Luther: Sex, Marriage and Motherhood

Martin Luther, explains Lyndal Roper, summarised his view of sex, marriage and motherhood in a letter he wrote to three nuns in 1524, 'A women does not have complete mastery over herself. God created her body that she should be with a man and bear and raise children'.

Lyndal Roper | Published in History Today Volume 33 Issue 12 December 1983

The Lord God has wanted three things made right again before the Last Day: the ministry of the Word, government, and marriage.

When, in 1532, Luther meditated on the central goals of the reformation of the church which he had set in motion, he numbered the changes in the institution of marriage as amongst the most important. Protestant reformers devoted much of their energies to condemning what they considered immorality, to promoting the estate of marriage, and to restoring what they regarded as the 'right order' in marriage and the household. Their articulation of a morality of sexuality and marriage had profound implications for Protestants' understanding of what it is to be a man or a woman. By examining Lutheran views of illicit sex, marriage and the household, we can begin to unravel the connections between the Protestants' conceptions of masculinity and femininity on the one hand, and their advocacy of the proper order in marriage and household on the other.