What further considerations induced him to marry, appear from his letters, in which he urged his friends to do likewise. Thus he wrote on March 27 to Wolfgang Reissenbusch, preceptor of the convent at Lichtenberg, saying that man was created by God for marriage. God had so made man that he could not well do without it; whoever was ashamed of marrying, must also be ashamed of his manhood, or must pretend to be wiser than God. The devil had slandered the married state by letting people who lived in immorality be held in high honour. Luther, in thus frankly stating the natural disposition of man to married life, spoke from his own experience. 'To remain righteous unmarried,' he said once later on, 'is not the least of trials, as those know well who have made the attempt.' In referring as he did to the devil, he probably had in his mind the scandal which threatened him if he should decide on marrying. He then goes on to say to Reissenbusch that if he honoured the Word and work of God, the scandal would be only a matter of a moment, to be followed by years of honour. To Spalatin he writes on April 10: 'I find so many reasons for urging others to marry, that I shall soon be brought to it myself, notwithstanding that enemies never cease to condemn the married state, and our little wiseacres ridicule it every day.' The 'wiseacres' he was thinking of were professors and theologians of his circle at Wittenberg. Not only was he resolved, however, to obey the will of his Creator, despite all condemnation and ridicule, but he deemed it his duty to testify to the rightness of the step by his example as well as by his words. His enemies, in fact, were taunting him that he did not venture to practise himself what he preached to others. A few days after, immediately before his departure for Eisleben, he wrote again to Spalatin, recommending his friend, who had been so utterly averse to matrimony, to take care that he was not anticipated in the step.
Amidst all the terrors of the Peasants' War, which had now broken out in all its violence, and in earnest contemplation of a near end possibly threatening himself, he had formed the fixed resolve, as his letter of May 4 to Rühel shows, to 'take his Kate to wife, in spite of the devil.' This is the first letter in which he mentions her name to a friend. And to this resolve he steadily adhered during the troublous weeks that followed, when he was called on to pay the last honours to his Elector, to rouse men to the sanguinary contest with the peasants, and to hear contumely and reproach heaped upon his stirring words. Besides writing to the Cardinal Albert himself, recommending him to marry, he sent a letter also on June 3 to his friend Rühel, who held office as one of his advisers, saying, 'If my marrying might serve in any way to strengthen his Grace to do the same, I should be very willing to set his Grace the example; for I have a mind, before leaving this world, to enter the married state, to which I believe God has called me.' He had thoughts of this kind, he added, even if it should end only in a betrothal, and not an actual marriage.
He speedily gave effect to his final resolve, in order to cut short all the loose and idle gossip which threatened him as soon as his intentions were known with regard to Catharine von Bora. He took none of his friends into his confidence, but acted, as he afterwards advised others to act. 'It is not good,' he said, 'to talk much about such matters. A man must ask God for counsel, and pray, and then act accordingly.'
As to how he finally came to terms with Catharine we have no account to show. But on the evening of June 13, on the Tuesday after the feast of the Trinity, he invited to his house his friends Bugenhagen, the parish priest of the town, Jonas, the professor and provost of the church of All Saints, Lucas Cranach with his wife, and the juristic professor Apel, formerly a dean of the Cathedral at Bamberg, who himself had married a nun, and in their presence was married to Catharine. The marriage was solemnised in the customary way. The pair were asked, by the priest present, Bugenhagen, according to the custom prevailing in Germany, and which Luther afterwards followed in his tract on Marriage, whether they would take one another for husband and wife; their right hands were then joined together, and thus, in the name of the Trinity, they were 'joined together in matrimony.' The ceremony was therewith concluded, and Catharine remained thenceforth with Luther as his wife. Some days after Luther gave a little breakfast to his friends; and the magistracy, of whom Cranach was a member, sent him their congratulations, together with a present of wine. A fortnight later, on June 27, Luther celebrated his wedding in grander style, by a nuptial feast, in order to gather his distant friends around him. He wrote to them saying that they were to 'seal and ratify' his marriage, and 'help to pronounce the benediction.' Above all he rejoiced to be able to see his 'dear father and mother' at the feast. Among the motives for his marrying he especially mentioned that he had felt himself bound to fulfil an old duty, in accordance with his father's wishes.
Great as was the surprise which Luther occasioned by his speedy marriage, it was no greater than the talk and sensation that immediately ensued.
Among even his adherents and friends—especially the 'wiseacres' of whom he had spoken—there was much astonishment and shaking of heads. It was considered that the great man had lowered himself, and gossip was busy in asking what reasons could have induced him to take the step. Melancthon, his devoted friend, lost for the moment, as is shown by his letter of June 16 to the philologist Camerarius, his accustomed self-possession. He admitted that married life was a holy state, and one well-pleasing to God, and that its results might be beneficial to Luther's nature and character; but he was of opinion that Luther's lowering himself to this condition was a lamentable act of weakness, and injurious to his reputation—and that, too, at a time when Germany was more than ever in need of all his spirit and his energy. Luther had not invited him to be present on the 13th, from a suspicion that Melancthon would scarcely approve of what he was doing. A few days afterwards, however, he warmly besought Link, their common friend, to be sure and attend their nuptial feast on the 27th. That Luther, in this respect also, had acted as a man of strong character and determination, would soon be evident to them all.
His enemies seized the occasion of his marriage to spread vulgar falsehoods about him, which soon were further exaggerated, and have been raked up shamelessly again, even in our own time, or at least repeated in veiled and scandalous inuendoes.
[Illustration: Fig. 29.—LUTHER. (From a Portrait by Cranach in 1525.) At Wittenberg.]
As for Luther himself, he at first felt strange in the new mode of life which he had entered at the age of forty-one, so suddenly, and in the midst of his arduous labours, and the stirring public events and struggles of the time. At the same time he could not but be aware of the unfavourable reception which his step would encounter, even with his friends at Wittenberg. Melancthon found him, during the early days of his married life, in a restless and uncertain mood. But he remained firm in his conviction that God had called him to the married state. The same day that Melancthon wrote so anxiously to Camerarius about his marriage, Luther himself wrote to Spalatin, saying, 'I have made myself so vile and contemptible forsooth, that all the angels, I hope, will laugh, and all the devils weep.' In his letter of invitation to his friends for June 27, friendly humour is mingled with words of deep earnestness; nay, even with thoughts of death, and a longing for release from this infatuated world. Later on Luther preached, on the ground of his own experiences, about the blessings, the joys, and the purifying burdens of the state ordained and sanctified by God, and never without an expression of gratitude to God for having brought him to enter into it. Seventeen years after his marriage he bore testimony to Catharine in his will, that she had been to him a 'pious, faithful, and devoted wife, always loving, worthy, and beautiful.'
[Illustration: Fig. 30.—CATHARINE VON BORA, LUTHER'S WIFE. (From a
Portrait by Cranach about 1525.) At Berlin.]