The Logic of Religious Studies and Kathleen Flake

Kathleen Flake’s 2009 Arrington lecture gave a sneak preview of her research for an upcoming book on plural marriage and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.¹ Flake, associate professor of American religious history at Vanderbilt University, brings a unique list of qualifications to her study by combining elements of law, religious studies, ritual, and the skills of an historian. Using these tools Flake explores what she calls the “priestly logic” of plural marriage, seeking to understand not only how 19th century outsiders viewed the peculiar institution, but how practicing Mormons themselves made sense of it. Flake confines her study to the time period of 1852 (when Orson Pratt first declared the practice publicly) through 1890 when the first "manifesto" was issued by the president of the Church, "officially" ending the practice.² Flake argues that for all the negative reports of plural marriage—both from outside and within the Church—there were also some who flourished under the practice, or at least found a way to make it meaningful for their lives. The institution of marriage itself has not been a static practice and Flake recognizes the shifting opinions regarding the ideal marriage, attempting to contextualize Mormon views within the wider culture. By the 1800s in America marriages were beginning to be entered based on an idea of love rather than being strictly based upon economic or other considerations. Marriage for love became the preference, and then the norm. Flake cites a period poem called "Home" which encapsulates something of the ideal:

  Two birds within one nest;
      Two hearts within one breast;
  Two spirits in one fair
  Firm league of love and prayer,
Together bound for aye, together blest.³

Mormon Polygamy seemed to fly in the face of the Victorian idea of marriage depicted in this poem in practically every respect. Drawing on the accounts of sympathetic non-Mormons, Mormon leaders, and Mormon women who participated in the practice Flake wishes to describe the “priestly logic” of the practice, which involved priesthood, child bearing, family rearing, and kingdom building, all tied together in the ritual act of marriage.

It has been more than a hundred years since the Manifesto officially ended the practice of plural marriage for the LDS Church. Despite this passage of time, plural marriage has remained a large part of the American public’s perception of Mormonism generally. This is in large measure the result of the overwhelming role polygamy played in fictional and polemical literature, as well as political debates in the last half of the 19th century, in addition to Mormon splinter groups who continue living the practice. In what follows I want to briefly discuss a few strengths and weaknesses inherent to Flake’s described approach in order to help evaluate how religious studies can help us understand not only religion of the past, but our “living” religion in the present. This is an effort to turn the hearts of the children to the fathers, and the mothers.

But why talk about it at all? In a recent address to BYU graduates Elder M. Russell Ballard encouraged members not to allow the subject of plural marriage to dominate everyday conversations about the Church. “It’s now 2009,” Ballard stated, “Why are we still talking about it? It was a practice. It ended. We moved on. If people ask you about polygamy, just acknowledge it was once a practice but not now, and that people shouldn’t confuse any polygamists with our Church.” Church members would simply be “reinforcing stereotypes” by wasting their time “trying to justify the practice of polygamy during the Old Testament times or speculating as to why it was practiced for a time in the 19th century.”⁴ Flake described this approach of distancing the Church from current splinter groups in a USA Today article discussing the Church’s handling of plural marriage media coverage in 2008:

The biggest challenge facing the LDS church is not distinguishing their present from the fundamentalist present, but getting people to understand the difference between their past and the current practice of the fundamentalist groups. This initiative, I believe, is their first attempt to do that.⁵

One way to better differentiate past from present is to better illuminate the past. Better historical studies and publications on plural marriage than are currently available would not only alleviate confusion among non-Mormons, but also help Latter-day Saints who are interested in the subject better understand the past practice of plural marriage in their religious heritage.⁶ The subject is mentioned—if only barely—in official Church manuals, never as the focus of an entire lesson.⁷ The publication of an "official view" detailing the history of the plural marriage and the Church is not likely. However, recent academic efforts regarding other aspects of LDS history, including the Mountain Meadows Massacre and the ongoing Joseph Smith Papers Project,are encouraging prospects.⁸ Difficult historical subjects have become the purview of scholars more so than the General Authorities of the Church. Elder Ballard noted the subject of plural marriage—though not the best area for average member speculation—is a legitimate subject "for historians and scholars" to dissect.⁹

To this end, Kathleen Flake’s book The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle explores the "Mormon compromise" wherein the Church disavowed polygamy in the early 20th century. Elder Dallin H. Oaks lauded the book as the "best thing ever written" on the subject of the transition between the pre- and post-polygamy Church:

I have to say I’ve been a lifetime student and writer of Mormon legal history, at least. I learned many, many things in her book that I didn’t know. She captured it very, very well, and was able to stress also what remained unimpaired by the compromise. Other books have been published, but not in a way that would grab the awareness of the average Mormon.¹⁰

Flake’s general approach has certainly grabbed my awareness. Her background in religious studies makes her especially well-suited to tackle the difficult subject and make some sense of it for contemporary readers. Negative approaches to plural marriage have presented the practice by playing on current sexual mores and emphasizing what is seen to be wrong with the practice. By selecting certain problematic examples and relying on contemporary moral expectations the picture can look quite grim. A wholly positive approach might similarly select material from the historical record that paints the rosiest possible picture to alleviate uncomfortable feelings. Flake seeks a more nuanced and historically rigorous approach. Her current project on plural marriage, as discussed in her Arrington lecture, is an attempt to uncover the “emotional and priestly logic of plural marriage.” Of course, there will be no untainted or “objective” treatment of plural marriage, but Flake explains that her “academic approach tries to understand and explain. It is done out of curiosity and not out of judgment.” Without denying (or directly approaching) the involvement of God, Flake recognizes that religion is not merely something that is believed but is also lived. Religious Studies scholar Robert Orsi has noted that religion “is always religion-in-action, religion-in-relationships between people, between the way the world is and the way people imagine or want it to be.”¹¹ When religion is viewed in this light, different questions must be addressed. Flake’s main concern seems to be to adequately explain what participants in the practice thought they were doing rather than only talking about what we might think of their actions. What did their religion-in-action, or religion-in-relationship mean to them? Orsi says such an approach underscores the “interpretive challenge of the study of lived religion,” that is: “to develop the practice of disciplined attention to people’s signs and practices as they describe, understand, and use them, in the circumstances of their experiences, and to the structures and conditions within which these signs and practices emerge.”¹² Flake’s lecture leaned heavily on the views of women who participated in plural marriage and others who were able to observe polygamous households first-hand. She pays close attention to the prescribed rituals, as well as the perceptions of those who participated in them, to understand the logic of the practice.  

Discovering such logic is much easier said than done, not only because individuals may interpret or experience their religion differently, but because the historical record itself is imperfect and tricky. The researcher must consider and account for potential polemic both praising and demeaning the practice. In many realms of historical studies the available written record has been largely composed by men, skewing the perspective of the researcher by omitting the direct views of women. Fortunately for researchers on Mormon plural marriage, many journals and diaries produced by women have been preserved. It is apparent that even this record is tricky, depending on the perspective of any given writer. According to Flake, works by women like Fanny Stenhouse represent the negative polemic. Still, readers “are rightly sympathetic with the plight of those who struggled in polygamy and many studies focus on these elements.” But Flake wishes to move beyond the perspective of Fanny and those who viewed the practice as she did, asking “what about those who made polygamy seem like a source of human flourishing?” Such examples, she notes, “deserve analysis, too.” In approaching the subject this way she is taking women’s perspectives seriously. Susan Starr Sered has argued that in the past, feminist scholarship has typically offered critiques of patricentric societies by focusing on the oppression of women. “Less is known,” she notes, “about the strategies that women have used to circumvent patriarchal institutions, the techniques women have created for making their own lives meaningful within androcentric culture.”¹³ Such questions transcend a simplistic feminist critique.

In order to recognize such strategies the researcher must pay less attention to contemporary views of the practice and give voice to those who actually participated. Or, as Sered notes:

As scholars learn to shift attention from what men and texts say about women to what women say about themselves, new conceptions of human religious experience begin to emerge.¹⁴

Not only will new understandings of the past come into sharper focus, but religious believers will expand their understanding of their own lived religion. Religion is not an abstract body of specific doctrines, but a fundamental part of how humans view themselves in the world. Such an examination of religion carries the risk of making the sacred profane, like dissecting a dead frog on a school desk. But it also carries the possibility of sacralizing the seemingly profane. “Once we begin looking for religion within the profane world rather than outside of it,” Orsi notes, “we begin to discover realms of religiosity that are not limited to those times, people, places, objects, and events that seem extraordinary; we begin to see religion as potentially interwoven with all other aspects of human existence.”¹⁵

This approach should be particularly appealing to Latter-day Saints, whose religion embodies what Terryl Givens calls the "blending and blurring of sacred and secular categories."¹⁶ This blending was apparently easier and more acceptable for Joseph Smith to execute. Leonard Arrington noted the difficulty of writing religious history for Mormons in words that may resonate with Flake, both of them being committed Mormons:

The professional in us fights against religious naiveté—believing too much. The religionist in us fights against secular naiveté—believing too little. And if this internal warfare weren’t enough, we have a similar two-front war externally—against non-Mormons who think we LDS historians believe too much, and against super-Mormons who think we believe not enough.¹⁷

Much like Arrington, Flake admirably navigates these waters to produce responsible interpretations. Flake’s cautious approach to religious history—her recognition of the “natural” and contextual aspects of religion, her moderate voice, and her attempt to walk the boundary between the purely secular and the purely religious—is a welcome and important addition to Mormon history.¹⁸  

FOOTNOTES:

[1]
See my notes from her address: Kathleen Flake, "The Emotional and Priestly Logic of Plural Marriage," Arrington Mormon History Lecture, Logan, Utah, 1 October 2009. Unless otherwise noted, the quotes from Flake throughout this post are from my personal notes.

[2]
The lot fell to Elder Orson Pratt to deliver the first public announcement of the practice on 29 August 1852. See his discourse, "Celestial Marriage," Journal of Discourses, Liverpool: F. D. and S. W. Richards (1854-1886, 26 vols.), vol. 1, 53-66. It took time for the wheels to stop turning following official announcements to cease the practice. There were a few post-manifesto plural marriages solemnized in the LDS Church until around 1910. See D. Michael Quinn, "LDS Church Authority and New Plural Marriages, 1890-1904," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 18 (Spring 1985); Greg L. Smith, “Polygamy/Practiced after the Manifesto,” FAIRwiki.org.

[3]
Dora Greenwell, "Home," Poems, by the author of 'The patience of hope', Alexander Strahan and Co., Edinburgh (1861), 151.

[4]
M. Russell Ballard, "Engaging Without Being Defensive," speech delivered at the Brigham Young University graduation ceremony on 13 August 2009

[5]
Eric Gorski, "Mormons launch campaign to put distance between themselves and polygamists," USA Today, 26 June 2008.

[6]
Even Latter-day Saints who are aware of Joseph Smith’s practice of plural marriage still tend to perpetuate erroneous reasons for the practice, including the implication that there were more women than men in the Church or that Mormon widows simply needed help crossing the plains after being expelled from Illinois.

[7]
For an overview of how each current official teaching manual of the LDS Church treats plural marriage, see Blair Dee Hodges, “Plural Marriage as Discussed in the Church Today,” 20 August 2008, LifeOnGoldPlates.com.

[8]
Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley, Glen M. Leonard, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Oxford University Press (2008). The subject was also approached in the Church's official magazine. See Richard E. Turley Jr., “The Mountain Meadows Massacre,” Ensign, Sep. 2007, 14–21. On the Joseph Smith Papers project see http://josephsmithpapers.org.

[9]
Ballard, ibid. In the past, Mormon leaders such as Orson and Parley P. Pratt, B.H. Roberts, and Joseph Fielding Smith have spear-headed historical or doctrinal treatments on the Church. This role has decreased over time. Currently, Elder Marlin K. Jensen of the First Quorum of the Seventy serves as Church Historian and Recorder.

[10]
See "Elder Oaks Interview Transcript from PBS Documentary," newsroom.lds.org, 20 July 2007. Other works that might have escaped the attention of the average (American) Mormon include B. Carmon Hardy Solemn Covenant: The Mormon Polygamous Passage, University of Illinois Press (1992); Doing The Works of Abraham: Mormon Polygamy: Its Origin, Practice, and Demise, Arthur H. Clark Company (2007), Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History, Signature Books (1992), Kathryn Daynes, More Wives Than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System 1840-1910, University of Illinois Press (2008). Martha Sonntag Bradley has written a useful bibliographic essay on LDS plural marriage studies. See "Out of the Closet and Into the Fire: The New Mormon Historians Take on Polygamy," in Excavating Mormon Pasts: The New Historiography of the Last Half Century, Kofford Books (2006), 303-322.

[11]
Robert A. Orsi, “Is the Study of Lived Religion Irrelevant to the World We Live In?” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, vol. 42, no. 2 (June 2003), pp. 169-174.

[12]
Orsi, 172.

[13]
Susan Starr Sered, Women As Ritual Experts: The Religious Lives of Elderly Jewish Women in Jerusalem, Oxford University Press (1996), 6.

[14]
Sered, 141.

[15]
Sered, 140.

[16]
Terryl Givens, "The Paradoxes of Mormon Culture," BYU Studies vol. 46, no. 2 (2007): 191-192. Givens explores this theme in-depth in his book People of Paradox: A History of Mormon Culture, Oxford University Press (2007). Brigham Young particularly appreciated this blurring: “When I saw Joseph Smith, he took heaven, figuratively speaking, and brought it down to earth; and he took the earth and brought it up, and opened up, in plainness and simplicity, the things of God; and that is the beauty of his mission,” Journal of Discourses, Liverpool: F. D. and S. W. Richards (1854-1886, 26 vols.), vol. 5, p. 332.

[17]
Leonard J. Arrington, “Reflections on the Founding and Purpose of the Mormon History Association, 1965-1983,” Journal of Mormon History 10 (1983): 101.

[18]
This particular description of Flake’s work parallels the description of Leonard J. Arrington’s in Ronald W. Walker, David J. Whittaker, James B. Allen, Mormon History, University of Illinois Press (2001), p. 64.

The Fall of Relationships, part 2

Part 2 of 2 
(In part 1 we left off with a conversation between Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden from John Milton's Paradise Lost, book IX. Eve was arguing that the two should separate for a short time in order to better dress the garden while Adam is against the idea.)

Eve has just questioned Adam's belief that the two of them need to stay together in order to best overcome temptation. Adam responds to Eve’s questioning the need to be together by invoking a third party in the relationship: what God advises or creates need not be questioned: “best are all things as the will / Of God ordain’d them,” (343-344). In the Genesis account God says “it is not good for man to be alone,”¹²  and one of the reasons seems to be recognized implicitly by Milton—in addition to the need for general companionship they can also keep each other safe from temptation: “Not then mistrust, but tender love enjoins / That I should mind thee oft, and mind thou me” (37-38).¹³ As it turns out, close proximity can also be the very impetus for succumbing to temptation. Adam explains the true danger lies within the individual when one’s reason is tricked and the individual’s will follows the misguided reason, as will occur when the snake convinces Eve that partaking of the fruit is a good thing. Adam urges Eve not to seek temptation because surely it will find them. Ultimately, though, he relents with a poignant line: “Go; for thy stay, not free, absents thee more” (372). The concept of relationship is again invoked implicitly—the virtuous and happy relationship is the one freely chosen by each party in the face of a real alternative, or opposition. After the fall Adam will decry the idea of forcing compliance.¹⁴ That same idea of freely chosen interdependence is shown in his allowing Eve to separate from him. It also seems to reflect the attitude of God in placing them in the Garden with the possibility of a fall, as noted above. If they did not choose to remain in the Garden with Him, their inability to do otherwise would “absent them more.”

Eve reassures Adam by saying that the enemy wouldn’t seek her first anyway because that would be a very weak victory. This excuse hints that Eve is not yet seeing them as a pair—or at least she is no longer seeing them as such at this point. (Or  If the foe’s goal is to get Adam, he could use Eve. It seems she doesn’t realize that her fall will virtually necessitate Adam’s, based on their relationship.¹⁵ “Thus saying,” the moment of fracture is made physical, “from her Husband’s hand her hand / Soft she withdrew” (385-386).¹⁶  There is irony in her having companionship with the serpent, conversing, and even submitting to him: “Lead then,” Eve tells the serpent to show her the tree—a command to be led! (631). Throughout their conversation Adam is not brought up; Eve acts alone and the relationship is further fractured as she decides without Adam and misses her noon lunch date with him (739). She goes as far as bowing at (and to) the tree which she appears to worship (800). Meanwhile, while Eve hasn’t been thinking of Adam he has been thinking much of her while making her a garland of flowers (so much for getting more “work” done, 840). Eve says the fruit is now her “Best guide.” It isn’t until this point that her thoughts recall the relationships between her, God and Adam. Her choice was individual. Perhaps God didn’t notice, she hopes, “But to Adam in what sort shall I appear?” (816-817). She thinks of their relationship, believing perhaps now it will not be more equal, but that she may now be superior. Evidently she misunderstood the power she already held in the relationship—after all, Adam had relented to her request to work alone and clearly possessed much love for her. Her feelings of formerly being subordinate are pronounced as she feels a surge of power and superiority. In reality it seems she has upset the balance between her and Adam under God. The relationship is completely fractured, but oddly she clings to it more now than before, fearing she will be replaced. She resolves that “Adam shall share with me in bliss or woe: / So dear I love him” (831-832). 

Adam seeks her and finds her by the tree where she explains the serpent’s words and admits that she ate. She seeks to repair the relationship by offering him the fruit, “Thou therefore also taste, that equal lot / May join us” (881-882). As Adam noted earlier, problems (or sin) will occur when one’s reason is misled, and this is how Eve fell. Adam, on the other hand, makes the choice with his eyes wide open. Speaking to himself  he says: “How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost,…/ And mee with thee hath ruin’d, for with thee / Certain my resolution is to Die; / How can I live without thee” (900, 906-908). Adam is internally committed to the relationship, but this commitment strains his relationship with God because he places his being together with Eve above God’s strict injunction to refrain from eating the fruit. Adam tries to console or reassure Eve; maybe the serpent ate first and will get all the blame, maybe God will forgo destroying us so the Adversary won’t mock his evident failure. “However I with thee have fixt my Lot…/ Our State cannot be sever’d, we are as one, / One Flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself” (958-959). This can be understood literally, if Adam really views his true self as consisting of a relationship with Eve then he cannot be “himself” without the other part. But this fractures the relationship between him and God—as noted, this is the moment of Adam’s greatest sin and greatest nobility at once.

The severance of Adam from God seals him to Eve spiritually, and now physically as they embrace (990). They also do more than embrace, and when it is over the changes have begun to take a more physically discernible effect. They are naked and ashamed, they cover themselves with fig leaves (as Adam instructs Eve), they realize the relationship between them and God is fractured, and the blaming begins. In fact, Book IX ends with unproductive accusations and bad attitudes manifesting “Anger, Hate, Mistrust, Suspicion, Discord” and other fall-related emotions (1123-1124). The relationship of Adam and Eve is fractured once more. “Thus they in mutual accusation spent / The fruitless  hours, but neither self-condemning, / And of their vain contest appear’d no end” (1186-1189). Vain because it was self-centered as well as useless in terms of affecting resolution. This new conflict sets up the need for the reconciliation that will come through the rest of the epic. When the Son shows up to make them account for their actions, Milton again invokes the relationships: “Love was not in their looks, either to God / Or to each other” (Book X:111-112). The relationships need healing, but in order for that to happen the cycle of blame needs to be broken; someone needs to absorb or assume it in order to make it stop. After the punishments are doled out (Eve to have sorrow and pain in childbirth, Adam to earn bread by the sweat of his brow, the sentence of death upon them and their seed), the couple separates without discussion this time.

Adam’s anger seems fleeting and he is depicted as mentally accepting blame for the situation. The fault is “On mee, mee only” (832). When Eve comes to find him laying in his agony he turns against her in a rage, calling her “thou Serpent” (Book X:867). This is when Eve makes the heroic move, throwing herself at Adam’s feet, breaking the cycle of blame with the same words Adam had heard in his mind: “mee mee only” (936).¹⁷ Only her acceptance of the fault is offered vocally to Adam. She is the heroic martyr who shows tremendous patience by overlooking Adam’s massively misogynistic tirade, and begging him: “Between us two let there be peace” (924). This is a pathetic victory, a humiliating victory at the feet of another person, begging for reconciliation. One of Eve’s most admirable actions follows one of Adam’s worst. He relents and proclaims her “frailty and infirmer sex forgiv’n,” although Eve was the one with the strength and courage to fall at his feet and effect the resolution of the relationship! The relationship is repaired and it isn’t until that time that they are ready to repair the relationship with God again. Falling prostrate on the ground, as Eve had done to Adam earlier, “both confess’d / Humbly their faults, and pardon begg’d, with tears / Watering the ground” (1100-1102). God had likewise already been seeking reconciliation of the relationship, not only by sending the Son, but through “Prevenient grace,” which had descended from God to assist Adam and Eve in their repentance. Milton's depiction of the fall built around and through relationships, with each partner intimately effected by and effecting the others, is a fascinating approach to the paradigmatic Fall of Adam and Eve. ¹⁸

FOOTNOTES:

[1]
Genesis 2:18. The image is Michael Burgesse's engraving for Book 12, "Michael expels Adam & Eve; the Cherubim take their stations to guard Paradise." This engraving is from the 1688 folio edition of Paradise Lost, the first with illustrations. See Milton Texts at Emory University. 

[13]
Multiple senses of “mind” are possible here and the reader is left to take their pick of exactly which sense applies where—“mind” as in obey, or watch over, or be mindful of, etc.

[14]
“…what could I do more? / I warned thee, I admonished thee, foretold / The danger, and the lurking enemy / That lay in wait; beyond this had been force, / And force upon free will hath here no place,” (Book IX:1170-1173).

[15]
One might also ask if Eve was being completely sincere here, believing herself a lesser “prize” to the adversary than Satan. Is she naive? Is she representing what Milton believed true womanhood should represent? Is she flattering Adam?

[16]
This break contrasts with their later embrace in the Garden after they have partaken of the fruit when “There they their fill of love and love’s disport / Took largely,” (Book IX:990, 1042-1043), and their final hand-holding at the conclusion: “The world was all before them, where to choose / Their place of rest, and providence their guide: / They hand in hand with wandering steps and sow, / Through Eden took their solitary way,” (Book XII: 646-649).

[17]
Compare this to her earlier “austere composure” in response to Adam’s apparent insensitivity in Book IX:272.

[18]
“Thus they in lowliest plight repentant stood / Praying, for from the mercy-seat above / Prevenient grace descending had removed / The stony from their hearts…” Book XI:3. Part of this grace could include the sending of messengers to instruct the couple prior to the fall, the initial warnings about the foe.

Milton's Fall of Adam and Eve as the Fall of Relationships

Part 1 of 2
John Milton's Paradise Lost creatively recasts the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the War in Heaven, and the promised redemption of humankind. In this paper I explore the conversations and personal speeches between Adam and Eve in books IX and X. These exchanges seem to depict the Fall as being built around relationships. The "relational Fall" of Adam and Eve took place within the context of at least four relationships, each of which alternately fracture and repair (1- Adam and Eve, 2- Adam and God, 3- Eve and God, 4- Eve, Adam, and God). At the outset of book IX when Milton invokes his muse and describes his literary efforts in writing the epic he laments that “the better fortitude of Patience and Heroic martyrdom” are often “unsung” in the great and popular epics. Paradise Lost can be seen as Milton's attempt to depict better examples of an heroic martyrdom—those which serve to repair broken relationships.¹ The heroic moments include the Son’s volunteering to take upon himself the sins of man, and on a lesser scale, Adam’s decision to partake of the fruit to remain with Eve and Eve’s throwing herself at the feet of Adam to ask forgiveness, she being the first to take personal responsibility for the trouble.²

In Book IX Adam and Eve are preparing to begin their daily work in Paradise.³ A conversation takes place in which Eve suggests they separate from each other for a while and Adam argues they ought to stay together. Their exchange reveals important aspects of their relationship which are later related to their respective and collective falls.

Eve feels they have more work than they can handle. By working separately they will accomplish more because they won’t be distracted by each other’s beauty or conversation (220-225).⁴ Adam responds that her idea is good and that it becomes her as a woman—she should be expected to promote good acts in her husband (234).⁵ Nevertheless, Adam says her reasoning for their separation is not sufficient: “Yet not so strictly hath our Lord impos’d / Labour.” God doesn’t mind their getting refreshment, “whether food, or talk between, / Food of the mind, or this sweet intercourse,” (235-238). The couple was created to be together and enjoy life in a relationship. Despite his misgivings, Adam begins to capitulate with an element of foreshadowing: “But if much converse perhaps Thee satiate, to short absence I could yield” (246-247). If she has already had her fill of conversation for the present it might be fine to take a break from each other. Of course, Eve proved more hungry than Adam expected. She later satiated her hunger in a conversation with a serpent and again by partaking of the apple (instances of “food” and “talk between” that Adam had mentioned above). Adam offers another reason they should stay together: according to Milton’s story they had earlier been warned of a certain foe who would try to spoil things for them and suggests that when they are together they are stronger against assault. Any adversary would be “Hopeless to circumvent us joined, where each / To other speedy aid might lend at need” (259-260). Adam seems to imply it is the aspect of relationship that will be the focus of the foe’s attack: “Whether his first design be to withdraw / Our fealty from God, or to disturb / Conjugal love…” (261-263). Ultimately the foe’s design includes each of those relationships.

Although Adam concludes his argument with a hint of chauvinism to discourage the separation,⁶ Eve’s response is restrained because she loves Adam and chooses to overlook his seeming unkindness.⁷ This trait of Eve’s will appear again in a more serious situation after she finds Adam lying on the ground in his misery once they both have partaken of the fruit and he angrily rebuffs her. But in this instance she maintains an “austere composure”(272). She is surprised to hear that Adam doubts her firmness to God and him—again emphasizing relationships. His fear that the foe could mislead her reveals his fear that her faith and love could be shaken or seduced by fraud. How, she asks, could he think that of her? Adam senses her hurt feelings and seeks to repair the breach. Throughout this conversation each person attempts to properly defer to the other. Perhaps this is why it takes several exchanges before the decision to separate temporarily is made, and why the ultimate decision does not seem like the most logical outcome of those exchanges. Adam tells Eve that the actual tempting would be an affront to her and would dishonor her (297). Besides, the foe is more likely to go after him first so he needs Eve nearby to strengthen him. (Is he being condescending?) And as she strengthens him, he notes that he can likewise strengthen her. This seems to be a pretty equal situation where they help each other. His advice, he being the “head” of the relationship, is spoken out of “care and Matrimonial love” (318-319). Their safest resort is in the context of relationship. Soon their relationship will be connected directly with their individual falls as well as their fall as a couple from God and the Garden.

Eve is not persuaded and tells Adam their state is pretty sorry if they have to be connected at the hip all the time (or at the ribs?). Besides, the foe would only dishonor himself, and his failed attempt would only serve to make Adam and Eve look all the better: “By us? who rather double honor gain” (332). If they can’t stand on their own, they have been created too weak by their Maker: “Let us not then suspect our happy State / Left so imperfect by our Maker wise, / As not secure to single or combin’d. / Frail is our happiness if this be so, / And Eden were no Eden” (337-340). Their faith, love and virtue are better if tried and proven true. For Milton, there is no true virtue if it is not truly tried and proved virtuous. In Milton’s Areopagitica he wrote in opposition to the pre-censorship of literature in England.⁸ Such censorship would make virtue meaningless: “If every action which is good or evil in man at ripe years were to be under…compulsion, what were virtue but a name?” Those who complain about God “suffering Adam to transgress” are “Foolish tongues! [W]hen God gave him reason, he gave him freedom to choose.” Otherwise, he would have been “a mere artificial Adam” in a puppet show.⁹ “We ourselves esteem not that of obedience, or love, or gift, which is of force; God therefore left him free."¹⁰ In a way, Eve is right when she says that if they are not as secure separately their happiness is “frail,” but she is incorrect in thinking such a circumstance could not be an Eden. Her attitude of not seeming to care about their current separation stands in stark contrast to her later horror at the thought of separation after she had partaken of the fruit. She realizes she will die: “then I shall be no more, / And Adam wedded to another Eve, / Shall live with her enjoying, I extinct; / A death to think” (827-830). Is it weak for Eve to want so badly to be with Adam? Her statement that “Eden were no Eden” if it is built on such interdependence stands in sharp contrast to the internal Eden, or the Eden of their relationship Eve later prefers, as I will discuss below. As Adam and Eve are being led out of the Garden, Eve tells Adam to “lead on; / In me is no delay; with thee to go, / Is to stay here [in Eden]; without thee here to stay, / Is to go hence unwilling,” (Book XII:614-617).¹¹

But they are not to that point yet. The pre-lapsarian argument about separating continues in the next post.

FOOTNOTES:

[1]
This post is the rough draft of a paper I wrote for English 5721 ("Milton") at the University of Utah. The notion of Eve’s action as representing a sort of “heroic martyrdom” is from Daniel W. Doerksen, "Let There be Peace": Eve as Redemptive Peacemaker in Paradise Lost, Book X," Milton Quarterly 31.4 (1997) 124-130. Professor Barry Weller qualified Doerksen’s claim, stating that Eve’s action was certainly illustrative of self-sacrifice but questions whether it qualifies as “martyrdom.” For him, depicting Eve’s action as an instance of heroic martyrdom seems hyperbolic. Instead, Milton uses the phrase to anticipate the sufferings of Christ more specifically. Nevertheless, Weller noted, “it is at least worth emphasizing that the admirable—even the partially admirable—actions of the poem entail a disregard of one’s own immediate interests,” (personal communication, 2 December 2009). This paper is focused on Paradise Lost. Only peripheral attention is given to some of Milton's other writings and none to that of his contemporaries. The image is Gustave Doré (1832 – 1883), Adam and Eve Driven out of Eden.

[2]
Eve's actions are especially noteworthy considering the circumstances. Milton depicted her decision to partake of the fruit as being the result of true deception by the serpent whereas Adam made a willful and knowing decision. In this sense it can be argued that Eve is actually less "blameworthy" than Adam, but nevertheless is the first to try to repair their broken relationship.

[3]
Depicting Adam and Eve's actions in the Garden as including work is interesting since the Biblical account doesn’t depict much work prior to the Fall, unless one counts Adam’s naming of the animals or God’s creation of Eve.

[4]
Eve tells Adam: “For while so near each other thus all day / Our task we choose, what wonder if so near / Looks intervene and smiles, or object new / Casual discourse draw on, which intermits / Our day’s work brought to little, though begun / Early, and the hour of supper comes unearned” (Book IX:220-225).

[5]
At first blush, Adam’s response to Eve seems a condescending and sexist. The reader may keep in mind Adam is being utterly sincere.

[6]
“…leave not the faithful side / That gave thee being, still shades thee and protects. / The wife, where danger or dishonor lurks, / Safest and seemliest by her husband stays, / Who guards her, or with her the worst endures” (266-269).

[7]
Already before the Fall it seems there are some tempting situations where blissful relationship could be threatened. After Adam concludes, Milton prefaces Eve’s response by describing her mindset: “To whom the virgin majesty of Eve, / As one who loves, and some unkindness meets, / With sweet austere composure thus replied” (270-272).

[8]
England's Licensing Order of 1643 reinstated pre-publication censorship whereby any publication had to be approved and authorized before being published. Milton wrote in opposition to this rule, though he evidently still supported the outright censorship of Catholic literature as well as post-publication censorship. See John Milton, author, Stephen Orgel, Jonathan Goldberg eds., The Major Works (Oxford World's Classics), Oxford University Press (2003), p. 821-822.

[9]
John Milton, “Areopagitica,” ibid., p. 252.

[10]
Milton, ibid., p. 252.

[11]
This re-defining of Eden is also described to Adam by Michael the archangel. While Eve is sleeping, Michael gives Adam an overview of the future of his seed and promises the hope of a Redeemer, saying: “then wilt thou not be loath / To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess / A paradise within thee, happier far,” Book XII:587.