Luther on marriage

When I stare at the shelves of our bursting church library, the words "stuff and fluff" come to mind. So I check out a volume of Martin Luther, a man who wrote and opined on every imaginable topic. This week I'm looking at Luther's Works, v. 45, "A Christian in Society, v. 2," Fortress Press, 1962 (in 55 volumes). The editor writes: "The edition is intended primarily for the reader whose knowledge of late medieval Latin and 16th century German is too small to permit him to work with Luther in the original languages." Well, that would certainly be me!

Even translated into 1960s English, Luther's works are a challenge. This volume starts out discussing marriage. And it is clear that it applies to today's battles in the ELCA on gay marriage, although that topic would have never come up in Luther's day. In fact, it wouldn't have been imagined even 30 years ago as a serious topic in churches. Yet, we had a guest Lutheran pastor at our church this month (not in the pulpit, but in a Bible study) who believes one can set aside the clear passage in Romans about homosexuality. But I digress. I think Luther's introduction to the topic of marriage is worth the whole book. You can disagree if you wish, but you can't say the man didn't have a way with words.

"How I dread preaching on the estate of marriage! I am reluctant to do it because I am afraid if I once get really involved in the subject it will make a lot of work for me and for others. The shameful confusion wrought by the accursed papal law has occasioned so much distress, and the lax authority of both the spiritual and the temporal swords has given rise to so many dreadful abuses and false situations, that I would much prefer neither to look into the matter nor to hear of it. But timidity is no help in an emergency [there is a foot note here, but to something in German]; I must proceed. I must try to instruct poor bewildered consciences, and take up the matter boldly."

That must be how Lutheran pastors feel today, torn and tossed from pillar to post, wanting to follow God's word, but pressured by colleagues, psychologists, social workers, the media, synod meetings and parishioners to find a different path.

Impediments for marriage

Luther, after touching lightly on male and female and what "fruitful and multiply" means, goes on to say that the Pope and canon law has thought up 18 reasons for preventing or dissolving marriage, whereas Scripture only has three (Matthew 19), all concerning eunuchs. In Luther's mind, money is the only reason these rules have been put in place; even if God hasn't forbid it, you will not be permitted to marry who you wish unless you have the money. He has some colorful descriptions of these impediments and their enforcers: "enmeshed in a spiderweb of human commands and vows," "locked up behind a mass of iron bolts and bars," "the devil's monkey tricks," "any can be rescinded with gold and silver," "offering for sale women who have never been their own," "ecclesiastical tyrants," "hucksters," "foolishness," "fanciful deception," "it rains fools upon fools," and "big fools."

I don't know how impediments to marriage have changed over the last four centuries. These days Christians are just happy if the first kid can walk down the aisle at the wedding! But I know that if a divorced Protestant (or person of any or no faith) wants to convert to Roman Catholicism, she needs to have her prior marriages annulled and those of her current husband--they are impediments even for becoming a Catholic. These are the 18 (beyond Scripture) Luther mentioned in the 16th century, nearly all of which he condemned: 1) blood relationship up to the third and fourth degrees of consanguinity; 2) affinity through marriage up to four degrees; 3) a spiritual relationship where the man may have baptised or confirmed a woman--complex list of relations here; 4) legal kinship of an adopted person; 5) unbelief, and Luther says, "There are plenty of Christians--and indeed the greater part of them--who are worse in their secret unbelief than any Jew, heathen, Turk, or heretic;" 6) a crime, "sins and crimes should be punished, but with other penalties, not by forbidding marriage;" 7) public decorum or respectability--if the fiancee should die, the man can't marry any relative of hers up to the fourth degree because it's not decent; 8) vow of chastity--he suggests taking a vow to bite off your own nose, because that would be easier to keep; 9) error--married the wrong wife, like Leah and Rachel mix-up; 10) condition of servitude--the woman is a serf; 11) holy orders--St. Paul commanded that church leaders be married exposes this folly, he says; 12) coercion--you should not allow yourself to be coerced into injuring your neighbor; 13) betrothal--engaged but takes another wife--here Luther suggests the man belongs to the first, and not the second woman, (unless there are children) therefore he was incapable of promising something that belonged to someone else; 14) unfit for marriage, lots of laws about this he says, but gives no details; 15) episcopal prohibition; 16) restricted times; 17) custom; 18) defective eyesight and hearing.

And he concludes (part one) with, "It is a dirty rotten business that a bishop should forbid me a wife or specify the times when I may marry, or that a blind and dumb person should not be allowed to enter into wedlock."