One of the things that endeared Luther to a broad mix of people was that he brought Christianity to bear on the everyday aspects of life. Several times he wrote on the family and the education of children. His teachings on vocation, a Christian’s calling, tied faith to virtually all walks of life; a person didn’t need to become a priest or monk or nun to serve God beautifully and fully—indeed, a lay person might serve far better than someone in the clergy. And he wrote often on the subject of marriage, realizing how central this is in a Christian’s life.
A few years ago this writer was surprised to learn that the anniversary of Luther’s and Kate’s wedding in June is the occasion for perhaps the largest annual celebration in Wittenberg and that the wedding is featured in gift shop items. Many still find his marriage, the marriage of a former monk/priest to a former nun, to be a revolutionary and wonderful event.
Already in early 1519, long before he married, Luther preached a sermon on marriage. The Gospel lesson for the second Sunday in Epiphany, January 16 that year, was John 2:1–11 on the wedding at Cana. An “unauthorized” version of that sermon based on a hearer’s notes was published, and Luther found it necessary to publish the sermon in a corrected form.
In that corrected sermon, Luther made several important points:
• As was the case with Adam and Eve, a person should marry the person that God has chosen to be the spouse.1
• The love of marriage is a love that is superior to “false love” (love for worldly things or for a woman outside marriage) and “natural love” (love between a parent and child or between other relatives), for it seeks the other person wholly. “All other kinds of love seek something other than the loved one; this kind wants only to have the beloved’s own self completely.”2
• Mankind has been corrupted by the fall so that people now lust for someone other than their spouse.3
• The Church protects people from lust by making marriage a sacrament, by emphasizing fidelity in marriage, and by encouraging the production of offspring.4
• The highest purpose of marriage is the bearing and rearing of children to be Christians.5
On one of the above points, as we have seen in an earlier essay,6 Luther’s view was soon to change. That issue was marriage as a sacrament. In Babylonian Captivity of the Church, 1520, Luther upbraids the Roman Church for its shallowness of biblical study on the topic of marriage and for its financially motivated manipulations.
A “sacrament,” as indicated in the earlier essay, is a means by which God gives His grace to people, but Scripture, Luther emphasized, never asserts nor even implies that this happens through marriage. Ephesians 5:31–31 is about marriage and uses the word “sacramentum” in the Latin translation, but the original Greek word is “mysterion,” which means “mystery.” Properly translated into English, the Pauline passage is, “‘For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.”7
Moreover, Luther pointed out, marriage is practiced among non–Christians as well as Christians. Is God also extending grace as forgiveness of sins and the blessing of faith (the essence of a sacrament) to non–Christians when they marry? Of course not, Luther claimed, though they are practicing a special relationship instituted by God. Even if we say that God “wills” or “blesses” a marriage, that does not make it a sacrament, a sacred act in which the Holy Spirit brings the grace of God to His people.
In the powerful Babylonian Captivity of the Church,8 Luther went on to attack and ridicule the Roman Church for its convoluted laws that both force and annul marriages as a scheme for filling its coffers. Luther used strong language to make his point:
But what shall we say concerning the wicked laws of men by which this divinely ordained way of life has been ensnared and tossed to and fro? Good God! It is dreadful to contemplate the audacity of the Roman despots, who both dissolve and compel marriages as they please. I ask you, has mankind been handed over to the caprice of these men for them to mock them and in every way abuse them and make of them whatever they please, for the sake of filthy lucre?9
After 1520, Luther never strayed from the view that marriage is not a sacrament, but he did often emphasize how marriage is a great blessing given by God. One of his most extensive and beautiful works on marriage was The Estate of Marriage, published in 1522.
Parts One and Two deal with which persons may marry each other (listing, for example, the blood relationships that rule out marriage) and with the legitimate reasons for divorce.
Of special importance is Part Three, in which Luther extolled marriage as a blessing from God. He began by describing the many popular writings and sayings about married life that made it out to be burdensome and depressing. “The world says of marriage, ‘Brief is the joy, lasting the bitterness.’”10 This perspective, Luther held, must be combatted. He offered the following positive view:
Now the ones who recognize the estate of marriage are those who firmly believe that God himself instituted it, brought husband and wife together, and ordained that they should beget children and care for them. For this they have God’s word, Genesis 1, and they can be certain that he does not lie. They can therefore also be certain that the estate of marriage and everything that goes with it in the way of conduct, works, and suffering is pleasing to God. Now tell me, how can the heart have greater good, joy, and delight than in God, when one is certain that his estate, conduct, and work is pleasing to God?11
Doing something that is designed and ordained by God even if, or perhaps because, it includes “insignificant, distasteful, and despised duties,” such as are included in marriage and in raising a family, bring joy to the one who does it in service to God. “Nothing is so bad, not even death itself, but what it becomes sweet and tolerable if only I know and am certain that it is pleasing to God.”12 In a humorous and facetious way, Luther described the menial tasks and then offered a gibe about the celibacy of priests and nuns:
Alas, must I rock the baby, wash its diapers, make its bed, smell its stench, stay up nights with it, take care of it when it cries, heal its rashes and sores, and on top of that care for my wife, provide for her, labor at my trade, take care of this and take care of that, do this and do that, endure this and endure that, and whatever else of bitterness and drudgery married life involves? What, should I make such a prisoner of myself? O you poor, wretched fellow, have you taken a wife? Fie, fie upon such wretchedness and bitterness! It is better to remain free and lead a peaceful, carefree life; I will become a priest or a nun and compel my children to do likewise.13
He followed this with an appropriate Christian perspective:
What then does Christian faith say to this? It opens its eyes, looks upon all these insignificant, distasteful, and despised duties in the Spirit, and is aware that they are all adorned with divine approval as with the costliest gold and jewels. It says, “O God, because I am certain that thou has created me as a man and hast from my body begotten this child, I also know for a certainty that it meets with thy perfect pleasure. I confess to thee that I am not worthy to rock the little babe or wash its diapers, or to be entrusted with the care of the child and its mother. How is it that I, without any merit, have come to this distinction of being certain that I am serving thy creature and thy most precious will? O how gladly will I do so, though the duties should be even more insignificant and despised. Neither frost nor heat, neither drudgery nor labor, will distress or dissuade me, for I am certain that it is thus pleasing in thy sight.”14
Luther also offered parallel comments for the wife and mother including childbirth as one of her “truly golden and noble works.”15
This, then, is a key point for Luther: The Christian husband and wife can in faith have a perspective on marriage and parenthood that gives joy and strength knowing that what they are doing is “pleasing to God.”
An additional emphasis of Luther was that marriage is a God-given protection against the temptation of extramarital sex—and against syphilis, which was rampant at the time. In Luther’s words, “It is no slight boon that in wedlock fornication and unchastity are checked and eliminated. This in itself is so great a good that it alone should be enough to induce men to marry forthwith, and for many reasons.”16
Luther closed The Estate of Marriage first with the encouragement that a couple should marry without great worry about being able to afford married life, for we can trust God to provide, and then with a comment about sex that shows he had not quite freed himself from some traditional views: “Intercourse is never without sin; but God excuses it by his grace because the estate of marriage is his work, and he preserves in and through the sin all that good which he has implanted and blessed in marriage.”17
This writing also reveals Luther’s growing disdain for the vow of celibacy which was required of monks, priests, and nuns. At the time, Luther was bound by his own vow of celibacy, but he had come to see it as a very harmful human requirement—and certainly as a rule unsupported by anything in Scripture. He argued that celibates often flee from the responsibilities of marriage and family life, that marriage is not seen as the God-pleasing institution that it is, that the protection marriage offers against fornication is not used, and that celibates often engage in fornication and unchastity—thinking that their vow is more important and excuses them from those sins. On this last point and regarding the Roman Church’s hypocrisy, Luther wrote in 1539,
If someone had ravished a hundred virgins, violated a hundred honorable widows, and lain with a hundred whores before that, he may become not only pastor or preacher but also bishop or pope. And even if he were to continue this kind of life, he would nonetheless be tolerated in those offices. But if he marries a bride who is a virgin, or a make-believe virgin, he cannot be a servant of God. It makes no difference that he is a true Christian, learned, pious, competent. He is a bigamist.18
Luther’s most important work on vows including the vow of celibacy, The Judgment of Luther on Monastic Vows, was written in 1921 while he was at the Wartburg. Controversy had arisen in Wittenberg over whether it was legitimate for a priest, monk, or nun to break the three vows of poverty, obedience, and celibacy. Karlstadt and Melanchthon had written on the topic defending and, in Karlstadt’s case “encouraging” the breaking of these vows. Luther was not satisfied with their argumentation, so he wrote a work tying the issue to justification by faith and arguing that any vow which goes against justification by faith cannot be binding. The sections of the work argue for the following theses regarding the vows required of the religious:
• Vows Are Against Faith.19
• Vows Are Against Evangelical Freedom.20
• Vows Are Contrary to the Commandments of God.21
• Vows Are Against Love.22
• Monasticism Is Contrary to Common Sense and Reason.23
Luther’s central claim was that the vows substitute our actions and the keeping of man-made vows for faith as the basis of our relationship with God. Luther made the point with regard to each of the three vows. With regard to celibacy or chastity, he wrote:
In all truth chastity has a godlessness of its own, just like the other parts of the vows. Its godlessness exists in that it boasts of a faith over and above the common general faith. And this is a direct disservice to Christ…. It is not the virgin or the chaste who will be saved, but the Christian…. And where the Spirit is not present, chastity can be neither vowed nor kept in any but a godless fashion, for he who takes this vow believes that he is pleasing God by this work of chastity…. It follows then that he who takes the vow of chastity in this frame of mind is actually vowing nothing at all and is free not to fulfill the vow.24
All but one of the writings cited above were written while Luther was still a monk and long before he married. After posting the Ninety-Five Theses and even after he wrote those works on marriage and vows, Luther had no intent to marry. He did not immediately renounce his vows, for he thought that this should be done only when guided by faith and when it is not harmful to others. Moreover, finding a spouse should be done deliberately and carefully—relying on God’s guidance, and Luther did not think that God had led him in this direction. It must be added that Luther expected to be slain relatively soon, thus making it impossible to be a good husband and father.
That changed in 1525. In 1523 Katharina Von Bora was the leader in a group of twelve nuns who escaped from the Marienthron Convent at Nimbschen, Germany, and arrived in Wittenberg on Easter Monday of that year. Two years later she was the last of those still needing to find a spouse, and she chose Luther. He acceded to her wish, thinking that it was God’s guidance, and soon found their marriage to be rich and full of love.
Kate was a wonderful helper and a very talented person. She took care of their busy household, bore him six children, and carried him through many health issues and periods of overwhelming stress. Kate cleaned and improved the former monastery which was now their home, and she was a gardener, fisher, brewer, vintner, livestock tender and breeder, cook, bee-keeper, and nurse. She was a marvelous hostess, provided housing for students, and kept the family finances in order.
Through their twenty-one years of marriage, Luther travelled a great deal, and we have many of his letters to her. The various salutations that he used show both his tender love and also his charming sense of humor, something that is too little appreciated. Here are some of those salutations:
• “To my dearly beloved Lady of the House, Katharina Luther at Wittenberg. Dear Kate” (June 1530)
• “My dear Kate” (August 1530)
• “To my dear lord, Mrs. Katharina Luther at Wittenberg. Dear Kate” (August 1530)
• “To my most beloved Lady of the House, Katharina Luther. My sweetheart Kate” (February 1532)
• “To my friendly dear lord, Mrs. Catherin von Bora, D. Lutherin at Wittenberg. Dear Lord Kate” (July 1534)
• “To my dearly beloved Kate, Doctora Lutherin, and Lady of the New Pig Market. Dear Damsel Kate, gracious Lady of Zülsdorf (and by what other names Your Grace is called)” (July 1540)
• “To my gracious damsel, Katharina Luther von Bora and Zülsdorf to Wittenberg. My true love” (July 1540)
• “To the rich lady at Zülsdorf, Mrs. Doctor Katharina Luther, dwelling physically at Wittenberg and residing in spirit in Zülsdorf. To my sweetheart” (July 1540)
• “To my friendly and dear Lady of the House, Katharina von Bora Luther, a preacher, beer brewer, gardener, and whatever other talents she may have. Dear Kate” (July 1545)
• “To my friendly, dear Kate Luther, a beer brewer and judge at the Pig Market in Wittenberg. Dear Kate” (January 1546)
• “To my dearly beloved Lady of the House, Katharina Luther, Mrs. Doctor, lady of Zülsdorf, of the Pig Market, and whatever else she might be. Dear Kate” (February 1546)
• “To my highly learned wife, Katharina Luther, my gracious Lady of the House at Wittenberg. Dear Kate” (February 1546)
• “To my dear Lady of the House, Katharina Luther, doctor, lady of the Pig Market at Wittenberg. Dear Kate” (February 1546)
• “To the holy, worrying Lady Katharina Luther, doctor, Lady of Zülsdorf at Wittenberg, my gracious, beloved Lady of the House. Most holy Ms. Doctor” (February 1546)25
The salutations and the letters themselves are quite charming and reveal a tender, caring marriage. They show Luther’s appreciation for his wife’s remarkable and varied talents. They also show his dependence on her—including her care for him through all of his serious ailments.
These letters and the information we have about Luther’s marriage from the “Table Talks” and other sources also show that Luther “practiced what he preached.” He clearly was intent on bringing into his marriage and home the elements of faith and a godly life about which he had written in his works on marriage.