Eric Song:	I tried to make this as short as possible but there are a lot of moving parts so it might get a little bit long, but I hope it's not a complete waste of your Saturday afternoon. The weather's miserable anyways so ... 
	The work that I'm presenting is drawn from a chapter of my current book project, which is also titled love against substitution. And I'll sketch out a bit about my bigger argument here, because this topic will only make sense in the context of that. My book project revisits a very familiar historical narrative. In 16th and 17th century England, the meaning and the practice of marriage began to change. What might have once served to regulate sex, reproduction, and transfers of titles and property, came to be seen more and more as a personally and spiritually vital relationship. 
	Historians continue to debate the exact nature and causes of this large scale shift. Demographic and economic shifts as well as developments in protestant teaching. This historical narrative is at the same time a familiar turning point in literary history. Married life and domesticity would become a central focus of literary writing, gaining a position alongside, or perhaps even above military valor or frustrated passion as privileged material for literary treatment.
	Eventually the genre of the novel would become ascended, as it proved well suited to representing what we might call bourgeois domesticity. According to our standard literary histories, paradise lost serves as an important learning point of how literature changed alongside the changing significance of marriage. A recent book length study of Paradise Lost, which is the late 17th century English epic, pretty much I think commonly accepted as the great epic poem in the English language.
	So a recent book length study by one of our most learned scholars of the renaissance opens with this rather silly sounding summary. The message of Paradise Lost is make love not war. This silly sounding message I think is actually a powerful one. Paradise Lost is an epic, but the standard stuff of epic, warfare, imperial conquests, has given way to the real heart of the poem. Adam and Eve's marriage. Their initial union, their strife, and their reconciliation. And this change in epic focus has been cited as an important precursor of modernity's interest in literary domesticity. Ian Watt's very influential account of the rise of the novel describes Paradise Lost as actually the only epic of married life and he suggests that this is an epic that influences the trajectory of the novel in the English language. 
	My project begins with a conviction. So my larger book project, begins with my conviction that the standard historical and literary historical narratives have left something unspoken. Not something that's obscure, but rather that something that's hidden in plain sight. That something is the full historical meaning behind the literary definition of marriage, as the love for a unique irreplaceable object. This definition pits conjugal love against the basic logic of substitution. The notion that one person can affectively assume the place of another upon death for example, or retirement, or graduation, and that are thus all replaceable. I'm not a monster, I assumed that love, however we define it, requires some fuzzy but essential belief that the beloved is irreplaceable. Love saves us from being merely evanescent. 
	But the definition of marriage, as centrally about love, is a historically contingent one. As C.S. Lewis puts it, in the medieval period, marriage had nothing to do with love and no nonsense about marriage was tolerated. All matches were matches of interest. Lewis is clearly overstating the case. With his exaggeration might be a useful shock, because the definition of marriage around love, the love for a unique irreplaceable object in my account, may still feel entirely common sensical or natural despite the very widespread phenomena of remarriage after death or increasingly divorce. My book argues that during the 17th century authors came to rely on a shared vocabulary of conjugal love as a rejection of substitution. For very particular historical reasons. I argue that they did so to ask basic questions about interrelated forms of substitution during a century of revolutionary cultural upheaval. At the most basic level, marriage governs literal substitution by regulating the reproduction of heirs who can replace their parents legitimately but when marriage is defined not so much by this practical function, but by a form of love that rejects substitutes, fundamental questions arise. Is marriage an apparatus to replace mortal selves or is it a sight of unique love? 
	There's no strict contradiction here. The relationship between children and parents might be based on replacement where as the relationship between spouses may not be. But the affect of tension between love and substitution allows literary text to apply emotional pressure on the idea of human replace ability. And this I argue becomes an important way that conjugal narratives can raise large scale questions about religion and politics even when they're not necessarily directly about religion and politics. 
	We can get a quick sense of this tension that I'm tracing by turning to two key definitions of marriage found in the bible. The first comes from Genesis immediately after Adam and Eve unite. This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh. Here, marriage seems to have everything to do with substitution. The organic fusion of two into one, motivates and intergenerational transfer. But this definition is doubly mysterious. The author of this chapter of Genesis emphasizes the transition from one family unit to the next, despite the fact that neither Adam nor Eve have parents exactly. Clearly this story of the first marriage is meant to apply to all future couples. But Eve's union with Adam is really a reunion. The restoration of her flesh to it's original source. Not only are Adam and Even the only two people around, she was made out of his rib.
	So what does this mean for actual husbands and wives to seek to become one flesh who are not Adam and Eve? Unlike Eve, an individual wife has not been created out of her would be husband's side. When the apostle Paul redefines marriage within the new Christian religion that he works to establish, he heightens the mysterious aspects of conjugal union rather than necessarily clarifying them. Husbands love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto his wife and they too shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. 
	Paul does address what it means for husbands to love their wives as their own flesh when this is not literally true. Husbands should emulate Christ's love for his bride, the church. But Paul doesn't exactly answer the question or solve the problem. Husbands and wives are now all a part of Christ's corporate body. In other words, husbands experience being part of Christ's communal bride while at the same time aiming to be lordly with respect to their individual wives. The question of why one particular husband, who is neither Adam nor Christ, should seek to love one particular wife who is neither the universal church nor a piece of his own body still remains unclear, even more to the point, more delightful a point. Paul can't really here answer the question of how wives should love and obey their husbands as if they were Christ.
	This simile should transform every day experience into a sign of higher truth, but it doesn't undo the simple fact that husbands are very often not Christ like. Husbands too are sinners who need salvation. And what about marriage's intergenerational function? What does reproduction have to do with Christ and the church? It's possible that this Paul line definition of marriage might replace one form of substitution reproductive, intergenerational, for another, sacrificial. 
	Paul says that Christ's love his future bride the church, and gave himself for it. In what sense Christ gave himself up for the church is perhaps the most basic mystery in Christian theology. In England by the 17th century a protestant doctrine of penal atonement had assumed prominence, although certainly not an unchallenged prominence. According to these mainstream protestant teachings Christ takes upon himself the divine wrath that was due to sinners. In other words, Christ becomes a substitute sacrifice. Somewhat paradoxically, according to this view of atonement, Christ sacrifices his literal body to purify his church, his future bride and corporate body. And this form of sacrifice at once self negation and a care for one's body, serves as the higher spiritual meaning of marriage itself.
	I think as confusing as this is, I guess the general upshot is that marriage is called upon to hold together a cluster of dynamics. Regulated reproduction, sacrifice and love that don't necessarily fit together in any simple or easy way. But this constellation is not just a religious and a practical matter, but also a basic political concern. My project focuses on the way that royalist ideology relies on these different meanings of marriage to perpetuate sovereignty. At the literal level again, marriage produces heirs who should theoretically replace the monarch seamlessly upon death. At the metaphorical level, royalist ideology relies on marriage to strengthen the alignment of the monarch with Christ.
	Here's what I mean. In 1603 King James of England memorably declared before parliament what god hath conjoined them, let no man separate. I am the husband and all the whole island is my lawful wife. Right, just as a thought experiment, just imagine an American president saying this. It would be absurd and kind of shocking and weird. Right so this is clearly something a king says. Ernest Cantorowitz quotes this declaration early on in his book the kings two bodies, a study in medieval political theology. One of the most influential works of scholarship across the humanities from the mid 20th century. Cantorowitz argues that James' metaphor, borrows from the corpus mysticum, the holy union between Christ and his body. Or in the terms of my argument, between Christ and his body as his bride. This is an early moment in Catorowitz's expansive claim for how the difference between an individual small k king, fallible and mortal, and the perpetual and undying body of the capital K king, kingship, is negotiated by adapting christology to royalist theory. So I merely kind of underscoring how marriage works at the literal and metaphorical level here.
	But appeals to the king as Christ like would intensify when kingship itself was thrown into jeopardy. In 1649 the previously unthinkable happened when after a series of civil wars, king James' son king Charles I was tried for treason and publicly beheaded. Individual kings had been killed in the past, like some of the stuff Shakespearean drama, but kingship itself was now on trial and England was about to undergo an 11 year long experiment in non monarchial government. But this experiment would fail in part because the image of the king as Christ like would actually endure in public consciousness. This image was most famously promoted in the frontist piece to icon basilica the royal icon or portrait, rushed to publication days after Charles' execution. And this book would actually become the single runaway best seller in 17th century England. It's this image of the suffering Christ like king that would have the greatest affect in England, until as one scholar puts it, Charles I as crucified Christ gave way to Charles II as the resurrected Christ.
	That is in 1660, when the monarchy was restored. Charles I own real married life had actually been a source of his political troubles. His wife, to whom he was very attached by all accounts, was a Roman Catholic French princess, all kind of dangerous things. During this very tumultuous period I argue, authors from a very wide range of convictions and beliefs test political and religious thinking by defining marriage against substitution. Marriage comes to be increasingly [inaudible 00:12:48] from it's political or political slash theological functions and grounded on the lives of individuals. I don't at all mean to suggest that a literary reconsideration of conjugal love cause a real cultural change, but on the other hand I don't simply mean to suggest that a literary vocabulary of conjugal love merely reflected these changes. I'm suggesting that authors came to depict marriage in a way that applied affective and logical pressure on a notion human substitution so that their imaginative writings could investigate large scale matters of religion and politics and maybe even more to the point, these developments in story telling have been handed down to subsequent generations in a way that have altered the ways we continue to narrate what marriage means.
	Whether or not we have any particular interest in 17th century English literature, this literature shapes in direct and indirect ways, how we narrate the meaning of marriage. And I won't belabor the obvious. We continue to struggle with a divided definitions of marriage that we have inherited, whether it essentially concerns love or state regulation, or economics, or reproduction. The ultimate motivation of my project derives from my belief that imaginative writers reshaped the link between marriage in literary form in ways that exert a traceable influence on our own imaginations. 
	John Milton is perhaps the most apt figure to think about in relation to all of this. To the way that cultural upheaval gave rise to an influential form of story telling about marriage. His personal life and career as a writer hit upon every single aspect of the historical story that I very quickly sketched out. First, some of Milton's early public writings were specifically about marriage, or actually about divorce. Some biographical information is helpful here. Milton had taken premarital celibacy quite seriously and had written fairly elaborately about the power and goodness of chastity. But in 1642 Milton ran an errand for his dad collecting a debt from the Powell family. He ended up engaged to one of the Powell daughters, Mary. She was 16 at the time, Milton was 35 had a BA and an MA from Cambridge, and had devoted himself to a life of learning. About a month of marriage Mary ran away back to her parents house. This doesn't seem particularly surprising. 
	In a series of published pamphlets, Milton began writing about the acceptability of Christian divorce. Which was nearly impossible to obtain at the time, except in cases of adultery, gross fraudulence, or serious violence. And although the Hebrew bible contains specific rules about divorce, it seems very clear that Jesus teaches his followers not to seek divorce on any grounds other than adultery. And they [inaudible 00:15:33] shall be one flesh, again a citation of the Genesis definition. What therefore God hath joined together, let man not put asunder. It seems pretty clear. But Milton argues creatively and pretty strenuously that we have misunderstood Jesus' teaching and that divorce on the grounds of incompatibility is a humane, charitable, Christian practice.
	It's hard to deny that Milton had very basic personal motives for writing in this way. And in fact Milton generally tends to argue that husbands have a right to seek divorce. He seems less interested in the unhappiness of wives although he's somewhat inconsistent on this point. It's also hard to deny that Milton has to read pretty hard against the grain of the scriptural passages he cites. But some of Milton's arguments about the essence of Christian marriage remain powerful and compelling for us. Milton argues that it's wrong to think that marriage is primarily about regulating sex, which is one reason that adultery remains a legitimate reason for Christian divorce. Rather, Milton declares that the real reason for marriage, the real reason that god made Eve in the first place is for something he calls conversation. Not just casual chit chat, but a genuine form of spiritual and intellectual enrichment. 
	Milton thinks that if we just read Genesis the right way, we'll see that the original reason for marriage was the act in cheerful conversation of man with woman to comfort and refresh him against the evil of solitary life. Reproduction is only a secondary concern. What God cares for most in marriage is the mutual enjoyment of that which the soul needfully seeks. And this leads to a key move in Milton's logical wrestling. If it turns out that you and your wife aren't spiritually compatible, that you can't have that genuine form of cheerful conversation, then clearly god did not attend the marriage in the first place.
	God did not join you together, it was just an honest mistake and you should be able to part ways. Milton's divorce tracks were spectacularly unsuccessful. They were on occasion burned in public. I'm not, that's just true. Of course most of the anger was directed against Milton's claims for divorce and a sense that he was just a sinful man who wanted lots of wives. But the idea that marriage was not fundamentally about regulating sex and reproduction, but about spiritual enrichment. That idea was also controversial. It was an existing idea that was beginning to take hold but it was clearly producing tension with other notions of marriage based on the inferiority of women as well as the need to regulate sex.
	Milton never did divorce his first wife Mary. After a protracted estrangement they reconciled and had children, yet Mary died in 1652 from lingering complications after the birth of a daughter. Milton remarried several years later, but his second wife too died of complications after childbirth. This was not an unusual fate for women at the time at all. And Milton did marry a third time late in life. All of which to say, Milton the early advocate of divorce, eventually did experience marriage and remarriage, but he also seems to have experienced the painfulness of real life substitution and replacement in matters of love. 
	If we had more time, and this is something I try to cut, we'd take a look at one of the most poignant poems he ever wrote. A sonnet about the loss and guilt that he felt after his wife, we're not sure which wife he's talking about exactly in this poem, died after childbirth. But the biographical sense the sketch is, the point of the biographical sketch, is that Milton was a theorist of Christian marriage who had many tumultus experiences of marriage and eventually wrote the great English epic about the original marriage of Adam and Eve. But this isn't the entire picture. The bigger picture involves Milton as a political thinker as well. Milton took a very long detour into revolutionary politics. For the sake of time, I'll just mention very quickly, that soon after Charles I was executed in early 1649, Milton started publishing pamphlets mounting vigorous defenses of this revolutionary action. In [inaudible 00:19:43] or the image breaker or our word [inaudible 00:19:47] Milton directly refutes this presentation of King Charles as Christ like martyr.
	Milton went on to argue in print that kingship is not an innate quality and that hereditary kingship is a kin to trading citizens as property and slaves. For his religious and political thinking about revolutionary politics, Milton was rewarded with employment. He served in an official capacity under the non monarchical government and he gained international attention or notoriety as a defender of this hugely controversial project. But this revolutionary project did not last. Fairly quickly in the course of non monarchical rule, the general Oliver Cromwell became the most important man in England. He was actually offered the crown but refused it, taking instead the title of lord protector. And one fundamental question became even more difficult to answer. What other way is there besides heredity in replacing leaders? It turns out then England had a very hard time imagining other ways. It took the American colonists to really take that idea and run with it. 
	In fact, for most of the English people, the desire for monarchy remained. When Oliver Cromwell died, actually his son Richard took over the title of Lord Protector and the real radicals were outraged. Why did we get out of kingship when we still have some kind of hereditary lord protectorship. By this point the revolutionary experiment really unraveled quickly. Largely through military intervention, Charles I son returned to England and took over his father's throne. And this finally, and I slipped in here, Milton did go completely blind which I should emphasize, as part of his unhappiness.
	This finally brings us back to the Milton who was writing Paradise Lost. We have accounts that Milton began working on this poem in earnest in 1658, two years before the restoration of the monarchy. The poem was first published in 1667. As I've already pointed out, Paradise Lost is the work of a man who had lost two wives and I should mention a son also named John, who never survived infancy. This is the poem of a man who had gone blind, who's political hopes had been dashed, and was briefly imprisoned during the early reign of Charles II, maybe in some danger of execution, we're not sure. He was released through the negotiations of some of his supporters and friends.
	And in Paradise Lost, this Milton retells Genesis to ask why exactly everything started to go wrong. The opening of the poem declares the poets intention to ask, what cause moved the very first human couple to disobey God, thereby losing for all of humanity innocence, [inaudible 00:22:23] paradise, and immortality. But it turns out that Milton's investigation of first causes. The first causes of our unhappiness actually go much further. The very first chronological event in the poem, not the first even narrated but the first to have taken place once we piece it all together, is God's sudden announcement to his angels. Unbeknownst to his angels, God says hey I have this son. And God not only tells the angels that he has begotten his son, he also tells them that they should obey him as a vice regent. This day I have begot, whom I declare my only son, and by myself have sworn to him shall bow all knees in heaven, and shall confess him lord under his great vice regent reign abide.
	This surprising declaration ends up triggering a civil war. Or more accurately, the very first civil war, led by the angel who we now know as Satan. Satan takes exception to God demanding that the angels obey this newly anointed son, who is this guy. I should add here that the relationship between Milton's politics and his depiction of God as king, is one of the most familiar and complex questions about Paradise Lost. And although, I think what I'm presenting is accurate, it's nonetheless my own particular take on how Milton interweaves his religious thinking and his politics.
	Milton, the former revolutionary anti monarchical theorist, writes hereditary monarchy onto even God's politics. And in the logic in the poem, this upheaval in heavenly politics produces humans. Quite literally. God seems to create a new world and a new species of beings in the aftermath of a civil war in heaven. Quite possibly to make up for the loss of fallen angels. We're just kind of, a new population for his kingdom. And in the aftermath of the failed uprising in heaven, Satan will attack God's new outpost and it's human inhabitants, Adam and Eve. 
	Before we even hear of the exact nature of the original civil war in heaven, the poem has already gotten us thinking about the mysterious nature of the son of god's role with respect. Both to heavenly politics and to the new human race. In book three of the poem, God foresees that Adam and Eve will succumb to the Satanic temptation and fall. But God does want to show mercy to humanity, but God must express both mercy and justice. Someone must be punished and die, God declares. And he asks if any will volunteer to die on man kind's behalf.
	Only the son of God is willing to take on this deadly task. And God praises the son for this heroism. God foresees how the son will be born as a human as the head of all mankind, though humans son. Yet the son of God, and man, has a rather peculiar destiny. He will not just be God's vice regent ruling under his divine father, but actually something more like God's heir. As if an mortal God should need an heir in the first place. God says to his son, thou has been found by merit more than birthright son of God. Therefore, you the son will be anointed universal king, one who reigns forever. Especially because the poem narrates events out of chronological order. The overarching logic is actually pretty dizzying. So this is in in a nutshell. God announces that his son is his vice regent. A large number of angels take exception to this and rebel as part of the aftermath of the civil war, humanity is created, but God knows that this new race of people will also disobey him. When the son volunteers to die on behalf of humanity, he has shown to have been the true proper vice regent or heir to God's throne.
	In other words, this is retroactive confirmation that God was right all along. But why wouldn't God always be right, even if some angels doubt him. But there's something remarkable in the fact that Milton emphasizes that even the son of God must prove himself worthy by merit more than birthright. Prove himself worthy in the aftermath of the civil war that challenged his merit in the first place. This is kind of a stunning consequence of Milton the anti monarchical thinker imagining God as a king with a son. 
	Heredity should certainly be enough in this particular case of monarchy, but it's not. Merit might be more important. But what does it mean for God to have not only a son, but also something like an heir. Why would got need an heir when he is obviously immortal. It turns out, that the son will be universal king, not to take over for his father, but only in anticipation of something greater than kingship. This is still in book three. At the very end of the world after the final judgment, God says to his son, then thou thy regal scepter shall lay by, for legal scepter then no more shall need, God shall be all in all.
	Ultimately things will be so perfect, so full of God, that there will be no need for any sovereignty, any kingship. That sounds like a genuinely great thing especially if you're not very big on kingship in the first place. But what then, is the son's role as his father's heir? He's not the heir who takes over when his dad dies. Quite the contrary. The son's kingship is merely a step toward the complete and total success of his father. 
	In this story specifically involves us as human beings. We know that the son will become this kind of temporary king, not only as the son of God but also as a human being. This is how we as humans will be saved an incorporated into all encompassing divinity. But, and I think this is the key transition, what does any of this have to do with human experience? More specifically, what does any of this have to do with human love and marriage? And the answers I think, tend to be kind of surprising. Not as much as you would think. For humans, love and marriage might simply be more important than divine politics than even cosmic history. When we get to the central human narrative of paradise lost, the story of Adam and Eve, Milton keeps true to some of the core principles of his earlier writings on marriage. 
	Very soon after he is created, Adam realizes that he's lonely and that he's been created to need someone else. Adam immediately asks, well not immediately, very soon asks God for a partner. But curiously enough, God does not immediately grant Adam's request. Why do you need a wife Adam? God asks. Even more curiously, God asks Adam to compare himself to his maker. After all, Adam was created in God's image. What thinks thou that of me, and this my state, seem I to thee sufficiently possessed of happiness or not? Who am alone from all eternity, for none I know second to me or like equal much less. I God am a bachelor and I'm pretty happy. Why do you need a wife. 
	But something actually shocking happens, or almost happens here. God comes really close to lying. God certainly does have someone who is second to him and like him. In fact God's son comes somewhat close to being equal to the father. God announcing that he has a son is what started the entire mess in the first place. When Adam persists in his request, God, so Adam kind of reasons his way out of this. You're perfect God but man needs a partner. God backs off and he smiles and he said I was just testing you, good job.
	And then God promises to give Adam what he seeks. Thy likeness, thy fit help, thy other self. Except there's a twist. In a dream like state, Adam sees God taking a rib out of his side and then making another human being. That other human being is man like but different sex. Adam is over joyed with the mate that he receives and thanks God for giving exactly what he promised. But where did this different sex come from exactly? What does gender difference mean, and how does it work? Milton certainly doesn't deny the importance of reproduction. After all, God tells Adam and Eve in Genesis to be fruitful and multiply. But here, as in his earlier divorce tracks, Milton's view of marriage is not primarily about reproduction. If it were just about reproduction, we might recall that God mysteriously had a son without any wife, or Goddess in sight. 
	What Adam primarily wanted was an equal partner. Someone to have meaningful conversations with. And what he got was a wife. This turns out to pose some problems. As Adam confesses to the visiting angel Raphael, in a kind of eganic locker room conversation, Adam is struggling to maintain his husbandly superiority. Adam knows he's supposed to be the head of the relationship, that he's supposedly more God like, and yet Eve seems better.
	Raphael admonishes Adam for letting sex and sexual passion get the best of him. But Adam gets a little testy at this point. He says it's not sex, and it's not just her good looks, Eve just seems really really good and wise and smart. Raphael has some rather pat advice. Remember that you're the man in the relationship and have more self esteem. Milton's use of the term self esteem is the second ever recorded in the Oxford English dictionary. 
	Unsurprisingly, Raphael's advice isn't very helpful, especially after Eve succumbs to satanic temptation and Adam has to decide what to do. And the love between Adam and Even intensifies most when it's wrong headed. When refusing love would be the right thing for Adam to do, the right way for Adam to obey God. Both Adam and Eve sense that this disobedient but compelling form of love works by rejecting substitution. 
	After Eve eats of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge she wonders what she should do next. She considers the possibility of hiding the truth from Adam, and thus of finally really having the upper hand in the relationship. She would have some new knowledge that he wouldn't. But then Eve recalls that the promised disobedience, promised punishment for disobeying God is death. Here's what death actually means for Even who doesn't really understand that concept. But what if God have seen and death ensue, then I shall be no more. And Adam wedded to another Eve shall live with her in joy and I extinct, a death to think. Confirm them I resolve, Adam shall share with me in bliss or woe, so dear I love him.
	Eve actually seems less concerned about no longer existing than being replaced by another Eve. Death might be difficult to imagine, but being replaced is a death to think. Of course, this jealous love that Eve professes for Adam is sinful, maybe even creepy. But unfallen Adam agrees with her. When Eve approaches Adam, he immediately realizes that a catastrophe has taken place. And he's confronted with a choice. Abandon Eve, let her die, obey God, or join her in sin. And Adam chooses the latter. 
	In a poem that started by asking about the cause of the original fall of humanity, we at least have some powerful answers about one half of the equation, the male half. Adam falls because he loves his wife too much. Should God create another Eve and I another rib afford, yet loss of Eve would never from my heart. No no I feel the link of nature draw me flesh of flesh, bone of my bone tho you art, and from thy state, mine never shall be parted bliss or woe. It's important to emphasize that Adam is making the wrong choice. The disastrous choice. And we should be mad at him. We recall also that this is Milton's Adam. The same Milton who argued for divorce on grounds of spiritual incompatibility. The same Milton who ended up getting married three times. If ever a husband should have sought to divorce and a new wife, it's Adam here. Eve is now sinful and mortal and joining her means taking on sin and death. Not just for himself but for all of humanity.
	And yet, it's undeniable that Milton wants Adam's choice to feel compelling. Adam's love for Eve to feel genuine. Maybe something close to heroic even in it's horrible error. And this is where I think the heart of my argument lies. Once Milton defies conjugal love against substitution, that love even when it helps to explain how everything went wrong, drives a wedge between the human experience of marriage and it's political slash theological function in divine history. As we have seen, God knew all along that humanity would fall. And God's desire to offer mercy as well as justice to humanity in contrast to what the devils would get is an occasion for his son to prove that he was the right heir to the divine throne all along. The original rebellion in heaven will be shone once and for all to have been misguided. In fact, it's not at all misguided to say that even though God's care for humanity is genuine, that care is completely subordinated to his desire to prove himself absolutely correct in particular in the promotion of the son. 
	The entire human story in fact, only serves as an epicycle within God's grander narrative. But a human like Adam, can choose conjugal love. A rejection of other possible better wives over obedience to God. The possibility of salvation will mean that marriage must be restored as a form of obedience to God. And yet I argue, even the redeemed marriage that allows paradise lost to end hopefully, continues to be partly [inaudible 00:35:40] from it's function in proving the son of God the rightful heir to the divine throne. In Milton's version of the Genesis story the son of God arrives to proclaim both judgment and a future promise to Adam and Eve. Just as in Genesis, Eve will now be more subordinated to her husband than ever before, and she will now experience pain in childbirth. And yet through her child bearing, a son will eventually born who can crush the head of the serpent. To put it simply, Adam and Eve must not only stay married, but they must reproduce, so that one day in the distant future Jesus can be born. 
	But here to, Milton downplays marriage as a vehicle of legitimate reproduction. This future promise of reproductive redemption is crucial in allowing Adam and Eve to reconcile and leave Eden with hope. And it was much more specifically the experience of love, the same love that was so wrong headed at the moment of the fall, that provides the poem with closure. 
	These are the very last lines of Paradise Lost, famous lines. The world was all before them. Where to choose their place of rest and Providence their guide. They hand in hand with wandering steps and slow through Eden took their solitary way. Marriage might continue to serve the literal function of regulating reproduction, the world still needs to be populated, Jesus still needs to be born, but at the level of narrative, at the level of feeling, it's the experience of conjugal love that matters most to the closure of the poem. This happens precisely because the definition of love against substitution which was absolutely the wrong sinful choice has been transformed into something not just redemptive, but also something beautiful enough to close a poem about sin and loss in a hopeful way.
	I'd like to close my talk with just a very brief suggestion. Milton did write a sequel. The relatively short four book epic, Paradise regained. And Paradise regained is the story of how Jesus regained Eden. But Milton's story does not tell the story of Jesus crucified, but rather of Jesus triumphing over Satan's temptations in the wilderness. By rejecting Satan, Jesus proves himself the unique and worthy son of God. But as one scholar has observed, and I think quite rightly, perhaps what is most striking in Milton's presentation of Jesus is what is missing from it. Totally absent is love as a topic of motive.
	In other words, Jesus seems motivated by a desire to prove himself. Thus finally vindicating his father against the satanic sense that the son should not be obeyed. But what remains unclear is whether and how this expresses any kind of love for humanity. Jesus' story in Paradise regained reinforces how for Milton, marriage and love cannot rightly be defined through reproduction or as a vehicle of succession. This is true even in this highest case of divine succession. When Jesus is mostly concerned with proving himself, he cannot thereby show that he is the most loving bridegroom of humanity.
	And this seems to me to be a fairly surprising conclusion for this most deeply Christian and theological poet. As we've seen, St. Paul takes the Genesis definition of marriage and redefines it in a new Christian way. Marriage is just an earthly libbed index of Christ's much later love for his bride the church. But Milton expresses a particular but powerful form of evolving Christian values. A [inaudible 00:39:04] culture and political conviction that actually emphasizes Adam and Eve's marriage far more than Jesus' role as the ultimate bridegroom. Is is Adam and Eve who express a view of marriage as defined by love for an absolutely irreplaceable spouse.
	This love is a source of the original sin, but it's restored and redeemed by the end of the poem. So it's the earthly experience of marriage grounded neither exactly on reproduction as substitution nor unsacrificial substitution but rather on the belief in unique love that Milton celebrates most memorably. Thank you.