Spanning three years characterised by turbulent changes in the English printing business, they also provide an important context for the publication of Areopagitica, Milton's most famous work of prose.
In addition to the testimony of early biographers, critics have detected Milton's personal psychosexual situation in passages of The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce.
Having inherited Catholic canon law, England had no formal mechanisms for divorce (as in Catholicism, marriages could be annulled on the basis of preexisting impediments, like consanguinity or impotence, or separations could be obtained).
[8] Opposed to Scriptural authority Matthew 19:3–9, much of Milton's argument hangs on his view of human nature and the purpose of marriage, which rather than the traditional ends of procreation or a remedy against fornication, he defines as "the apt and cheerful conversation of man with woman, to comfort and refresh him against the evils of solitary life".
[9] Milton argues that if a couple be "mistak'n in their dispositions through any error, concealment, or misadventure" for them "spight of antipathy to fadge together, and combine as they may to their unspeakable wearisomnes and despaire of all sociable delight" violates the purpose of marriage as mutual companionship.
Editors debate how to present The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce to modern readers, since the second edition's amplifications nearly characterise it as a separate argument, and a less personal one at that.
The title means "four-stringed" in Greek, implying that Milton was able to harmonise the four Scriptural passages dealing with divorce: Genesis 1:27–28, Deuteronomy 24:1, Matthew 5:31–32 and 19:2–9, and I Corinthians 7:10–16.
Meaning "rod of punishment" in Greek, the brief Colasterion was published along with Tetrachordon in March 1645 in response to an anonymous pamphlet attacking the first edition of The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce.