Talk:John Milton

Rephrasing things in modern terms

I have just reworded the sentence that said that Milton married a "young girl" called Mary Powell who was 17 "compared with" his age of 34.

The person who wrote this is putting a layer of judgement and interpretation over it, which is from the 21st century, not the 17th.

• Mary Powell, at seventeen, was not considered a "young girl". She would have been considered a marriagable young woman.
• A man at that date didn't get married until he was able to support a wife. Contrary to what many people imagine, people (even in villages) didn't get married very young, because they had to wait until money and a home became available. Many men stayed single because they couldn't afford a wife. Many women of every class stayed single and lived in their family home, almost like an unpaid servant.
• At 34 and from a family rich enough to afford his university education, Milton was a "good catch".

I am sure that you are familiar with "Pride and Prejudice" which deals with attitudes to marriage and shows Charlotte marrying a man that was "respectable", even though she was not in love. "Emma" shows a woman marrying a man old enough to be her father. Emma's own father is an elderly man, so her deceased mother must also have been much younger than her husband. Amandajm (talk) 10:43, 31 May 2010 (UTC)