John Milton's attitude toward women and marriage/弥尔顿对待女性和婚姻的态度观点

Much of Milton’s social commentary in Paradise Lost focuses on the proper role of women. In Book IV he makes clear that he does not think men and women are equals, alluding to biblical passages that identify man as the master of woman. Although Milton viewed women as inferior to men, believing that wives should be subservient to their husbands, he did not see himself as a woman-hater. In Paradise Lost, he distances himself from the misogyny popular in his time—the belief that women are utterly inferior to men, essentially evil, and generally to be avoided. Milton’s character Adam voices this harsh view of womankind, but only after the fall, as an expression of anger and frustration. Put simply, Milton’s early views in Paradise Lost may be misogynistic by today’s standards, but he nevertheless presents Eve’s wifely role as an important one, as Adam and Eve help one another to become better and more complete individuals.
Milton’s views on marriage are mainstream today, but they were viewed as shocking and heretical in his own time. Milton was a pioneer for the right of divorce in an age when divorce was prohibited by nearly all denominations. In fact, the only grounds for a lawful divorce in Milton’s time was usually sexual incompatibility due to unlawful relations with other parties. But in his Doctrine of Discipline and Divorce, Milton expresses his belief that any sort of incompatibility—sexual, mental, or otherwise—is justified grounds for a divorce. In the same essay, he argues that the main purpose of marriage is not necessarily procreation, as most people thought at that time, but to bring two people together in completion. He felt that conversation and mental companionship were supremely important in a marriage, and admits that his first marriage might have failed due to a lack in this regard. He also argued that the partners in a marriage must complement each other. His portrayal of Adam and Eve after the fall is a vivid example of his belief that two people can complement each other, smoothing out one anothers’ faults and enhancing each others’ strengths.