1525 Marriage of Martin Luther
One of the constant demands of medieval church reformers and heretic groups was the permission for clergy to marry. The mandating of an all-celibate priesthood led, such voices said, to both sodomy inside the monasteries and the preying on wives and daughters by secular clergy. Had not some of the apostles been married men? Did not the Eastern Church permit priests to have wives and families? Moreover, the Church recognized that clergy did contract illicit unions regardless of canon law and that such priests were welcomed by their congregations knowing that their sons and daughters were safer as a result. Many bishops seemed rather to welcome the revenue from fines for such cohabiting than crack down on such priests.
When the Protestant Reformation began, these cries for married clergy were heard again. One of the first priests to marry was the Swiss reformer Huldreich Zwingli and while Martin Luther was in hiding after the Diet of Worms, his replacement in Wittenberg, the 35-year-old priest Andreas Karlstadt married a 15-year-old girl. Luther himself was in favour of married clergy and had famously helped some nuns escape their convents and vows of celibacy. These women, smuggled out in a pickle barrel, were mentored by Luther who was able to find husbands or places for them all but one, Katharina von Bora, whose family refused to have anything to do with her. Luther himself had always been reluctant to marry and start a family, believing, with some justification, that his life was under threat, but when Katharina informed him that she was willing to marry him he accepted. They were wed in 1525 and Luther’s life immediately improved, to his astonishment. “There is a lot to get used to in the first year of marriage,” he said. “One wakes up in the morning and finds a pair of pigtails that were not there before.” Luther’s personal hygiene, diet, and financial situation were all taken in hand by Katharina. The marriage was a famous success.