Opinions about Marriage
Opinions about Marriage
Expected Roles. For the majority of people in Renaissance and Reformation Europe, sexual desires and relations did not lead to charges of fornication, infanticide, or homosexuality, but were simply one part of the institution that shaped their lives to a great degree—marriage. Opinions about marriage in this period were varied, but generally became more positive than they had been in the Middle Ages. During the fifteenth century some writers began to argue that God had set up marriage and families as the best way to provide spiritual and moral discipline, and, after the Reformation, Protestants championed marriage with even greater vigor. They wrote many tracts trying to convince men and women to marry or advising spouses (particularly husbands) how best to run their households and families. Johannes Mathesius, for example, a Lutheran pastor, wrote: “A man without a wife is only half a person and has only half a body and is a needy and miserable man who lacks help and assistance.” Preachers used the story of Eve being created out of Adam's rib as proof that God wanted women to stand by the side of men as their assistants and not be trampled on or trod underfoot (for then Eve would have been created out of Adam's foot); these directives always mention as well, however, that women should never claim authority over men, for Eve had not been created out of Adam's head.
Goals of Marriage. Protestant writers generally cite the same three purposes of marriage, in the same order of importance, that pre-Reformation writers did—the procreation of children, the avoidance of sin, and mutual help and companionship. Some reformers, including Martin Luther, interpreted “mutual help and companionship” to have a romantic and sensual side, so there tended to be less of an antipathy toward sexuality (as long as it was within marriage) among Protestants than Catholics.
God's Plan. The ideal of mutuality in marriage was not one of equality, however, and Protestant marriage manuals, household guides, and marriage sermons all stress the importance of husbandly authority and wifely obedience. This obedience, for almost all Protestants,
MARTIN LUTHER ON MARRIAGE
Martin Luther's opinions about marriage are expressed in many of his writings, including formal theological treatises, letters, and sermons; this piece is from a sermon on marriage preached in 1521.
Those who want to enter into the estate of marriage should learn from this that they should earnestly pray to God for a spouse. For the sage says that parents provide goods and houses for their children, but a wife is given by God alone [Prov. 19:14], everyone according to his need, just as Eve was given to Adam by God alone. And true though it is that because of excessive lust of the flesh lighthearted youth pays scant attention to these matters, marriage is nevertheless a weighty matter in the sight of God. For it was not by accident that Almighty God instituted the estate of matrimony only for man and above all animals, and gave such forethought and consideration to marriage. To the other animals God says quite simply, “Be fruitful and multiply” [Gen. 1; 22], It is not written that he brings the female to the male. Therefore, there is no such thing as marriage among animals. But in the case of Adam, God creates for him a unique, special kind of wife out of his own flesh. He brings her to him, he gives her to him, and Adam agrees to accept her. Therefore, that is what marriage is.
A woman is created to be a companionable helpmeet to the man in everything, particularly to bear children. And that still holds good, except that since the fall marriage has been adulterated with wicked lust. And now [i.e., after the fall] the desire of the man for the woman, and vice versa, is sought after not only for companionship and children, for which purposes alone marriage was instituted, but also for the pursuance of wicked lust, which is almost as strong a motive.
God makes distinctions between the different kinds of love, and shows that the love of a man and woman is (or should be) the greatest and purest of all loves. For he says, “A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife” [Gen. 2:24], and the wife does the same, as we see happening around us every day. Now there are three lands of love: false love, natural love, and married love. False love is that which seeks its own, as a man loves money, possessions, honor, and women taken outside of marriage and against God's command. Natural love is that between father and child, brother and sister, friend and relative, and similar relationships. But over and above all these is married love, that is, a bride's love, which glows like a fire and desires nothing but the husband. She says, “It is you I want, not what is yours: I want neither your silver nor your gold; I want neither. I want only you. I want you in your entirety, or not at all.” All other kinds of love seek something other than the loved one: this kind wants only to have the beloved's own self completely. If Adam had not fallen, the love of bride and groom would have been the loveliest thing. Now this love is not pure either, for admittedly a married partner desires to have the other, yet each seeks to satisfy his desire with the other, and it is this desire which corrupts this kind of love. Therefore, the married state is now no longer pure and free from sin. The temptation of the flesh has become so strong and consuming that marriage may be likened to a hospital for incurables which prevents inmates from falling into graver sin. Before Adam fell it was a simple matter to remain virgin and chaste, but now it is hardly possible, and without special grace from God, quite impossible. For this very reason neither Christ nor the apostles sought to make chastity a matter of obligation. It is true that Christ counseled chastity, and he left it up to each one to test himself, so that if he could not be continent he was free to marry, but if by the grace of God he could be continent, then chastity is better.
Thus the doctors [earlier Christian theologians] have found three good and useful things about the married estate, by means of which the sin of lust, which flows beneath the surface, is counteracted and ceases to be a cause of damnation. First, [the doctors say] that it is a sacrament. . .. Second, [the doctors say that] it is a covenant of fidelity. . . . Third [the doctors say] that marriage produces offspring, for that is the end and chief purpose of marriage.
Source: Luther's Works, volume 44 (Philadelphia; Fortress, 1956), pp. 8-12.
was to take precedence over women's spiritual equality; a woman's religious convictions were never grounds for leaving or even openly disagreeing with her husband, though she could pray for his conversion. The only exceptions to this view were some of the radical reformers, such as the Anabaptists, who did allow women to leave their unbelieving spouses; but those who did so were expected to remarry quickly and thus come under the control of a male believer. Women were continually advised to be cheerful rather than grudging in their obedience, for in doing so they demonstrated their willingness to follow God's plan. Men were also given specific advice about how to enforce their authority, which often included physical coercion; in both continental and English marriage manuals, the authors use the metaphor of breaking a horse for teaching a wife obedience. Though the opinions of women who read such works were not often recorded, one can tell somewhat from private letters that women knew they were expected to be obedient and silent, for they often excused their
actions when they did not conform to the ideal. Such letters also indicate, however, that women's view of the ideal wife was one in which competence and companionship were as important as submissiveness.
A High Calling. The Protestant exhortation to marry was directed to both sexes, but particularly to women, for whom marriage and motherhood were a vocation as well as a living arrangement. Marriage was a woman's highest calling, even though it brought physical dangers and restraints on her freedom. The words of the Tudor homily on marriage, which the crown required to be read out loud regularly in all English churches, make this clear: “Truth it is, that they [women] must specially feel the griefs and pains of matrimony, in that they relinquish the liberty of their own rule, in the pain of their travailing [for example, labor and delivery], in the bringing up of their own children, in which offices they be in great perils, and be grieved with many afflictions, which they might be without, if they lived out of matrimony.” Despite their recognition of the disadvantages of marriage for women, however, most Protestants urged all women to marry, for they thought no woman had the special divine gift of freedom from sexual urges.
The Pulpit Speaks. The opinions of Protestant leaders about marriage and women were not contained simply in written works, but were communicated to their congregations through marriage sermons and homilies; because people in many parts of Europe were required to attend church, there was no way they could escape hearing them. Their opinions were also reflected in woodcuts and engravings that illustrated religious pamphlets, an important tool in the spread of Protestant ideas. The ideal woman appears frequently in both sermons and illustrations: she sits with her children, listens to a sermon or reads the Bible, is dressed soberly, and has her hair modestly covered. Negative depictions were also utilized: nuns who blindly follow their superiors; priests’ concubines; prostitutes or women dressed extravagantly buying expensive rosaries; and disobedient wives being beaten by their husbands.
A Differing Doctrine. The Catholic response to the challenge of the Protestant reformers included a rejoinder to the elevation of marriage. As with so many other issues, Catholic thinkers reaffirmed traditional doctrine and agreed that the most worthy type of Christian life was one both celibate and chaste. There was some disagreement about the relative importance of the three traditional purposes of marriage, with more liberal thinkers stressing the emotional bond between the couple more than procreation or the avoidance of sin, but in general there was a strong sense that all sexuality, including marital, was sinful and disruptive. Catholic authors also realized that despite exhortations to celibacy, most women in Europe would marry, and so they wrote marriage manuals to counteract those offered by Protestants. The ideal wife they described was exactly the same as that proposed by Protestant authors—obedient, silent, pious— and their words give clear indication that they still regarded women as totally inferior. Fray Luis de Leon, for example, in the late-sixteenth-century treatise La perfecta casada (The Perfect Wife), comments: “When a woman succeeds in distinguishing herself in something praiseworthy, she wins a victory over any number of men who have given themselves over to the same endeavor. For so insignificant a thing as this which we call woman never undertakes or succeeds in carrying out anything essentially worthwhile unless she be drawn to it, and stimulated, and encouraged by some force of incredible resoluteness which either God, or some singular gift of God, has placed within her soul.”
Jewish Views on Marriage. In Jewish opinion, like Protestant, all women should marry, and the qualities of the ideal wife had changed little since Old Testament times. According to Isaac ben Eliakim, author of a Yiddish ethical manual written in the early seventeenth century and frequently reprinted, the ideal wife was thrifty, cheerful, obedient, never jealous, and always responsive to her husband's physical and emotional needs. Though this definition differs little from contemporary Christian opinion, the tone of the manual is a
“This text has been suppressed due to author restrictions”
bit less dreary, commenting practically, “If you treat him like a king, then he, in turn, will treat you like a queen,” rather than dwelling on obedience as a religious duty.
Sources
Eric Josef Carlson, Marriage and the English Reformation (Oxford & Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1994).
Steven Ozment, When Fathers Ruled: Family Life in Reformation Europe (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983).
Margo Todd, Christian Humanism and the Puritan Social Order (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987).