Marriage

When we think about Puritan marriage, it is easy to imagine a joyless arrangement: a stern husband, a submissive wife, a house full of children, and absolutely no romance. As usual, the historical record is considerably more complicated. 

Thomas Taylor, an English Puritan minister, wrote that "All married persons must above all things love, respect and cherish grace in one another." The language is striking. Marriage was not simply a legal or business arrangement or a means of producing children. Husband and wife were expected to love one another, respect one another, and encourage one another's spiritual lives.

That does not mean Puritan marriage was an egalitarian institution.Although marriage was deeply religious in meaning, Puritans in New England treated it as a civil institution. In Massachusetts, the law required marriages to be solemnized before a magistrate or another person authorized by the General Court, kind of like getting married by a Justice of the Peace today rather than in a church. But that didn't stop Puritans from regarding marriage as a spiritual partnership.

A husband and wife were supposed to help one another live godly lives, raise their children, and maintain a godly household. A wife had substantial responsibilities. She was expected to manage the household, raise and educate children, oversee domestic affairs, and contribute to the economic and religious life of the family. The work of a "housewife" was neither insignificant nor merely decorative. But the household was hierarchical. The husband was understood to be its head, and a wife was expected to respect and submit to his authority.

This is where we need to resist two equally misleading interpretations. Puritan marriage was neither modern egalitarian marriage nor simply female servitude. Mutuality did not mean equality. A wife could be valued as her husband's companion, counselor, and spiritual partner while still occupying a subordinate position within the household. A husband had authority, but it came with obligations of his own: to love, provide for, protect, and govern his wife with Christian care rather than tyranny. The ideal was therefore reciprocal, but not equal.

And what of the marriage bed? Here's another place where the familiar image of the Puritan falls apart. Puritans did not regard sexual intimacy between a husband and wife as inherently sinful or shameful. They railed against that Catholic notion. Sex belonged within a marriage and was understood as something to be enjoyed by both parties. Yes, you read that correctly: Puritans (the married ones anyway) were supposed to enjoy sex. But the boundaries were strict. Fornication outside of marriage was met with fines and sometimes the lash. Massachusetts law treated fornication and adultery as serious offenses. So the Puritans were not necessarily sexually repressed. They were sexually regulated. That distinction matters.

Much of the familiar image of the sexually repressed Puritan was shaped by later generations (including the Victorians) who looked backward through their own ideas about morality. The actual Puritan understanding of marriage was more complicated: affectionate, religious, hierarchical, and sexually regulated.

And perhaps that is the most important thing to remember about Puritan marriage: Mutuality did not mean equality, but neither did inequality mean that love, affection, companionship, or sexual intimacy had no place in the marriage bed.

Until next time, keep questioning the past. It usually has receipts.

Notes & Sources

1. Leland Ryken, Worldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986, Chapter 3, "Marriage & Sex."2. Thomas Taylor, A Treatise Concerning the Marriage of the Saints. Quoted in Leland Ryken, Worldly Saints, Chapter 3, "Marriage and Sex." Taylor wrote: "All married persons must above all things love, respect and cherish grace in one another." Online source containing Taylor's quotation.

3. The Massachusetts Body of Liberties (1641). "Liberties of Women," pp 79-80.The provisions address married women's property rights and prohibit husbands from subjecting their wives to physical correction or "stripes." 

4. Massachusetts General Court, Records and Laws of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, 1646.The 1646 marriage law required marriages to be solemnized before a magistrate or another person authorized by the General Court. 

5. Edward Rawson, Secretary. The General Laws and Liberties of the Massachusetts Colony: Revised & Re-printed, by Order of the General Court Holden at Boston. May 15th, 1672. Cambridge: Printed by Samuel Green, for John Usher of Boston, 1672. 6. Church of England, Articles of Religion, Article XXV, "Of the Sacraments." The Thirty-Nine Articles identify Baptism and the Lord's Supper as the two sacraments ordained by Christ and distinguish Matrimony from the sacraments of the Gospel.