[Milton-L] Eve's curls (reply to William Moeck)

[alan horn]

"M. is not approving automatic 'subjection,' but 'subjection' earned —
earned by being
'required WITH GENTLE SWAY.'"

In the passage in question, Eve's subordination is justified by her
natural inferiority ("not equal, as their sex not equal seemed"),
which is backed up by reference to divine purpose (God made her for
Adam). It is not freely given and Adam does not have to win it by
being a good master. He is a good master, but that's not the grounds
for his authority.

"If gentleness fails, the kind of subjection M. endorses is out of the
question. M. does not give Adam carte blanche
to fall back on ungentle 'sway'"

Where does it say any of this in the passage? Where is the
"appropriate background evidence" to suggest that Milton or any writer
of his period thought that men had no right to enforce the obedience
of their female dependents "if gentleness failed"?

"'subjection' and tyranny are two quite different things."

That's right. Tyranny is illegitimate rule over another. For Milton
patriarchy was natural and divinely ordered. Women's liberation was
not on the agenda for seventeenth-century bourgeois revolutionaries
like him.