ABSTRACT
The Form of Solemnization of Matrimony, included in The Book of Common Prayer, contains the basis for most of the precepts and views which authors of Elizabethan and Jacobean marriage and household manuals presented to their readers. Cleaver’s Godly Form is one of the major conduct books of the period. Its structure and contents are outlined on the title page: the duties of husband to wife and wife to husband; parental duties to children and children’s duties to parents; masters’ duties to servants and servants’ to masters. The husband, his duty is first to love his wife as his own flesh. Then to govern her in all duties that properly concern the state of marriage in knowledge, in wisdom, judgment, and justice. The obedience that the wife oweth to her husband dependeth upon this subjection of her will and wisdom unto him.
