Daniel Defoe is best known as the author of Robinson Crusoe which was published in 1719. It is a novel which popularised the castaway narrative and adventure novels set in the Caribbean. It remains influential and celebrated though I expect most people who recognise the title, have not read it. It was only a few years ago that I finally got around to reading it myself.
What is overlooked when Robinson Crusoe is mentioned is the didactic theme of religious conversion which was of more importance to the author than the narrative that inspired so many castaway, survival and adventure stories. Defoe himself was better known in his time as a pamphleteer and essayist and to say that he wrote a lot would be something of an understatement. In looking into his other works I came across an intriguing work published in 1727 called Conjugal Lewdness or, Matrimonial Whoredom which was later retitled A Treatise Concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed. This is unsurprisingly, not one of his better known works or one that would be popular today but the original title alone sparked my curiosity.
Though not readily available in print, the entire work is available on Wikisource which is where I found it. My poor attempt to convert it into an e-book format resulted in only the first half being readable but even incomplete, it was an interesting read. Interesting enough that I have collected together a number of excerpts which I will provide some commentary on below. I have not updated any of the text so there will be some oddities such as murder being spelt, “murther”. This is not also intended to be a deep analysis and more to highlight the passages I found notable.
My main interest in the work was the focus on contraception which since the Church of England’s 1930 Lambeth Conference, is widely considered licit in sects outside the Catholic Church. It is my general impression that any Protestant sect that forbids contraception would be an exception and not the rule. If this is wrong, I’d be happy to make a correction. This would have appalled Defoe as much as it would have Martin Luther and John Calvin. I have not read widely on Defoe’s life but he was born into a Presbyterian family and if not remaining in that church, he did remain a Christian for his life. And judging only by this pamphlet, he was a serious believing Christian.
I will be covering a number of chapters and will mention each time I come to a new one. Most chapters have very long titles so I won’t quote them in full. Defoe begins Chapter I by stating his intention to speak plain which (at least for his time), he does.
FOR as I find my Judgment of Things is like to differ from others, that what they think lawful I shall condemn as criminal and censure what they think moderate and sober, the Preliminaries ought to be settled as we go; that we may begin upon right Principles, leaving no Room to cavil at Terms, and dispute upon Construction of Words, nicety of Expression, double Entendres and such Trifles. I resolve to speak plainly, and would be understood distinctly.
It is worth adding that I suspected while reading that he was unable to get into the specifics of sexual congress in even an academic sense which I assume was due to decency laws of his time.
The thrust of what he is arguing is stated neatly here:
They that think the Marriage-Bed cannot be defiled but by Adultery, will greatly differ from me; and ’tis my Business to prove they are mistaken, which, if I do not, I do nothing.
He also writes well on the ideal of marriage which has echoes of 1 Corinthians 13:4-8:
UPON the whole, the Matrimonial Duty is all reciprocal; ’tis founded in Love, ’tis performed in the heighth of Affection; its most perfect Accomplishment consists not in the Union of the Sexes, but in the Union of the Souls; uniting their Desires, their Ends, and consequently their Endeavours, form compleating their mutual Felicity.
And then the unthinking way people enter into it:
As they allowed themselves to think no farther than the wedding Week, so how awkwardly do they behave when they come to the graver Part of Life? Matrimony is not a Branch of Life only, but ’tis a State, ’tis a settled Establishment of Life, and an Establishment for a continuance at least of the Life of one of the two.
He also speaks good sense on how one should approach marriage:
Matrimony without Love is the Cart before the Horse, and Love without Matrimony is the Horse without any Cart at all.
MARRYING is not such a frightful Thing that we should be terrified at the Thoughts of it, yet it is far from being such a trifling Thing either that we should run Headlong or Blindfold into it, without so much as looking before us. ‘Twas a prudent Saying of a young Lady, who wanted neither Wit or Fortune to recommend her, that marrying on the Woman’s Side was like a Horse rushing into the Battle, who depending upon the Hand that rules him, has no Weapon of his own, either offensive or defensive; whereas, on the Man’s side, like the Soldier, he has both Armour to preserve himself, and Weapons to make him be fear’d by his Adversary.
And then back to the point:
BUT even all this is not the great Point aim’d at in this Work: Our View is the criminal use of the lawful Liberties of Matrimony, and that I shall come to in its Place.
Although my interest was in his views on contraception, he does go into a number of other issues that were problems at the time and indeed still are. As above, with people entering into matrimony insensibly but also those with more malevolent intentions such as promising marriage as a means of seduction without intention to honour the promise once successful. Perhaps more interestingly for the time, he is also quite firm about mutual affection being necessary to marriage.
Chapter II concerns chastity and society would be much better today if I could just say his words had lost none of their relevance:
CHASTITY is a Virtue much talked of, little practised; a great Noise is made with the word Chastity, and, on many Occasions, where little true regard is had to the thing and perhaps where ’tis little understood; ’tis taken among us for a meer Regulation of Manners, and a kind of Government of Life.
Today, many people wouldn’t even be able to tell you coherently what chastity even means let alone attempt to practice it.
Here Defoe is quoting Dr. Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) who was a cleric of note in the Church of England:
The Doctor’s Rules for married Persons are thus express’d:
‘CONCERNING married Persons, besides the keeping their mutual Faith and Contract with each other, these Particulars are useful to be observed.’
‘1. ALTHOUGH their mutual Endearments are safe within the Protection of Marriage, yet they that have Wives or Husbands, must be as tho’ they had them not; that is, they must have an Affection greater to each other than they have to any Person in the World, but not greater than they have to GOD: but that they be ready to part with all Interest in each other’s Person, rather than sin against GOD.
‘IN their Permission and Licence, they must be sure to observe the Order of Nature, and the Ends of GOD. He is an ill Husband, that uses his Wife as a Man treats a Harlot, having no other End but Pleasure. Concerning which our best Rule is, that although in this, as in eating and drinking, there is an Appetite to be satisfied, which cannot be done without pleasing that desire; yet since that desire and satisfaction was intended by Nature for other Ends, they should never be separate from those Ends, but always be joined with all or one of those Ends, with a desire of Children, or to avoid Fornication, or to lighten and ease the cares and sadnesses of Household-affair, or to endear each other; but never with a purpose, either in act of desire to separate the sensuality from these Ends which hallow it. Onan did separate his Act from its proper End, and so ordered his Embraces that his Wife should not conceive, and GOD punished him.
The above is very similar to what you would find in Catholic works on marriage though the language differs today. The last few sentences reference contraception which used to be widely known as the sin of Onan (Genesis 38:6-10) and “Onanism” is associated with both masturbation and coitus interruptus. Both of these acts are sinful because they seek sexual gratification while avoiding the purpose or “Ends” of the act which is new life.
In Chapter III he covers behaviour for both husband and wife after marriage which is all still very relevant today. This excerpt is rather polemical (which I always enjoy), so I am quoting it below:
FOR a Man to commit a single Fornication, say they, he Sins, against GOD, and his own Soul, there is no Room to deny that; the Scripture is clear, and the Laws of God and Man concur in the Censure, as they do in the Prohibition: But for a Man to make a Whore of the very Woman who he intends and really designs to make his Wife, or, in plain English, to make a Whore of his Wife; he defiles his own Bed, pollutes his own Seed, spreads Bastardy in his own Race, and shews a most wicked vitiated Appetite, that could not with-hold himself from her meerly as a Woman, till the Performance of a lawful Marriage might make it seasonable, as well as lawful; such a Man satisfies the brutal Part at the expence of his Wife’s Fame, his Child’s Legitimacy, and to the scandal and offence of all good People that shall hear it, and who cannot name it without pity, or abhorrence, on account of the Circumstances.
Here he advises against speaking negatively about your spouse or making fun of them. This is something I still regularly here people do and becoming conscious of times I have done it myself, I have endeavoured not to:
FOR this Reason I would advise all the good Husbands and Wives that will accept that Advice, never to mingle their Discourses especially before Company, with Raillery and Jest upon one another; when a Woman once comes to make a Jest of her Husband, she is lost, she is gone; and when the Man makes a Jest of his Wife he is a going, at least in my Opinion: I shall explain the Words gone and going presently; when a Man makes a Jest of his Wife every Body believes he hates her; when the Woman makes a Jest of her Husband, they believe she cuckolds him.
Here he contrasts having good humour with your spouse with bringing them down and/or making fun of them:
MIRTH between a Husband and Wife in the heighth of Affection, but that’s no Mirth that is always running down, bantering and playing the Buffoon with his Wife; a chearful Affection is the Beauty of a conjugal State; but what Chearfulness is there in making a Banter and Jest of one another, what Mirth when they make game, not with one another only, but at one another.
I believe Defoe is referring to the marital debt in this next passage which is the mutual obligation husband and wife have to give themselves sexually to each other. The exceptions are when one is sick or when one partner is doing something sinful such as knowingly using contraception:
It is, no doubt, a Duty on both Sides to yield, to please, and oblige one another, where no just Objections are to be made; and those Husbands or Wives who decline one another criminally, ought to consider the matrimonial Vow and Duty in all its Particulars; but especially upon the ill Consequences which such a Coldness may produce; which, though not justifiable at all in the Person that may so fly out, yet ’tis what we ought to avoid, as we are not to lead one another into Temptations; and this is one of the Things which, as I said, those Courts of particular Justice take cognisance of among the Turks, But of this more at large in its Order. I am now chiefly talking of the Extreams of the first kind, and of an unrestrained Brutality.
Here also I believe he is reminding men that they both can and should endeavour to control their passions:
Let it suffice to admonish Christians, and Men of Sense, that they should remember they are so; that they have reasoning Powers to assist them in subduing their inordinate Hearts; that they should summon Virtue and Modesty, Reason and Christianity to their aid, and act in all Things agreeable to reasonable Beings, not like enraged Lunaticks, though they are not under the restraint of Laws.
THEY are greatly mistaken likewise who expect I should give Rules here, and prescribe to them what I mean by Modesty and Moderation in each Things as these; in short, such would please themselves if they could bring me to enter into Particulars of any kind, on one Side or other, for they love to dwell upon the Story.
In Chapter IV Defoe comes to his argument that mutual affection is a necessary prerequisite of marriage. I only have one excerpt here which proved to be prophetic regarding divorce. He is responding to John Milton who did argue in favour of divorce though it remained exceedingly rare really until the twentieth century; at least in English-speaking countries:
I will not follow Mr. Milton, and carry it up to this, that it may be dissolved again upon that single Account: No, no, I shall open no Doors to the vitiated Wishes of the Times; where Men would have Marriage be a stated Contract; where as the Parties agreement made the Bargain, so the same mutual Agreement might dissolve it; where as insincere Love joined them, a sincere and perfect Hatred should part them again. This would fill the World with Confusion, would pollute the Ordinance of Matrimony instead of keeping it sacred as God’s holy Ordinance; ‘twould make Marriage a Stale, a Convenience, to gratify the sensual Part, and to be made use of as a thing not to be named; and when that Worst Part of the Affections was satiated, the Parties be left to please and gratify their wicked Appetite with Variety.
THIS is not talking like Christians, or like Men of Virtue, no, not like Men guided by human Prudence, or by civil Polity, much less Reason; for this would corrupt the Blood of Families, level Mankind with one another, confound Order, and, in a word, would fill the World with Whoredom.
Defoe had stated earlier that he doesn’t consider marriage a sacrament and instead refers to it as an “Ordinance” — though still a sacred one. As has certainly become the case, marriage is today really nothing but an optional social convention. No matter how serious many people may be when they enter into it, they still know on some level that it can be ended at either partners convenience. Indeed, things have gotten worse than even Defoe imagined because people don’t even enter into it “to gratify the sensual Part” as they can do that quite shamelessly without being married at all. It is here that I remind readers that I too was guilty of this but I now understand that I sinned in doing it.
This social reality is why I have argued before that being against the mockery that is “gay marriage” was really only being against making things even worse. It wasn’t cutting to the source of the problem which goes all the way back to allowing contraception in the first place. Marriage was already in a terrible state decades before such an absurdity was imagined. As we haven’t even got to the point where people acknowledge there is a problem with any of this, there is still a long way to go.
Chapter V is where Defoe gets to what drew me to the book in the first place. Here he discusses entering a marriage with no intention to have children and by extension to use “Means physical or diabolical, to prevent Conception.” Early in the chapter Defoe states:
But for a Man or Woman to marry, and then say, they desire to have no Children, that is a Piece of preposterous Nonsence, next to Lunacy.
Defoe believes quite sensibly that if someone does not want to have children then they should not marry:
IN all the Examples I have met with, where the Conduct of the Person has been justifiable, they have joined to their Aversions for Child-bearing the proper Remedies, namely, abstinence from the Men; if the Lady that desires to be no Breeder, keeps her self single and chast; if she preserves her Virtue, and remains unmarried, I have no more to say, let it be to her as she desires; no doubt she will not be troubled with Children if she knows not a Man; if she with-holds the Means, Nature will certainly with-hold the End, and if she dies Virtuous, I warrant her she dies Barren.
This of course is not the same as getting married and then discovering you or your spouse is infertile. This is unfortunate but also beyond either parties control.
Defoe discusses contraception through a dialogue with a lady and her cousin. Cousin is abbreviated and I believe this is based on a real anecdote though Defoe has written the dialogue to make his point. His point may sound extreme (even to some modern Catholics), in that he equivocates the use of contraceptives with murder:
Cou. “What! you mean to prevent your being with Child, I suppose.
Lady. Ay, ay, I do mean that; but I wou’d not take Things to destroy the Child, that wou’d be murther. I wou’d not do that by no means, Cousin.
Cou. Why look ye, Child, I would not deceive you, ’tis the same Thing.
Lady. What do you mean?
Cou. Why, I mean as I say; I tell you, ’tis the same Thing, Child.
Lady. What! the same Thing to prevent a Conception as to destroy the Child after it is conceived: Is that the same Thing?
Cou. Yes, I say, ’tis the same Thing.
Lady. Explain your self, Cousin, for I don’t understand you, indeed; it does not seem the same Thing to me.
Cou. Why, in the first place, you would prevent your having any Children, though you married according to GOD’s holy Ordinance; which Ordinance, as the Office of Matrimony tells you, was appointed for that very End; to take Medicines therefor to prevent, or to destroy that Conception, are equally wicked in their Intention, and it is the End of every thing, that makes it Good or Evil; the rest differs only in the degree.
…
Cou. Why, as I said before, I say again, your taking Physick before-hand to prevent your being with Child is wilful Murther, as essentially and as effectually, as your destroying the Child after it was formed in your Womb.
“Physick” is what we now refer to as medicine or pharmaceuticals but other forms of contraception such as prophylactics are not excepted here. Defoe later repeats his argument more forcefully:
The Argument against taking Medicines to prevent or destroy Conception, which is the same thing, is very just; since, in the Nature of the Crime, it is as much a real Murther to destroy the one as the other, as it is as much a real Murther to kill a little Boy as a full grown Man.
WHAT then are those People doing who talk of Physick to prevent their being with Child? It is, in short, neither more or less than a stated, premeditated Murther; and let those that act so confider of it, and come off of the Charge of Murtherers, if they can.
As it is understood that knowledge of human reproduction and medicine was not as advanced as it is now, it is interesting Defoe also anticipated modern arguments for abortion:
THEN, I say, bringing it down to the present Affair of a Child conceived in a Womb, she begins a new Enquiry, which the learned Anatomists, and the most skilled in the Productions and Operations of Nature, have not yet been able to determine, namely, When, and after what particular Time, and in what Manner the Embrio of Body of a Child conceived in a Woman, receives the addition of a Soul? How the Union is made? And when the Infusion of Soul is appointed.
THIS she determines to be at a certain Time, and descants critically upon it, in order to establish the cursed Hypothesis of her own Invention, viz. that all the while the Fœtus is forming, and the Embrio or Conception is proceeding, even to the Moment that the Soul is infused, so long it is absolutely not in her Power only, but in her Right, to kill or keep alive, save, or destroy the Thing she goes with, she won’t call it Child; and that therefore till then she resolves to use all manner of Art; nay, she does not confine her self to human Art, to the help of Drugs and Physicians, whether Astringents, Diureticks, Emeticks, or of whatever kind, nay, even to Purgations, Potions, Poisons, or any thing that Apothecaries or Druggists can supply: But she goes farther, and joins with the Poet, nay, she has the Words at her Tongue’s End from that famed Author, tho’ in another Case,
Notice in the above that people who believe abortion to be licit will themselves decide when a child is a child. Even when I wasn’t a practicing Christian, I was bothered by the completely arbitrary point where this was set. Biology and the Church are uniform on this in that it has to be considered to be the moment of conception otherwise you are simply selecting a point in the process of life. It is therefore not absurd to draw this line outside the birth canal which is increasingly the case.
Defoe makes plain the ingratitude inherent in wanting to avoiding having children while still engaging in the procreative act:
GATHER, Madam; why, I gather this, that as you are a married Woman, and would fain be Barren, and have no Children, never give your self any trouble about Physick, and taking Drugs to prevent Conception; but kneel down, and very humbly and sincerely pray to GOD to curse you with Barrenness: Tell him, that you are one of his Creatures who HE, at HIS first Blessing Mankind, had allowed to encrease and multiply, but that you desire no share in that Blessing; and so beg, that he would be graciously pleased to blast the Child you go with, if you are with Child, and shut up your Womb, if you are not; for that you desire none of his Blessings of that Kind.
John C. Wright (I believe in his Awake in the Night Land) did something similar in making plain what an act of hatred and ingratitude towards God and all creation suicide is. I realise this is outrageous to most modern minds who firmly believe that they can decide what is right and wrong.
This next quote explains where the original title came from as Defoe summarises:
when the Woman marries, takes a Man to Bed to her, with all the Circumstances that are to be understood. without obliging us to express them; lives with him, and lies with him every Night, and yet professes to desire she may have no Children: These are the Circumstances I insist upon, the Aggravations of which admit no abatement, and for which I do not know one modest Word of Excuse can be said. This is what I call Conjugal Lewdness, nor can I see anything else in it; ’twas the plain End of her marrying; ’tis in vain to call it by other Names, and cover it with other Excuses; ’tis nothing but Whoring under the shelter or cover of the Law, we may paint it out, and dress it up as we will.
To put it in modern terms, this is the desire to get married so that they can enjoy sexual pleasure without social disapproval. As people freely fornicate without any such worry today, this point could be better appreciated by Christians who use contraception. Even if those Christians want to have children but simply to choose for themselves when they have them — they are violating God’s law. This can also be true of natural family planning when the couple’s intent is only to avoid pregnancy.
The last two excerpts I copied are from Chapter VII and Chapter VIII. There are fourteen chapters in the book but I think I have captured the heart of it and latter chapters cover related subjects. These last two view how a private Hell on Earth can be created in a marriage where selfish ends are pursued:
SUITABLE Society is a heavenly Life. Take a view of Family Disorders; Houshold Strife and Contention, and join but to these the Matrimonial Vices I speak of, and you make the House a Hell, where Rage and Crime constitute the Place, and where the Flame burns without consuming, though not without encreasing; and where the Offences encrease the Punishment, and the Punishment encreases the Offence.
And
HENCE proceed vile and provoking Words, bitter and cutting Reproaches, undue and indecent Reflections, horrid Wishes, Imprecations, Railing and Cursing; till, in short, they push one another on to the Gates of Hell, and need no Devil but their own ungoverned Rage, to thrust them in.
The family is a smaller unit of society and where there is discord in families, this will filter out into society. What blinds many to this is the relative economic prosperity which masks much of this social discord. Yet people who work in professions like I do can still see it manifest in various ways.