The third case for divorce is that in which one of the parties deprives and avoids the other, refusing to fulfil the conjugal duty or to live with the other person. For example, one finds many a stubborn wife like that who will not give in, and who cares not a whit whether her husband falls into the sin of unchastity ten times over. Here it is time for the husband to say, “If you will not, another will; the maid will come if the wife will not.” Only first the husband should admonish and warn his wife two or three times, and let the situation be known to others so that her stubbornness becomes a matter of common knowledge and is rebuked before the congregation. If she still refuses, get rid of her; take an Esther and let Vashti go, as King Ahasuerus did [Esther 1:12–2:17].
Here you should be guided by the words of St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 7[:4–5], “The husband does not rule over his own body, but the wife does; likewise the wife does not rule over her own body, but the husband does. Do not deprive each other, except by agreement,” etc. Notice that St. Paul forbids either party to deprive the other, for by the marriage vow each submits his body to the other in conjugal duty. When one resists the other and refuses the conjugal duty she is robbing the other of the body she had bestowed upon him. This is really contrary to marriage, and dissolves the marriage. For this reason the civil government must compel the wife, or put her to death. If the government fails to act, the husband must reason that his wife has been stolen away and slain by robbers; he must seek another. We would certainly have to accept it if someone’s life were taken from him. Why then should we not also accept it if a wife steals herself away from her husband, or is stolen away by others? (LW 45:33-34).
A tedious detail worth mentioning arises in the context above. Notice the phrase "If you will not, another will; the maid will come if the wife will not" (Wiltu nicht, szo will eyn andere, wil fraw nicht, szo kum die magd) is placed between quotation marks (" "). This indicates the phrase did not originate with Luther. LW 45 states it was a popular proverbial expression [LW 45:33, fn. 34].
Conclusion
Something to notice immediately about the context above is to look beyond the shock value of the quote and understand the severity of the situation Luther is describing. First, it's not only adamant denial of conjugal duty, but a spouse that possibly refuses to live under one roof with her husband. Second, the spouse is described as someone that does not care if her husband has repeated extra-marital sex. Luther recommends the husband seek to first seek to keep this dysfunctional marriage intact by warning the wife of potential dissolution and also involving the church as a third-party arbiter. He also recommends the government be involved. Luther even allows that it could very well be possible to avoid divorce and maintain a marital relationship with an evil spouse:
Now if one of the parties were endowed with Christian fortitude and could endure the other’s ill behavior, that would doubtless be a wonderfully blessed cross and a right way to heaven. For an evil spouse, in a manner of speaking, fulfils the devil’s function and sweeps clean him who is able to recognize and bear it. If he cannot, however, let him divorce her before he does anything worse, and remain unmarried for the rest of his days. Should he try to say that the blame rests not upon him but upon his spouse, and therefore try to marry another, this will not do, for he is under obligation to endure evil, or to be released from his cross only by God, since the conjugal duty has not been denied him. Here the proverb applies, “He who wants a fire must endure the smoke” (LW 45:34-35).
While the shock quote seems to suggest simple abandonment of a spouse for the denial of sex, in the broad context of The Estate of Marriage Luther does not advocate no-fault divorce; he limited it to three main serious reasons. What's striking about these three reasons is that they are placed in a context in which marriage and family are symbiotically joined together. In Luther's thinking, you cannot consider one without the other. Luther saw the goal of family as more than a direct command from God. It is "a divine ordinance [werck] which it is not our prerogative to hinder or ignore"(LW 45:18]:
... [A]fter God had made man and woman he blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply” [Gen. 1:28]. From this passage we may be assured that man and woman should and must come together in order to multiply. Now this [ordinance] is just as inflexible as the first [honoring the divine creation of man and woman], and no more to be despised and made fun of than the other, since God gives it his blessing and does something over and above the act of creation (LW 45:18].
Even sexuality itself is teleologically designed by God for the eventual creation of a family. The ultimate reason why there is human sex drive exists is for the creation of a family:
...[I]t is just as necessary as the fact that I am a man, and more necessary than sleeping and waking, eating and drinking, and emptying the bowels and bladder. It is a nature and disposition just as innate as the organs involved in it. Therefore, just as God does not command anyone to be a man or a woman but creates them the way they have to be, so he does not command them to multiply but creates them so that they have to multiply. And wherever men try to resist this, it remains irresistible nonetheless and goes its way through fornication, adultery, and secret sins, for this is a matter of nature and not of choice (LW 45:18).
But the greatest good in married life, that which makes all suffering and labor worth while, is that God grants offspring and commands that they be brought up to worship and serve him. In all the world this is the noblest and most precious work, because to God there can be nothing dearer than the salvation of souls. Now since we are all duty bound to suffer death, if need be, that we might bring a single soul to God, you can see how rich the estate of marriage is in good works. God has entrusted to its bosom souls begotten of its own body, on whom it can lavish all manner of Christian works. Most certainly father and mother are apostles, bishops, and priests to their children, for it is they who make them acquainted with the gospel. In short, there is no greater or nobler authority on earth than that of parents over their children, for this authority is both spiritual and temporal. Whoever teaches the gospel to another is truly his apostle and bishop. Mitre and staff and great estates indeed produce idols, but teaching the gospel produces apostles and bishops. See therefore how good and great is God’s work and ordinance! (LW 45:46).
Could Luther's theological reasoning lead to difficult hypotheticals? For instance, suppose a couple marries and a spouse becomes severely ill? The divine creation mandate to be fruitful and multiply cannot be fulfilled. Should that person dispose of the sick spouse? Should the husband take an Esther and let Vashti go? No!:
What about a situation where one’s wife is an invalid and has therefore become incapable of fulfilling the conjugal duty? May he not take another to wife? By no means. Let him serve the Lord in the person of the invalid and await His good pleasure. Consider that in this invalid God has provided your household with a healing balm by which you are to gain heaven. Blessed and twice blessed are you when you recognize such a gift of grace and therefore serve your invalid wife for God’s sake (LW 45:35).
I think it's understandable that Luther's high regard for the creation of family comes off as extreme to modern Western ears. Also, the quote under scrutiny certainly does not emotionally provoke a reader to consider the broader context of Luther's theological underpinnings. It does the opposite: it distracts like a tray being dropped in a fine dining restaurant. Perhaps though in the sixteenth century Luther's shocking comments did not raise as many eyebrows as it would today? A cursory search of the period states there was a strong bond between having a family with physical and economic survival. For example: Children were utilized in working within the household. Widows and widowers relied on care from their children. A child was supposed to eventually care for their aging parents, etc. Well... some eyebrows were raised. Some sixteenth century readers ignored Luther's context and fixated on the shocking quote. LW 45 states,
In a letter of January 1, 1523, to Dietrich von Werthern, [Luther's] representative at the Diet of Nürnberg, Duke George of Saxony cited this phrase [the maid will come if the wife will not] out of context to discredit Luther. He sarcastically suggested that Dietrich make sure his maidservants were comely. Gess, op. cit., I, 415 [LW 45:33, fn. 34].
Also from a close scrutiny of the context, I grasp Luther's theological reasoning about Vashti and Esther, but to me, this isn't the most shocking statement. I think this one is:
For this reason the civil government must compel the wife, or put her to death. If the government fails to act, the husband must reason that his wife has been stolen away and slain by robbers; he must seek another (LW 45:34).
From my vantage point, this seems extreme and in in contradiction to what Luther stated in the beginning of this treatise:
But we are exactly as he created us: I a man and you a woman. Moreover, he wills to have his excellent handiwork honored as his divine creation, and not despised. The man is not to despise or scoff at the woman or her body, nor the woman the man. But each should honor the other’s image and body as a divine and good creation that is well-pleasing unto God himself [LW 45:17-18].
In conclusion, if you find yourself shocked by this obscure quote and subsequent context... and you claim the name "Christian," a meaningful response to Luther would best be to avoid secular pragmatism or arguing from potential modern societal results like O'Hare and Denifle. As I've investigated O'Hare and Denifle on this, neither of them touched Luther's reasoning as to why he said what he did in relation to the divine mandate of having a family or his high regard for marriage. They present him as a lawless lunatic whose fundamental error was rejecting monasticism. A closer look at this quote does not support the implications of flippant wife jettisoning, no-fault divorce, lawless remarriage, polygamy, free love and legalized prostitution. This charge against Luther is even recognized by him in The Estate of Marriage:
I once wrote down some advice concerning such persons for those who hear confession. It related to those cases where a husband or wife comes and wants to learn what he should do: his spouse is unable to fulfil the conjugal duty, yet he cannot get along without it because he finds that God’s ordinance to multiply is still in force within him. Here they have accused me of teaching that when a husband is unable to satisfy his wife’s sexual desire she should run to somebody else. Let the topsyturvy liars spread their lies. The words of Christ and his apostles were turned upside down; should they not also turn my words topsy-turvy? To whose detriment it will be they shall surely find out (LW 45:20).
Addendum #1: Previous Defenses of this Quote
There have been attempts from scholars to salvage this Luther quote. For instance, Lutheran theologian W.H.T. Dau sought to tackle the Roman Catholic criticism of divorce and polygamy. He does so by comparing Luther's view of divorce and polygamy with Luther's view that of the Turks. He states,
Luther says: "Many divorces occur still among the Turks. If a wife does not yield to the husband, nor act according to his whim and fancy, he forthwith drives her out of the house, and takes one, two, three, or four additional wives, and defends his action by appealing to Moses. They have taken out of Moses such things as please them and pander to their lust. In Turkey they are very cruel to women; any woman that will not submit is cast aside. They toy with their women like a dog with a rag. When they are weary of one woman, they quickly put her beneath the turf and take another. Moses has said nothing to justify this practice. My opinion is that there is no real married life among the Turks; theirs is a whorish life. It is a terrible tyranny, all the more to be regretted because God does not withhold the common blessing from their intercourse: children are procreated thereby, and yet the mother is sent away by the husband. For this reason there is no true matrimony among the Turks. In my opinion, all the Turks at the present time are bastards." (7, 965.)
All this is plain enough and should suffice to secure Luther against the charge of favoring polygamy. The seeming admission that polygamy might be permissible relates to cases for which the laws of all civilized nations make provisions. How a Christian must conduct himself in such a case must be decided on the evidence in each case. Likewise, the reference to the Christian's liberty from the law does not mean that the Christian has the potential right to polygamy, but it means that he must maintain his monogamous relation from a free and willing choice to obey God's commandments in the power of God's grace. Polygamy, this is the firm conviction of Luther, could only be sanctioned if there were a plain command of God to that effect. Luther's remarks about matrimony among the Turks should be remembered when Catholics cite Luther's remarks about King Ahasuerus dismissing Vashti and summoning Esther, and the right of the husband to take to himself his maid-servant when his wife refuses him. By all divine and human laws the matter to which Luther refers is a just ground for divorce, and that is all that Luther declares."
Lutheran theologian Ewald Plass said of this shocking quote, “The words, ‘If the wife is not willing, bring on the maid’ have been notoriously misconstrued by having been quoted out of context. As the following words clearly show, Luther is thinking of a separation and a remarriage, not a sort of concubinage” [Ewald Plass, What Luther Says vol 2, p.901, fn. 20]. Plass then provides a number of statements from Luther on Luther's views on marriage and divorce.
A lengthy defense of the quote "If you will not, another will; the maid will come if the wife will not" is suggested by LW 45. It mentions that put forth by Lutheran theologian Wilhelm Walther:
A charitable explanation of Luther’s use of the phrase is found in Wilhelm Walther, Für Luther wider Rom (Halle: Niemeyer, 1906), pp. 693–695. He suggests that Luther deliberately put these proverbial expressions into the mouth of the offended husband in order that the offending wife might know that her husband’s feelings in the matter were not peculiar to him but represented a generally accepted point of view [LW 45:33, fn. 34].
To my knowledge, this book is not available in English but can be found in its original German here. Walther's refutation is excellent and thorough.
The following is the lengthy argument from Wilhelm Walther, pages 693-695 along with a cursory A.I. English translation.
Google A.I. English translation:
The [Roman Catholics] most sharply accuse him of his advice concerning the refusal of marital duty.
This refusal is also a grave sin according to Roman law. But what is to happen if one deprives and withdraws from the other? According to Luther, a woman who refuses to pay her marital duty or remain with her husband "tears apart" the marriage. She thereby effectively annuls the marriage. Then, however, "the secular authorities must compel or kill the woman. If they do not do so, the husband must think that his wife has been taken from him by robbers and killed and seek another." He therefore advises such a man to threaten his wife with the prospect of divorce and remarriage, and should she persist in her "stubbornness," to carry out this threat. Naturally, the Roman Catholics, with their erroneous understanding of the indissolubility of marriages recognized by their church, must consider this false. But they should allow Luther to say nothing other than what he wants to say. They interpret his words as if the husband should then go to another woman, perhaps his maid, as if he himself had given advice and permission for adultery." And yet Luther says quite clearly that such a man should "get" another wife, and has just written beforehand how this should happen: "Divorce publicly, so that one may change (remarry), this must be done through secular investigation and force, so that the adultery is evident to everyone; or where the [authorities] will not do so, divorce with the knowledge of the community." Accordingly, he continues in our passage: "However, the husband should tell her this two or three times beforehand and warn her and let it happen before other people, so that her obstinacy is publicly known and punished before the community. If she still does not want to, then let her leave you and let her give you an Esther and the Vashti go, as King Assyrian did (Esther 2:17)." Denifle continues all this and quotes only the words: "One can find a stubborn woman who sets her mind on it, and should the man fall into insolence ten times, she still doesn't ask. Then it's time for the man to say to her: "If you don't want it, another will; if the wife doesn't want it, then the maid will come." Janssen quotes a little more. He excuses his omission of the entire passage with the words: "The whole passage cannot be published because of its obscenity." However, he later forgot this excuse himself; for in his second word to his critics, he prints it in its entirety.
Even Protestants, when presented with only the few words that Denifle quotes, have taken offense. This is because Luther also writes: "If you don't want it, another will; if the wife doesn't want it, then the maid will come." It was assumed that Luther was thereby expressing his advice, as if the man were permitted to go to his maid in such a case. This, however, is completely ruled out by what he said before and after about the path a man should take to arrange a marriage elsewhere. That sentence, however, was not even coined by Luther. He merely quotes two old proverbs. But when I express a thought using a proverb, only the intended thought comes into consideration, not the accidental form given to it by popular wisdom; here, therefore, only the thought that a woman who refuses her husband her marital duty forfeits her right to him. The husband should point this out to his wife, using the proverb, to make it clear to her that this is a general view, not an idea of his own. Anyone who wants to force the accidental wording of the proverb must also read in Luther that every man in the situation in question may desire no one other than his maid as a wife. Because, however, a misinterpretation of his words is conceivable due to the use of the proverb, Luther specifically adds: "However, in such a way that the man first warns the woman several times, then brings in others, tries to bring her to her senses before the community, and only then, if all is in vain, lets himself be taken by another."
Finally, what motivates Luther to give this advice to a man in such a situation? Why doesn't he demand that he abstain from marital relations altogether, even under such difficult circumstances? Denifle claims that his advice follows quite consistently from his Epicurean principle that abstinence is an impossible demand, that one cannot resist the natural urge. Is this correct? Or is Luther driven by righteous anger at what he believes to be the "disintegration" of the marriage by this woman? This question can be answered very definitively For in the same sermon in which the words in question are found, Luther also considered cases where, through divine providence and without any fault on the part of the woman, the man is unable to satisfy his natural drive within marriage, for example, if the woman is ill for an extended period. If Denifle is correct, then Luther must have permitted the man, even in such a case, to find other ways to satisfy his needs. But he writes: “What if someone has a sick spouse who has been of no use to him in his marital duties? Should he not take another? By no means! But if you say: Yes, I cannot abstain; you are mistaken… God is far too faithful to deprive you of your spouse in this way through illness, and not also to deprive you of the flesh’s desires when you otherwise faithfully serve your sick husband.” After that, all the talk of Denifle and his predecessors regarding Luther’s assertion of the irresistibility of the sexual drive, in the sense they intend, is pure slander. Rather: As soon as God imposes abstinence on us, we can and should practice it. However, it is not God who has imposed abstinence on priests, monks, and nuns, but their own will, and God clearly shows some of them that this was against his will. This is Luther’s irrefutable view.
Addendum #2 “If the husband is unwilling, there is another who is; if the wife is unwilling, then let the maid come"
Sometimes this quote is put forth: “
If the husband is unwilling, there is another who is; if the wife is unwilling, then let the maid come." It's from the same cntext of the quote in question. Popularly, this quote has a home on the propaganda filled webpage,
Luther, Exposing the Myth. With slight variation, the quote can be found in the English translation of Hartmann Grisar,
Luther, vol. 3, p.
253. Grisar is worth citing at length. He's a hostile source but admits Luther is often wrongly understood on this quote. He writes,
He declares, first, that if one or other of the married parties should be convicted of obstinately refusing “to render the conjugal due, or to remain with the other,” then ‘‘the marriage was annulled”; the husband might then say: ‘‘If you are unwilling, some other will consent; if the wife refuse, then let the maid come’’; he had the full right to take an Esther and dismiss Vasthi, as King Assucrus had done (Esther ii. 17).1_ To the remonstrances of his wife he would be justified in replying: ‘‘ Go, you prostitute, go to the devil if you please”; the injured party was at liberty to contract a fresh union, though only with the sanction of the authorities or of the congregation, while the offending party incurred the penalty of the law and might or might not be permitted to marry again.
The words: "If you won’t ... then let the maid come" were destined to become famous. Not Catholics only, but Protestants too, found in them a stone of offence. As they stand they give sufficient ground for scandal. Was it, however, Luther’s intention thereby to sanction relations with the maid outside the marriage bond? In fairness the question must be answered in the negative. Both before and after the critical passage the text speaks merely of the dissolution of the marriage and the contracting of another union; apart from this, as is clear from other passages, Luther never sanctioned sexual commerce outside matrimony. Thus, strictly speaking, according to him, the husband would only have the right to threaten the obstinate wife to put her away and contract a fresh union with the maid. At the same time the allusion to the maid was unfortunate, as it naturally suggested something different from marriage. In all probability it was the writer’s inveterate habit of clothing his thought in the most drastic language at his command that here led him astray. It may be that the sentence ‘‘Then let the maid come” belonged to a rude proverb which Luther used without fully adverting to its actual meaning, but it has yet to be proved that such a proverb existed before Luther’s day; at any rate, examples can be quoted of the words having been used subsequently as a proverb, on the strength of his example.
Addendum #3 The Latin Text of the Quote from Martini Lutheri de matrimonio sermo, habitus Wittembergae anno 1522
Tertia ratio est, ubi alter alteri sese subduxerit, ut debitam benevolentiam persolvere nolit, aut habitare cum renuerit. Reperiuntur enim interdum adeo pertinaces uxores, quae, etiamsi decies in libidinem prolaberetur maritus, pro sua duritia non curarent. Hic opportunum est, ut maritus dicat: Si tu nolueris, alia volet, si domina nolit, adveniat ancilla, ita tamen ut antea iterum et tertio uxorem admoneat maritus, et coram aliis ejus etiam pertinaciam detegat, ut publice et ante conspectum Ecclesiae duritia ejus et agnoscatur et reprehendatur. Si tum renuat, repudia eam, et in vicem Vasti Ester surroga, Assueri regis exemplo.
Addendum #4 Luther on Marriage by Scott Hendrix
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