서양 중세 사회의 성윤리와 『실낙원』에 나타난 밀턴의 성윤리 비교

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to compare sexual ethics in the middle ages and in Milton's Paradise Lost. There were some distinctive features in the sexual ethics of the middle ages. First of all, most women in the middle ages did not hold civil or ecclesiastical rights, attend universities, or engage in the major professions. They lived their lives only as sex partners, mostly without their own identity. Sexual ethics of these ages were marked by the women's passivity and subordination to men. Further examination reveals that the inner theory of the medieval sexual ethics preconditioned the severely corrupted patriarchal and masculine social structure. For example, most early Church fathers and Christian theologians regarded the aim of marriage only as the source of propagation. Such belief brought forth a sexual prejudice toward woman and had an effect on woman's inequality to man. In contrast, open marriage did not matter because the public considered marriage not to be a divine service but to be just a contract. Against the prevailing sexual ethics of the middle ages, Milton, advocates monistic sexual ethics on the assumption that 'Man is originally good.' This sexual ethics attempts to unify nature, human body and soul, and human mind, refuting the dualistic sex ethics in the middle ages. Milton regards 'the organic sexual ethics' as the real sexual ethics that blends the biological and spiritual with the social characteristics.