존 밀턴의 『이혼론』에 나타난 기독교인의 자유와 젠더 문제

In seventeenth-century England, the legislation governing marriage was still governed by canon law, as marriage was a sacrament. Under canon law of the time, the only causes recognized as allowable reasons of divorce were adultery, sexual incapability,physical cruelty, or desertion. Accordingly, marriage and divorce was regarded as a matter of sexual nature. The physical aspects of marriage was stressed over the psychological and social, and no second chances of marriage were allowed. Milton rethought the nature of matrimony and argued for divorce upon wider grounds of incompatibility, namely the mental and spiritual. In his divorce tracts, Milton insisted that interpersonal relationships and intellectual compatability between the sexes should be regarded as the essential component in marriage life. He argued that as true marriage is an endlessly unfolding spiritual exchange, a bonding of souls and bodies,divorce should be permitted to set free individuals who cannot achieve this union. The divorce tracts, which consist of four pamphlets published in mid-1640s, represent a significant development in Milton’s theorizing of liberty. Milton enunciated the new idea of no-fault divorce in England in the 1640s and his argument has been in English law since 1971.