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The real Jonathan Edwards, the man, the person, was a tender husband, an effective and affectionate father, a human being quite unlike the image of him as the stern preacher of sermons about sin. His happy marriage to Sarah Pierrepont was more than a loving link between two people: it was Edwards’ link to life—to the practical; to warm fireplaces, good food, attractive surroundings; to devotion, to the dailyness of the Incarnation. What Edwards described as their “uncommon union” bonded them marvelously to one another and it also bonded them to the living God.

They met in 1723 in New Haven, Connecticut, when Edwards was twenty years old, a graduate student and tutor at Yale. Sarah was then thirteen years old, and she was the daughter of James Pierrepont, the mighty minister of the New Haven church. One of her great-grandfathers had been Thomas Hooker, and another had been the first mayor of New York City. Hers was an impeccable social background and Sarah’s burnished manners matched her breeding. When the gawky Edwards first met Sarah, he scared her. Unusually tall, in an era when men tended to be short of stature; abstemious in a society of jolly drinkers: intense and studious, Edwards made an awkward beau. Looking on as Sarah would shine in social situations, Edwards would be conscious of his own shortcomings, and would go home to admonish himself in his journal with such entries as “Have lately erred, in not allowing time enough for conversation.” When he went home to East Windsor, Connecticut, at the end of the school term, he was supposed to be studying for his M.A. degree. He had a great deal of studying to do, but the usually focused Edwards found that his mind was wandering. In the front page of a Greek grammar, he wrote this famous digression:

They say there is a young lady in New Haven …. She has a strange sweetness in her mind, and singular purity in her affections; is most just and conscientious in all her conduct; and you could not persuade her to do anything wrong or sinful if you would give her all the world … She is of wonderful sweetness, calmness and universal benevolence of mind ….

She will sometimes go about from place to place, singing sweetly and seems always to be full of joy and pleasure; and no one knows for what.

Edwards’ journal for the next four years reveals the ups and downs of an introspective young man in love. “If I had more of an air of gentleness, I should be much mended,” he once rebuked himself. In 1725, Yale went through a turbulent reorganization which caused much stress on its overworked tutors. Edwards’ journal entries became distraught:

Dec. 29 Dull and lifeless.

Jan. 9 Decayed

Jan. 10 Recovering.

The body’s wisdom finally intervened and sent Edwards to bed with pleurisy. He had the rest he needed. Mending began.

Jonathan and Sarah married on July 28, 1727. Sarah wore a bright green satin brocade dress. The exuberant design reflected the Puritan view of love. To call persons “puritanical” when we speak of alienation from the flesh is to be imprecise. Some Victorians may have had negative feelings about the human body, but most Puritans celebrated it. They loved robustly and gave marriage an honored place in their social order. America was still young and the whole society needed the stability of the family to give stability to the community. Everyone rejoiced in the establishment of a new household. Wives were protected well by law. For instance, a man could be punished for using “harsh words” to his wife.

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