Martin Luther — "It is not a matter of choice for a woman to be a virgin or not; it is a matter o…"
It is not a matter of choice for a woman to be a virgin or not; it is a matter of her destiny.
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More from Martin Luther
"The hair is the finest ornament a woman has. If she be a virgin, let her wear it loose; if married, let her wear it up."
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About Martin Luther (1483-1546)
German theologian whose 95 Theses (1517) launched the Protestant Reformation and broke the Catholic Church's monopoly on Western Christianity. Closely associated with Philipp Melanchthon (Lutheran systematizer) and John Calvin (later Reformer who built on Luther's break). For an intellectual contrast, see Pope Leo X, Renaissance pope (1513-1521) — Leo X's indulgence sales triggered Luther's break and Leo excommunicated him in 1521 — Luther's entire Reformation is structured as a direct answer to the indulgence-funded Vatican Leo represented.
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Luther argues that whether a woman remains a virgin or becomes a wife and mother is not something she freely picks like a hobby. It is shaped by her circumstances, her body, and what life hands her. In modern terms, he is saying that sexuality and family roles are determined more by fate and biology than by personal preference, so pretending it is a clean individual choice misses the reality.
Relevance to Martin Luther
Luther built his reformation partly by attacking mandatory clerical celibacy and monastic vows. He married former nun Katharina von Bora in 1525, fathered six children, and preached that marriage and childbearing were the God-ordained path for most women. This quote fits his view that nuns in convents were fighting nature, and that God had designed women primarily for wifehood and motherhood rather than vowed virginity.
The era
In early modern Europe, the Catholic Church prized lifelong virginity and staffed convents with thousands of women, many placed there by families rather than by calling. Luther's Reformation in the 1520s shut monasteries across German lands and released nuns into marriage. Debate over whether virginity was a higher spiritual state or an unnatural denial of God's design for procreation was central, with Protestants pushing marriage as the normal Christian vocation.
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