Puritanism has had an enormous impact on English speaking peoples everywhere, not only on their religious and spiritual life, but it also helped shape their moral character and social behaviour. To this day we can see this Puritan influence on many evangelical churches which emphasize the need of personal and experiential religion. We also detect Puritan influence in such social institutions as marriage and the family. In this editorial, the last one in a series, I want to focus on these aspects-of Puritan teaching under the general heading: The Puritans at Home.

How did the Puritans view marriage, the relationship between husband and wife, sexuality, child rearing, education and so on?

The Puritan View of Marriage and Sex⤒🔗

Contrary to popular opinion the Puritans had a healthy view on marriage and human sexuality. They were not nearly as prudish as they are often depicted in history books and fiction. True, the Puritans were strongly opposed to adultery and every form of sexual immorality, but this does not mean that for that reason they had warped views on human sexuality. Many people simply assume that the Puritans were sexually inhibited and repressive, but anyone willing to do some research in this area will be surprised to learn what the Puritans really believed on the subject. Increasingly, scholars are admitting — sometimes reluctantly — that the Puritans were very positive in their evaluation of the institution of marriage and the joys experi­enced within the bonds of matrimony.

Historical Background←⤒🔗

This positive attitude towards marriage and sexual relations must be seen against the background of Roman Catholic teaching on this subject. The dominant attitude of Rome throughout the Middle Ages was that all sexual contact between human beings was inherently sinful. Even within the bonds of marriage, where it was allowed, it was still seen as at best a necessary evil. Necessary because how else could the human race be propagated, but evil because the procreative act to the extent that it involved passion had to be viewed as sinful. This negative view went back all the way to the early Church and was based on the writings of such Church Fathers as Tertullian, Ambrose and St. Augustine, all of whom believed that the sex act necessarily involved sin.

This negative attitude towards sex, even within marriage, dominated the Church for more than ten centuries and could only lead to the glorification of virginity and celibacy. By the fifth century, clerics were prohibited from marrying. Thus two classes of Christians emerged: the spiritual "clergy" which included monks and nuns, who abstained from all sexual activity, and the secular "laity," which being unable to rise to the noble heights of virginity, was allowed to marry by way of concession.

Puritan Reaction←⤒🔗

The Puritans completely broke with this Medieval tradition. Their preachers were outspoken in their repudiation of the Catholic viewpoint, ascribing their prohibition of sex to the devil. For Biblical proof they would point to such passages as 1Timothy 4:1-3 where Paul mentions as one of the doctrines of devils the prohibition of marriage.

In his treatise on marriage, Erasmus had praised as ideal a marriage in which husband and wife had learned to live without physical intimacy. By contrast, the New England Puritan, John Cotton, said in a wedding sermon that those who call for marital abstinence follow the dictates of a blind mind who say that it is not good than man should be alone, and not those of the Holy Spirit.

Puritans were very lavish in their praise of marriage. As Thomas Gataker put it: "There is no soci­ety more near, more entire, more needful, more kindly, more delightful, more comfortable, more constant, more continual, than the society of man and wife, the main root, source, and original of all other societies."

Sex as a Gift from God←⤒🔗

Wherever we turn in Puritan writing on the subject, we find sex affirmed as a blessing from God and an essential aspect of marriage. Married love was not only considered legitimate by the Puritans; it was also meant to be enjoyed. In William Gouges view, husbands and wives should cohabit with good will and delight, willingly, readily and cheerfully. Failure to extend this "due benevolence" by either partner could even be grounds for church discipline!

The Purpose of Marriage←⤒🔗

The Puritans also had definite views on the purpose of marriage. In developing their position on this matter they went against not only the Catholics, but also the Protestant (Anglican) view that the first purpose of marriage is to procreate. The Puritans shifted the primary emphasis from procreation to companionship. While the order of purposes of marriage adopted in the Book of Common Prayer was (1) the procreation of children, (2) the restraint and remedy of sin, and (3) mutual society, help and comfort, the Puritans reversed the first and third purposes.

Thus the Puritans dared to go against long-held traditions, whether these concerned the way of salvation or such vital institutions as marriage and the relationship between the sexes. "They do err," says William Perkins, "who hold that the secret coming together of man and wife cannot be without sin unless it be done for the procreation of children."

Physical Love Not the Sole Purpose of Marriage←⤒🔗

For all their emphasis on the human and physical purposes of marriage, the Puritans did not neglect the primacy of the spiritual purpose. They empha­sized that married love should always be subordinate to the love of God. John Winthrop, in a letter he wrote to his wife shortly after their marriage, called her "the chiefest of all comforts under the hope of salvation." John Cotton warned against the error of aiming at no higher end than marriage itself and encouraged people to look upon their spouses "not for their own ends, but to be better fitted for God's service and bring them nearer to God."

The Puritan View of the Family←⤒🔗

The Puritans believed that along with the church and the civil government, the family was a divine institution. In fact, they held that the family was the most basic and vital institution of all, dating back to the Garden of Eden. Its purpose was simply to glorify God by raising children for the Lord and His service. As Baxter put it: "It is no small mercy to be the parents of a Godly seed: and this is the end of the institution of marriage." Thus the Puritans regarded the family as the foundational unit of a godly society. In Cotton Mather's words: "Families are the nurseries for Church and Commonwealth; ruin families and you ruin all."

Children are Gifts of God←⤒🔗

While the Puritans believed that the primary purpose of marriage was companionship, they also believed that having children was a normal and expected consequence of marital love. Children were seen as blessings of the Lord, and apparently it was a blessing which the Lord bestowed frequently and abundantly. Puritan families were generally large, with seven or more children being about average. It should be remembered, however, that the infant mortality rate was also very high, so that of all the children born in a family only half or even fewer survived and reached adulthood.

Although Puritans regarded children as gifts from God, they were keenly aware that it was a gift that carried with it tremendous responsibility. Because they viewed their families as nurseries for church and society, parents were expected to do everything possible to see that their children conformed to biblical norms and precepts, especially the commandment to obey their parents.

The Spiritual State of Children←⤒🔗

Puritan child-rearing was rooted in the conviction that children belong to God and are entrusted to parents as a stewardship. In Thomas Watson's words, "Christian parents will endeavour that their children may be more God's children than theirs."

This conviction, namely that their children belonged to God, does not mean that the Puritans believed their children were saved from birth. They viewed children of believers as being in covenant with God, but this did not necessarily imply salvation. In fact, they believed that all children, whether elect or not, entered the world in a depraved state and that they were lost in sin until brought to faith in Christ.

Children were in the covenant but not necessarily of the covenant; that is to say, they lived under the promises of the covenant, but these promises still needed to be appropriated by kith evidenced by repentance and a holy walk. Puritans were convinced that God has no grandchildren and that each generation has to experience conversion for itself and cannot find salvation in the experience of their parents.

They also believed, however, that God uses parents to bring their children to such a personal conversion experience. Parents, therefore, were regularly exhorted from the pulpit to bring up their chil­dren in such a way that the covenant promises given them at baptism might be fulfilled and real­ized in their lives. Parents who are neglectful in this duty, warned Richard Mather, will be accused by their children in the day of judgment for having failed to teach them the things of God, thus causing them to perish everlastingly. Solemn warnings like these were generally heeded. Most Puritan parents took their child-rearing responsibilities seriously and the result was that many families were blessed and became like miniature churches.

Parental Authority in the Family←⤒🔗

Although the education of children was seen as the task of both parents, it was the father who bore the main responsibility for this duty. The Puritans accepted the headship of husbands and fathers as a Biblical command and they applied it consistently and fruitfully.

Contrary to what feminists say about the so-called chauvinism and tyranny of Puritan and Victorian men, Puritan husbands and fathers were anything but chauvinists and tyrants. Modelling the husbands headship on Christ's headship of the Church, Puritans understood that male authority was not a ticket to privilege, but much more a charge to responsibility. According to John Robinson, there are basically two things God requires of a husband, namely love and wisdom. His love for his wife must be "like Christ's to His Church: holy for quality, and great for quantity."

Headship for Puritans was leadership based on love. "A good husband," wrote Benjamin Wadsworth, 'will make his government of his wife as easy and gentle as possible, and strive more to be loved than feared." According to Samuel Willard, "a good husband," will so rule "as that his wife may take delight in his headship and not account it a slavery but a liberty and privilege."

The Place of the Wife/Mother←⤒🔗

The counterpart to the husband's headship was the wife's submission. For the Puritans, submission was not so much a matter of hierarchy as of function. God has assigned to the man the role and duty of leadership, not because he is superior to his wife, but because God has delegated this authority to him and not to her. John Robinson explained headship this way: "God created man and woman spiritually equal, and when both fell into sin she did not become more degenerated than he from the primitive goodness. Yet in marriage one of the two must have final authority, since differences will arise, and so the one must give way and apply unto the other; this, God and nature layeth upon the man."

The Puritans also believed that submission is something that the wife must yield at her own ini­tiative. If a husband has to force it, the battle has already been lost. Submission is to be rendered by the wife as part of her obedience to Christ. "It is her honour and freedom," said John Winthrop, "to acknowledge her husband as her head."

The husband's headship did not imply that the wife was his servant. Rather, she was viewed as his helper, counsellor and comforter. Puritans believed that there are spheres of responsibility in a family and that the wife is the authority in some of these spheres. The wife, for example, was next to the husband/father, the authority over children and household servants. In cases where the wife was more capable than her husband, e.g. in managing family finances, it was common to delegate this responsibility to her. Also, the headship principle did not prevent a woman from religious teaching or spiritual admonition of a man. "Women may and must privately and familiarly exhort others," wrote one Puritan writer on the subject; "they may also privately admonish men and reprove them." Nicholas Byfield declared that the wife was not subject to the husband "in matters of her soul and religion when his will is contrary to God's will..." And again, "she is not so subject but she may admonish and advise her husband with certain cau­tions, if she be sure the thing she speaks against be sinful and hurtful."

Even if the husband was, in the final analysis, the accountable head of the family, in the day-to-day oversight of the family the husband and wife shared the authority for what happened.

Parental Discipline←⤒🔗

Puritans believed that an important part of the religious training of children consisted of discipline. "Doctrine and example alone are insufficient," said John Norton, "discipline is an essential part of the nurture of the Lord." Cotton Mather's famous aphorism "Better whipt than damned," sums up a major tenet of Puritan child-rearing philosophy.

The theological foundation of the Puritan emphasis on child training was original sin or innate depravity. The Puritans believed that children, if left to themselves, are inclined to follow their own evil will. Therefore, "the fruit of their natural corruption and root of rebellion against God and man must be destroyed and no manner of way nourished. For the beating and keeping down of this stubbornness, parents must provide in order that children's wills and wilfulness be restrained and repressed."

All this may seem rather harsh and negative to modern ears. We should realize, however, that Puritan discipline was squarely based on Scripture, which is more than can be said of what is called discipline today. Besides, the Puritans knew how to steer a middle course between harshness and leniency. Most importantly, despite their harsh comments about the depraved nature of children, Puritans had an optimistic view of the possibility of children becoming youthful Christians. Cotton Mather said that 'young saints will make old angels; and, blessed be God, there are such young saints in the world." Recalling his own childhood he said, The great care of my godly parents was to bring me up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord: whence I was kept from many visible out­breakings of sin which else I had been guilty of; and whence it was that I had many good impressions of the Spirit of God upon me, even from my infancy."

The Progressive Character of Puritan Child-Rearing←⤒🔗

Although much of what is stated here about Puritan ideas of child-rearing may seem familiar and "nothing new it should be realized that some of these ideas were revolutionary at the time and anticipated modern theories of child development. Let me mention just a few contributions the Puritans have made in this area.

The first one is their emphasis on the importance of early training. John Cotton wrote that "these babes are flexible and easily bowed; it is far more easy to train up to good things now, than in their youth and riper years." Samuel Willard said that since Satan begins his assaults upon children in their infancy, the best way to prevent him from doing so is to teach them as soon as they are able to understand anything.

A second Puritan principle that anticipates modern theory is that parents teach more through their example than by their words. Richard Greenham wrote, "Experience teaches us that children learn more by countenance, gesture, and behaviour than by rule, doctrine, precept, or instruction." The harm done by bad example is explained by another Puritan in these words, "If parents would have their children blessed at church and at school, let them beware they give their children no corrupt exam­ples at home by any carelessness, profaneness, or ungodliness. Otherwise, parents will do them more harm at home than both pastors and schoolmasters can do them good abroad."

A third Puritan principle that is widely accepted today is that effective child-training has two sides to it, one negative, one positive. Parents must curb a child's will, but foster and encourage his or her spirit. They need to depress impulses toward selfishness and dishonesty and unsociable manners, while at the same time building a child's self-image and loveable qualities. The parents' negative task "to restrain, reprove, correct," must be balanced by their positive resolve to "nourish in themselves a very tender love and affection to their children and manifest it."

What We Can Learn from the Puritans←⤒🔗

The fact that such ideas are familiar to us is a testimony to the success Puritan teaching in this area has had on later generations of educators. Ultimately, of course, their ideas were sound because they were derived from Scripture. This is true of many other contributions made by the Puritans in various areas.

For one thing the Puritans had the right sense of priorities. They put God first and valued everything else in relation to him.

The second principle they lived by was that all of life is God's. Puritans lived simultaneously in two worlds – the invisible spiritual world and the physical world of earthly existence. For the Puritans, both were equally real, and there was no cleavage of life into sacred and secular. All of life was sacred to them. Consequently, they saw God in everything, including the ordinary events of life. They viewed life through the wide-angle lens of God's sovereignty over all of life.

Thirdly, the Puritans were profoundly aware of the momentousness of life. They understood that everything they did had consequences for eternity. Accordingly, Richard Baxter offered this advice to his people, "Write upon the door of thy shop and chamber, I must be in heaven or hell forever, and this is the time upon which my endless life depends."

Summing up, the Puritans are worth studying today because they knew how to combine personal piety with a comprehensive Christian world-and-life view. Beginning with the premise that the Bible is a reliable repository of truth, they had a basis from which to relate their Christian faith to all areas of life to work, family, marriage, education, politics, economics and society. If anyone still asks what can we learn from the Puritans, I will give you Packer's reply to that question. "If my view of the Puritans as wise giants and ourselves as zany pygmies has not yet convinced you, it never will; if it has convinced you, you will know how this question should be answered."