What we would find most shocking about Martin and Katie’s marriage would be the circumstances surrounding the consummation. Any secrecy prior to the marriage did not extend to the marriage bed itself. Indeed, what the bride and groom would normally want to be a very private occasion was anything but. Justus Jonas, Martin Luther's close friend, described the scene the following day: “I was present yesterday and saw the couple on their marriage bed. As I watched this spectacle I could not hold back my tears.” And what about Katie? How did she feel about this invasion of privacy? Had she been some sort of sixteenth-century floozy it might have been different. I have long wondered whether Katie herself could hold back the tears during this “spectacle.” It would be enough to make any bride weep.
She wasn't a super-saint or submissive wife as some authors have tried to depict her. Nor was she beloved by her contemporaries. But her fascinating life begs us to get to know her better.
A Marriage Like None Other
Katharina Von Bora was the most significant individual in Martin Luther's life. I maintain that without her the "Lutheran" Reformation would have barely gotten off the ground. She was anything but a submissive wife, and Martin chided her for that. Was Katie in love? Wildly in love? A heart-pounding romance? For sure. But not with Martin Luther. Indeed, the young man was one of Luther's students. Words were whispered and a promise was made, that is until Jerome returned home to visit his well-heeled parents and told them he would be marrying an impoverished run-away nun. Her marriage to Martin at age 25 was no romance at all; he was a brutish man who, by his own account, had not changed his sweaty, smelly bedding for more than a year. She was determined to change him, and she did. His friends and colleagues thought her to be a domineering woman, but Martin adored her, and she him.