The Marriage Book Read Free Page A

in the union of Adam and Eve as the very first husband and wife.
    The writing of Genesis has been the source of waves of scholarly discussion that date the book to a multitude of points in the centuries before the birth of Christ.
    And the L ORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
    And out of the ground the L ORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
    And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
    And the L ORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
    And the rib, which the L ORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
    And Adam said, 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.
    And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
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    JOHN MILTON
    PARADISE LOST , 1674
    John Milton (1608–1674) was hardly the first author—English or otherwise—to produce a literary retelling of Adam and Eve’s fall. But Paradise Lost is, at more than ten thousand lines of free verse, certainly the longest version and generally viewed as the greatest. In Milton’s rendition, Adam plays the clearly dominant male role, and yet when Eve eats the apple, Adam follows suit, led by the interdependent nature of their bond. The lines below are spoken by Adam after he realizes what Eve has done.
    Among Milton’s many other works were several treatises on divorce, way ahead of their time in suggesting that in addition to adultery and impotence, another acceptable reason for divorce might be incompatibility. Milton’s first version of the epic was published in 1667.
O fairest of Creation, last and best
Of all God’s Works, Creature in whom excell’d
Whatever can to sight or thought be form’d,
Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet!
How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost . . .
How can I live without thee, how forgo
Thy sweet Converse and Love so dearly join’d,
To live again in these wild Woods forlorn?
Should God create another Eve , and I
Another Rib afford, yet loss of thee
Would never from my heart; no no, I feel
The Link of Nature draw me: Flesh of Flesh,
Bone of my Bone thou art, and from thy State
Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.
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    MARK TWAIN
    “EXTRACTS FROM ADAM’S DIARY,” 1893
    Samuel Clemens (1835–1910), a.k.a. Mark Twain (see Endings ), brought his signature style to a short, witty imagining of the Bible’s first couple.
    After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her.
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    H. L. MENCKEN
    A BOOK OF BURLESQUES , 1916
    Between his books, his columns, and his reviews, H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) left no shortage of caustic comments about marriage. Yet the author known as “the Sage of Baltimore” was by all accounts devoted to his wife, Sara, whom he married in 1930.
    See Expectations ; Jealousy , for more from Mencken.
    Woman is at once the serpent, the apple—and the belly-ache.
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    JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY
    MOONSTRUCK , 1987
    In the Oscar-winning screenplay by John Patrick Shanley (1950–), Johnny Cammareri, dim-witted but well-intentioned, is beseeched for wisdom by his would-be mother-in-law.
     
ROSE:
Listen, Johnny, there’s a question I want to ask. I want you to tell me the truth—if you can. Why do men chase women?
JOHNNY:
Well. There’s the Bible story. God—God took a rib from Adam and made Eve. Now, maybe men chase women to get the rib back.
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    MICK