Wedding, Marriage, and Matrimony—Glimpses into Concepts and Images from a Church Historical Perspective since the Reformation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article is interesting but does not bring new insights. However as a contribution to a thematic issue, it is fitting.

Author Response

Thanks!

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is an intriguing article that could make a genuine contribution to the literature on marriage in early modern Lutheran/German context, but more work is needed. The opening section on church historical approach does not actually clarify the research method and how it would differ from other approaches. The structure of the paper seems a bit odd in that it goes from Luther/Reformation to Moravians and back to Luther/Von Bora (as remembered, of course). The inclusion of the Moravians is interesting, but it is not clear why they are singled out as a Lutheran subset, other than that it allows the author to discuss homosexuality and transgender aspects, but it must be made clear that the Moravians did not actually endorse same-sex marriage or same-gender sexual relations. The reason it was called the Sifting Time was that the events in Herrnhaag were condemned and repressed. Since the article focuses on marriage, it would have been much more fruitful to examine the Moravian view of marriage, of which there is much research, including a special issue of the Journal of Moravian History. The question of gender is intriguing, but needs much more development, including a clear discussion of what the author means by gender (masculinity, femininity, etc) and gender's relationship to sexuality. It might be good to read Katie Faull's edited volume Masculinity, Senses, Spirit, especially the two articles on the Moravians. Jesus was the husband with a womb, which was the organ of rebirth for Moravians more than sexual desire, although as Pfister pointed out a century ago sublimation is evident in Moravian devotion. Since this article does focus on Lutheran tradition, it would be helpful to dig into the Lutheran aspects of Zinzendorf's teaching on sexuality and his belief that lust can be removed from marriage. Paul Roeber's book on early modern constructions of marriage might provide more context, especially on other Pietist groups. The discussion of the image/imagery/imagination of Luther/vonBora's marriage is very interesting and helpful. 

Author Response

Thanks! I fully agree that the mention of the general image of marriage was missing and have now referred to this at the end of the section on the Moravians. I have also added the literature from the special issue mentioned and another article by Katherine Faull, which I had already used in a previous publication.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

This is an important article filled with fascinating information about the way Lutherans attempted to valorize marriage and sexuality, but it would benefit greatly from clearer organization and a review by a native English speaker to reduce the complexity of some of the sentences and clarify the arguments. While the bibliography is very good, there are some other sources that the author might want include.

 

Organization:

The author has selected 3 key discussions about marriage and sexuality in Protestant history (Luther and Melanchthon’s original defense of marriage; the bridal mysticism of the Moravians; and nineteenth-century Protestant views of marriage emphasizing its social importance in shoring up patriarchal society in opposition to feminist attacks), but it is not clear exactly why these particular selections have been made. It seems to this reviewer that all the author needs to do to make this clearer is to say something to the effect that these three instances show 1) the wide and incompatible variety of views on marriage among Lutherans and 2) the fact that marriage has always posed and still poses problems for Christians because the soul of every individual has historically been gendered female. As a result, the emphasis on the desirability of the soul’s union with Christ is extremely problematic in a religion that has historically rejected homosexuality as sinful and insisted on gender duality. I would think that the author would want to stress how strange, heterodox, even heretical Moravian ideas about sex would have been to more orthodox Lutherans in the past and especially today when homosexuality has become such an issue.

 

Language;

The sentence structure is unnecessarily complex in places, which makes the argument hard to follow. There are also concepts that need to be clarified and phrases that don’t translate well into English:

l. The first section 0 is unclear: what exactly is the difference between wedding, marriage, and matrimony? For the purposes of this essay is it important to distinguish between the three? If so, how and why? How can one speak for “the” Church history and represent it as a “discipline”? Isn’t the discipline history as  applied to a particular denomination? Why is dealing with marriage theologies an “art in itself”? Isn’t it exaggerated to stress the “agony” involved in the choice of sources? All historians face this problem, which is why they need to be specific about exactly why they have chosen the sources they have. How are these 3 sources of particular “interest for the concept of mediatization”? Is it that they so clearly reveal the tensions in Christianity because of the gendered nature of the soul and the way this conflicts with injunctions against homosexuality and for the support for patriarchy? Isn’t it also obvious that the author would be writing from a church historical perspective? How can one describe Protestantism as “a new denomination,” when there were so many different kinds of Protestantism and even different kinds of Lutheranism?

 

2. Specific phrases. I have only given some examples here, but the MS would benefit from a through review by an English speaker.

 

line 71-2 “The Reformation was “not only a religious event” or “not merely a religious event.” You can’t write both “not only” and “merely.” But what religious event is ever “merely” a religious event, whatever that means exactly?

line 81ff  This paragraph is important and needs to be rewritten. I think the point the author is making is that for Lutherans heterosexual marriage was a much more effective way of taming “the wild beast” of sexuality than celibacy, and it was also a more effective way of reinforcing patriarchy and “proper,” heteronormative sex.  

line 86 eliminate comma before “that” here and throughout the MS.

line 90 “owes not only to exegetical insights that derive marriage from a creation order already from Genesis. . . . ?

line 283 “I have already mentioned,” not “been mentioning”

line 318 please explain the meaning of “under the bonnet.”

line 373 “undertakes a national Luther heroization”?

line 379 “she is depicted in recent visual patterns”?

line 398 “to the couple Luther. . . .”?

line 417 why is a single sentence a paragraph?

 

Other Sources:

 

Karent-Nun, Susan, “Reformation Society, Women, and the Family,” in Andrew Pettegree, The Reformation World (2000)

Roper, Lyndal, Oedipus & the Devil (1994)

Stollberg, Michael “A Woman Down to Her Bones: The Anatomy of Sexual Difference in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries,” Isis 94 (2000); 274-99.

Wiesner-Hanks, Merry, Women and Gender in Early-Modern Europe (1993)

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Same as above

Author Response

Thank you very much!  I gratefully accepted and adopted the suggestion to justify the selection of sources, as it fits very well with my explanations. 

I added Stolberg and had my contribution proofread by a colleague who studied at Cambridge. Therefore, there were also language and phrasing changes.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors I approve of publishing the manuscript. The author corrected the major problems.