Martin Madan

Martin Madan (1726 – 2 May 1790) was an English barrister, clergyman and writer, known for controversial views on marriage expressed in his book Thelyphthora.

Life
He was the son of Judith Madan the poet, and Colonel Martin Madan, and was educated at Westminster School, and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated in 1746. In 1748 he was called to the bar, and for some time lived a very uninhibited life. He was persuaded to change his ways on hearing a sermon by John Wesley. He took holy orders, and was appointed chaplain to the London Lock Hospital. He was closely connected with the Calvinistic Methodist movement supported by the Countess of Huntingdon, and from time to time acted as an itinerant preacher. He was a first cousin of the poet William Cowper, with whom he had some correspondence on religious matters.

In 1767 much adverse comment was aroused by his support of his friend Thomas Haweis in a controversy arising out of the latter's possession of the living of Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire. Madan resigned his chaplainship and retired to Epsom.

Works
In 1780 Madan raised a storm of opposition by the publication of his Thelyphthora, or A Treatise on Female Ruin, in which he advocated polygamy as the remedy for evils he deplored. His arguments were based mainly on scriptural authority; but his book caused many angry replies. Nineteen attacks on it are catalogued by Falconer Madan in the Dictionary of National Biography.

Among other works was A New and Literal Translation of Juvenal and Persius (1789).