Chapter Three

Women in an Era of Reformation

Chapter Summary

Chapter Three examines gender issues associated with the Protestant Reformation and the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation in the sixteenth century. You will be introduced first to the voices of the male leaders of the Reformation as they discuss marriage and appropriate roles for women in church and society. You will also discover the voices of women as they both support and oppose the Reformation, along with the actions that accompanied their words. The chapter concludes with the question of whether women found an exceptional degree of liberation within the Anabaptist tradition.

The reading from Luther's "The Estate of Marriage" (3.1) reveals important differences between Roman Catholic beliefs about marriage and those of the Protestants. For Protestants, marriage was blessed by God and the norm for all Christians, apart from a small number who were given the gift of celibacy. You will find their rationale in the chapter and in the Luther reading. Also be sure you understand the reasons for arguing that marriage was no longer a sacrament.

The voices of the Reformers are also heard on what role women should play in the churches and in societies where Protestantism was established. These discussions occur within the context of the belief that God has given all Christians a vocation in life. Women could rejoice that they were given work by God to do, but this work was restricted to motherhood and household management and was constrained by obedience to all men in authority over them. Calvin's commentary on the Creation stories of Genesis (3.1) provides a theological basis for arguing that women should be subordinate to men, while Luther provided practical reasons for excluding them from the pulpit. Both Luther and Calvin, however, are haunted by the Protestant doctrine of the priesthood of all believers which makes what women can and cannot do in churches a complex issue.

This chapter will also present some of the important practical implications of Protestant beliefs for women. Convents were closed and celibacy was no longer required of priests, who were to model headship in the ideal Christian family. The wife of a clergyman occupied a new and often influential role. Divorce, although difficult to get, at least became an option for women.

Over the past two decades there has been a growing concern on the part of Reformation historians to examine the ways in which Protestant women themselves responded to the radical changes brought about by religious upheaval. Most of what we know does not come directly from women themselves but appears incidentally in the political and historical writing of men. Be sure to notice the variety of ways that Katherine von Bora, Katherine Zell, and Argula von Grumbach, for example, each encouraged the spread of the Reformation. A large corpus of writing by Protestant women does not appear until the seventeenth century, but a century earlier they are using letters as their pulpits.

Our knowledge of the experiences of Roman Catholic women, confronted with the spread of Protestantism, comes primarily from members of religious orders who were literate and knew the value of written documents. Some of these women willingly gave up the celibate life but others, especially those in religious orders that had undergone reform and revitalization, firmly defended their way of life. Read the text from Jeanne de Jussie from Geneva (3.3) in order to understand some of the arguments they made in protest against the Protestant authorities.

Another important part of the story of Catholic women is the effort to reinvigorate and reform the church in the sixteenth century by creating new religious orders, which would silence Protestant derision of the old monastic system. You will be introduced to some of these orders in Her Story. They sought to emulate Jesus and his apostles by being active in the world in education and mission work. Yet the story is repeated many times over: women were forced to accept cloistering as part of the church's strict affirmation of tradition.

The Anabaptists have been singled out by scholars of women's religious history for special attention because, at least in theory, these groups had characteristics that could have been the basis for female equality and participation. In particular scholars point to the demand for rigorous obedience to God at the expense of human institutions and the Anabaptist emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit. Historians, however, now disagree on how far this equality was actually realized. Did they show a "radical equality" in practice, or were they just as bound by tradition as other Protestants? The truth probably lies somewhere in-between. Women, for example, were not given official positions of leadership in the Anabaptist groups, yet the communities' early years were marked by chaos and persecution, and women sometimes preached and baptized. The text from the trial of "unofficial" leader Elizabeth of Leeuwarden reveals this. It reminds us of the prominent role women played in the ranks of the martyrs and also that Anabaptist women were biblically and theologically well-informed. The Sisters' choir at Ephrata (34), although part of the Radical Reformation, reminds us of the opportunities for creativity women enjoyed in communal settings.

Some of the Anabaptists took an important step in broadening the basis for divorce by including religious grounds, although scholars have concluded that those divorced could not remarry. As Peter Rideman argues in his essays "Concerning Marriage" and "Concerning Adultery" (3.5), adultery can involve an illicit affair with a human lover or it can involve an affair with the world rather than fidelity to God.

Additional Readings

• Barstow, Anne Llewellyn. "An Ambiguous Legacy: Anglican Clergy Wives after the Reformation." In Women in New Worlds, edited by Hilah F. Thomas and Rosemary Skinner Keller, 97–111. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1982.
• Blaisdell, Charmarie J. "Angela Merici and the Ursulines." In Religious Orders of the Catholic Reformation: Essays in Honor of John C. Olin, edited by Richard L. Demolen, 99–136. New York: Fordham University Press, 1994.
• Dinan, Susan Eileen. "Confraternities as a Venue for Female Activism during the Catholic Reformation." In Confraternities and Catholic Reform in Italy, France and Spain, edited by John Patrick Donnelly and Michael Maker, 191–214. Kirksville, Mo.: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1999.
• Douglass, Jane Dempsey. "Hearing a Different Message: Reforming Women Interpret the Bible." In Women, Gender and Christian Community, edited by Jane Dempsey Douglass and James F. Kay, 55–65. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997.
• Douglass, Jane Dempsey. "Women and the Reformation." In The Many Sides of History: Readings in the Western Heritage, ed. Steven Ozment and Frank M. Turner, vol. 1, 318–35. New York: Macmillan, 1987.
• Haude, Sigrun. "Anabaptist Women – Radical Women?" In Infinite Boundaries: Order, Disorder and Reorder in Early Modern German Culture, edited by Max Reinhart, 313–27. Kirksville, Mo.: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1998.
• Lierheimer, Linda. "Preaching or Teaching: Defining the Ursuline Mission in Seventeenth-century France." In Women Preachers and Prophets through Two Millennia of Christianity, edited by Beverly Kienzle and Pamela Walker, 212–26. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
• Marshall, Sherrin, ed. 2 and Public Worlds. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989.
• Matheson, Peter, ed. Argula von Grumbach: A Woman's Voice in the Reformation. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1995.
• Prevallet, Elaine M. "To Lay Hold upon Their Souls." [The Sisters of Loretto Story]. Cross Currents 42 (Spring 1992): 51–64.
• Snyder, C. Arnold and Huebert Hecht, Linda A., eds. Profiles of Anabaptist Women: 2. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1996.
• Wiesner, Merry E. "Luther and Women: The Death of Two Marys." In Disciplines of Faith: Studies in Religion, Politics and Patriarchy, edited by Jim Obelkevich et al, 295–308. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987.
• Wiesner, Merry E. "Women's Response to the Reformation." In German People and the Reformation, edited by R. Po-Chia Hsia, 148–71. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.
• Zophy, Jonathan W. "We Must Have the Dear Ladies: Martin Luther and Women." In Pietas et Societas: New Trends in Reformation Social History, edited by Kyle Sessions and Philip Bebb, 141–50. Kirksville, Mo.: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1985.

Questions for Reflection

1. Do you think the Protestant Reformation contributed to the self-determination and equality of women?
2. Why could scholars argue that the Reformation represents a setback or "bad news" for women?
3. What are the issues today surrounding the requirement that Catholic priests remain celibate? What would be the value of a celibate priesthood? What would be the disadvantages?
4. How do contemporary Protestants regard the role of a minister's spouse in the life of the congregation? Have you experienced changes of opinion on such a role?
5. What specific arguments does Jeanne de Jussie make in her defense of convent life? What other arguments could the nuns of Geneva have made?
6. How do Protestant doctrines "leave the door slightly ajar" in terms of female equality and self-determination?

Related Websites for Chapter Three

• Women and the Reformation: Resources: www.eldrbarry.net/heidel/womenrsc.htm
• The Protestant Reformation: Internet Archive of Texts and Documents: history.hanover.edu/early/prot.html
• Internet Modern History Sourcebook: Reformation Europe: www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook02.html
• Impact of the Reformation on Women in Germany: www.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/History/teaching/protref/Rrindex.htm