[Footnote 264: MILTON, "Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce," _Prose Works_, III, 181. "And what his chief end was of creating woman to be joined with man, his own instituting words declare, and are infallible to inform us what is marriage, and what is no marriage; unless we can think them set there to no purpose: 'It is not good,' saith he, 'that man should be alone. I will make him a help meet for him.'"--_Ibid._, 187. Beza holds, says Milton, that divorce (by the Jewish law) is created "only for the help of wives." This leads him to exclaim: "Palpably uxorious! Who can be ignorant, that woman was created for man, and not man for woman, and that a husband may be injured as insufferably in marriage as a wife! What an injury is it after wedlock not to be loved! What to be slighted! What to be contended with in point of house rule who shall be the head; not for any parity of wisdom, for that were something reasonable, but out of a female pride! 'I suffer not,' saith St. Paul, 'the woman to usurp authority over the man.' If the apostle could not suffer it, into what mould is he mortified that can?"--_Ibid._, 247; _cf._ also _ibid._, 209.] [Footnote 265: JEAFFRESON, _Brides and Bridals_, II, 333. He was not solely actuated by irritation against his wife, Mary Powell, whom he had put away; for he retained his views after taking her back and to his life's end: _ibid._, II, 333.] That this judgment is scarcely too severe is clearly proved by Milton's theory of proper divorce procedure.[266] Rejecting all aid of court or magistrate, he goes back to the ancient principle of self-divorce.[267] For it was an "act of papal encroachment" to "pluck the power and arbitrement of divorce from the master of the family, into whose hands God and the law of all nations had put it, and Christ so left it, preaching only to the conscience, and not authorizing a judicial court to toss about and divulge the unaccountable and secret reason of disaffection between man and wife, as a thing most improperly answerable to any such kind of trial." For the sake of "revenue and high authority" the "popes of Rome" have "subjected that ancient and naturally domestic prerogative to an external and unbefitting judicature." Differences "in divorce about dowries, jointures, and the like, besides the punishing of adultery," ought indeed to be referred to the magistrate; yet "against the will and consent of both parties, or of the husband alone," the "absolute and final hindering of divorce" cannot rightly "belong to any civil or earthly power." For "ofttimes the causes of seeking divorce reside so deeply in the radical and innocent affections of nature, as is not within the diocese of law to tamper with." Among such "deep and serious regresses of nature" is hate, "of all things the mightiest divider." Moreover, the lord of the family cannot go wrong in acting from such motive; "for