I’ve been reading up about the marriage and wedding of Martin and Katie. It’s a cracker of a story.
After coming to the conclusion that it was proper for the clergy to marry, Luther was involved in arranging marriages for ex-nuns, but was reluctant for himself to marry. It was not easy to find a partner for Katharina von Bora, and a few attempts failed.
Eventually, he decided to marry to please his father, rile the pope, cause the angels to laugh, and the devils to weep. 26-year-old Von Bora and 41-year-old Luther announced their engagement and were married on 13 June 1525, before witnesses including Justus Jonas, Johannes Bugenhagen, and Barbara and Lucas Cranach. A small wedding breakfast was held the next morning, and a more formal, public ceremony on 27 June, presided over by Bugenhagen. (from Wikipedia article)
On June 27 Luther celebrated his wedding in a more public, yet modest style, by a nuptial feast, and invited his father and mother and his distant friends to “seal and ratify” the union, and to “pronounce the benediction.” He mentioned with special satisfaction that he had now fulfilled an old duty to his father, who wished him to marry. The University presented him with a rich silver goblet (now in possession of the University of Greifswald), bearing the inscription: “The honourable University of the electoral town of Wittenberg presents this wedding gift to Doctor Martin Luther and his wife Kethe von Bora.” The magistrate provided the pair with a barrel of Eimbeck beer, a small quantity of good wine, and twenty guilders in silver. What is very remarkable, Archbishop Albrecht sent to Katie through Ruehel a wedding gift of twenty guilders in gold; Luther declined it for himself, but let Katie have it.
Schaff, P., & Schaff, D. S. (1910). History of the Christian church (Vol. 7, pp. 458–459). Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Katharina bore six children: Hans (1526–1575), Elisabeth (1527–1528), Magdalena (1529–1542), Martin (1531–1565), Paul (1533–1593), and Margarete(1534–1570). She also suffered a miscarriage on 1 November 1539. The Luthers raised four orphaned children, including Katharina's nephew, Fabian. (from Wikipedia)
The Luthers lived and worked in the former Augustinian monastery in Lutherstadt Wittenberg, the management of which was largely taken over by Katharina von Bora. In addition to the administration, she ran livestock and a brewery and farmed the numerous estates. The teachings of Luther were followed here by numerous students and guests, whom Katharina catered for. (from Lutherstadt Wittenberg Tourist Information)
Luther often preached on the trials and duties of married life truthfully and effectively, from practical experience, and with pious gratitude for that holy state which God ordained in paradise, and which Christ honored by his first miracle. He calls matrimony a gift of God, wedlock the sweetest, chastest life, above all celibacy, or else a veritable hell.
(Schaff, P., & Schaff, D. S. (1910). History of the Christian church (Vol. 7, p. 460). Charles Scribner’s Sons.)
The Wikipedia article says that the marriage of von Bora to Luther is very important in the history of Protestantism, specifically in regard to the development of its views on marriage and gender roles. While Luther was not the first cleric to marry because of Reformation ideas, he was one of the most prominent. As he argued publicly for clerical marriage and produced much anti-Catholic propaganda, his marriage became a natural target for his enemies