The Reformation and the Role of Women

1515: The considerably younger Katharina von Bora enters the Nimbschen Convent in Saxony, after early schooling at the Augustiner-Chorfrauenstift (an Augustinian nunnery). She, too, learns to read, write, acquires knowledge of Latin, and some instruction in housekeeping. The days in the convent are long and strictly regimented.

During this period, Martin Luther begins to look more critically at the Church. In 1517, he publishes his famous 95 theses against the sale of indulgences. The first drumroll, to be followed by many others. Luther wants reforms, and this also applies to the monasteries. He doubts that monastic life is willed by God or even makes sense. According to his new doctrine, the faithful can appeal directly to God, without the need for any priests, nuns or monks to act as intermediaries. The abbeys are therefore superfluous and can be closed. And this occurs in the Protestant territories and towns. The abbeys are dissolved, one after the other.

The nun Katharina von Bora herself becomes a follower of the Reformation. She decides upon a dramatic step. In 1523, she flees the convent, together with eight other nuns, concealed on a cart behind barrels of herring. Martin Luther had sent the wagon. The nuns arrive in Wittenberg, the centre of the Reformation.

Caritas Pirckheimer, Abbess of the Convent of St. Clara in Nuremberg, on the other hand, thinks and acts quite differently. As the Reformation reaches the southern German city in 1525, she deeply fears changes to her convent. She values the advantages of life there. Apart from social security, it offers her the opportunity to use her intellectual abilities. As she speaks Latin (the world language) fluently, she can communicate with scholars from all over the world. Some of her letters go as far afield as Italy and France.

Criticised, too, are the double standards of many priests, monks and nuns, who, despite celibacy and vows of chastity, do not live abstinently. This is an open secret. The priests have housekeepers, with whom they live. They just cannot marry, nor can their children inherit. The reformers seek to improve the situation and put an end to these undignified relationships: the “clerical whores” and “clerical bastards”, arguing that priests should be allowed to marry like everyone else. Very soon, the first priests are betrothed. This is a break with a tradition of celibacy going back almost a thousand years, a serious breach of canon law and, for the “old believers”, a huge provocation.

Martin Luther has specific ideas when it comes to marital duties, which can be read in his manuscript, “On married life”. Referring to St. Paul, he clearly states that both partners in marriage are equally obliged to make their bodies available for “conjugal duties”. This applies equally to men and women.

From now on, married life is strictly regulated by the authorities. As a consequence of the Reformation, matrimonial and moral courts are established, mainly in the towns, whose purpose is to exercise strict control over sexuality and everyday married life. Adultery is now grounds for divorce. Nor shall a “guilty” wife be punished more harshly than a “guilty” husband - a modern principle, although it was often handled quite differently in social practise.

As ever, the reformers, too, believe that the roles and hierarchy of the sexes are proscribed by God. The woman cares for the children and raises them in the true faith. Motherhood becomes the female “profession”, which considerably elevates her status. The head of the family is still the man - to whom the wife is subordinate. The power of their husbands is, if anything, reinforced. Women have less freedom outside marriage than before, but there are indeed some areas where women are treated with more equality. It is thus a matter of dispute as to whether the Reformation actually improved or worsened the situation of women.

True equality will occur in the Protestant Church only many years later. The ministerial profession, long taboo for women under the Protestants, gradually changes and, from the mid-20^th century ons, women can become pastors, or even bishops in the evangelical church.