The favorite metaphor of the reformers is also employed by Master Henry Smith. In his _Preparation to Marriage_, written in the reign of Elizabeth, divorce is described as the "rod of mariage" and the "medicine of adultery." If duty be done, he says, "then I need not speake of divorcement, which is the rod of mariage and divideth them which were one flesh, as if the bodie and soul were parted asunder. But because all performe not their wedlocke vowes, therefore He which appointed mariage hath appointed divorcement, as it were, taking a privilege from us when we abuse it. As God hath ordained remedies for every disease, so He hath ordained a remedie for the disease of mariage. The disease of marriage is adultery, and the medicine thereof is divorcement."[220] [Footnote 220: MASTER HENRY SMITH, _Preparation to Marriage_: quoted by JEAFFRESON, _Brides and Bridals_, II, 294, note.] Nearly all the English reformers of the sixteenth century agree in rejecting separation from bed and board as a "papist" innovation; and they are equally unanimous in allowing the man for unfaithfulness to put away his wife and contract another marriage.[221] Prevailing opinion appears also to have accorded the same privilege to the woman on like provocation; but there were undoubtedly some in the Protestant ranks who were not so liberal in her behalf. In particular this seems to be the correct inference to be drawn from the antagonism and excitement caused by the bold position of Hooper,[222] who won a perilous distinction through his sensible demand for even justice to the sexes in this regard.[223] According to the common view, malicious desertion on the part of either spouse is a second scriptural ground for the complete dissolution of wedlock. The singular logic through which the words of Paul are made to sustain this distinctively Protestant doctrine may be illustrated by a typical example. "But to our purpose," exclaims Tyndale, "what if a man run from his wife and leave her desolate? Verily, the rulers ought to make a law, if any do so and come not again by a certain day, as within the space of a year or so, that then he be banished the country; and if he come again, to come on his head, and let the wife be free to marry when she will." But how is this liberty to be reconciled with the words of Paul who allows a brother or sister a divorce when deserted by an unbelieving spouse? Easily; for elsewhere "he saith, 'If there be any man that provideth not for his, and namely for them of his own household, the same denieth the faith, and is worse than an infidel.' And even so is this man much worse to be interpreted for an infidel, that causeless runneth from his wife."[224] [Footnote 221: _Cf._, for example, BECON'S "Catechism," _Works_, II, 647; and his "Prayers," _ibid._, III, 532; TYNDALE, _Expositions_, 51, 52; Bucer in MILTON'S _Prose Works_, III, 299, 300, who grants this cause to both parties.]