XI.
Concerning Women.
Marriage.
For man and woman were helps-meet in the image of God and in righteousness and holiness, in the dominion before they fell; but after the fall in the transgression the man was to rule over his wife; but in the restoration by Christ into the image of God and his righteousness and holiness again in that they are helps-meet, man and woman, as they were before the fall.
(Works, VIII., p. 39.)
And there was a great marriage of two friends the next day, and there came some hundreds of beggars. And friends refreshed them instead of the rich. And in the meeting before the marriage I was moved to open to the people the state of our marriages, how the people of God took one another in the assemblies of the elders, and how God did join man and woman together before the fall, and man had joined in the fall, but it was God’s joining again in the restoration and never from Genesis to the Revelation did ever any priests marry any.
(C. J., II., pp. 106-7.)
With my love to thee and to thy wife and to all the rest of Friends in the holy seed of life, now dear Richard Richardson I desire that thou would search all the libraries concerning marriages, and what they do say of them; and the Fathers and how they did before the monkish sort came in in the Britons’ time and when marrying with the priest came in. So search histories and laws and see what thou canst bring out both good and bad and which maketh a marriage and do what thou canst in this thing, for it hath been upon me some time to write to thee of this thing and did receive thy letter by R. Bartlett which I did let Thomas Lowson see. It is a notable thing, so in haste with my love
gff.
Swarthmore, 8 mo., 16, 1679.