceding, their union the cause of sensational talk, and then of celebration weeks after—or the simple poor farmer taking home the sweet apple of his eye, nothing more or less can be added. So, like anything with such magnitude behind it, it can be a great force for happiness, joy, and meaning, or it can be perverted and corrupted into strangling those lofty ideals.

I’ve been working through, if such pleasure be work, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and was awestruck by the romance he develops between Adam and Eve. He brings out the beauty of masculinity and femininity as they together flee and pursue to embrace and know. At one point he talks of marriage itself.

Paradise Lost (4.750-775)

Haile wedded Love, mysterious Law, true source
Of human ofspring, sole proprietie,
In Paradise of all things common else.
By thee adulterous lust was driv’n from men
Among the bestial herds to raunge, by thee
Founded in Reason, Loyal, Just, and Pure,
Relations dear, and all the Charities
Of Father, Son, and Brother first were known.
Farr be it, that I should write thee sin or blame,
Or think thee unbefitting holiest place,
Perpetual Fountain of Domestic sweets,
Whose Bed is undefil’d and chast pronounc’t,
Present, or past, as Saints and Patriarchs us’d.
Here Love his golden shafts imploies, here lights
His constant Lamp, and waves his purple wings,
Reigns here and revels; not in the bought smile
Of Harlots, loveless, joyless, unindeard,
Casual fruition, nor in Court Amours
Mixt Dance, or wanton Mask, or Midnight Bal,
Or Serenate, which the starv’d Lover sings
To his proud fair, best quitted with disdain.
These lulld by Nightingales imbraceing slept,
And on thir naked limbs the flourie roof
Showrd Roses, which the Morn repair’d.
Sleep on, Blest pair; and O yet happiest if ye seek
No happier state, and know to know no more.