Body and Gender in Martin Luther's Anthropology (1520-1530)

Cover Title Acknowledgements Table of Contents Abbreviations Chapter I Introduction 1. The aim and context of the study 2. Gender, gender system, and power 3. Sources Sermons and treatises Correspondence 4. A note on translations Chapter II Life in the flesh – a premise for all human beings 1. Diversity of Luther’s body-talk The position of body in the composition of the human being The flesh – abstract and actual The body and flesh as contextual concepts 2. Luther’s body politics: bodily needs and the ideal of social control Sexuality: bodily function and evil lust Failure in inner control – need for outer control Human body misused: fornication and secret sins Killing the body: adultery Chapter III Female body and femininity 1. Lived bodiliness: created for subordination Merely the rib? Woman as the subordinate Other Eve and her daughters Woman’s value as God’s creation 2. Mission larger than life: motherhood The norm of laboring woman Female fertility: the link between body and proper way of being Breaking the female ideal: woman’s claim of power over her own body 3. Luther in favor of elite women and female activists “Act [...] and hold your friends to it as well” Luther defending Florentina von Oberweimar Examples of God’s special grace: Argula von Grumbach and Katharina Schütz Zell Chapter IV Male body and masculinity 1. Man as the paragon of the human race Normativity of man and male body: Adam and his sons Like body, like male – unavoidable sexual drive Hausvater as the embodiment of the proper way of being 2. Unstable male bodies: redefining ideals through depictions of male sexuality Examples of Luther and Bernard of Clairvaux Fragility of masculinity: castrates and impotents Chapter V Bodiliness and the reconstruction of gender in Luther’s marriage 1. Manhood in transition: the beginning of the Luther marriage 2. From otherness to dominance: Katharina von Bora 3. Luther the father, von Bora the bearer Chapter VI Because of or despite the gendered body? Rules and exceptions among Luther’s contemporaries 1. Little wife and counseling husband: Elisabeth and Johann Agricola 2. “The Scripture becomes fulfilled in our body”: Katharina and Justus Jonas Strong woman and weak man Male mourning: Justus Jonas versus Luther and Melanchthon 3. Gender system endangered: Ursula and Stephan Roth Woman – embodiment of the flesh Henpecked husband Chapter VII The gender system rooted in and beyond the body Bibliography Primary sources Secondary literature Index of Luther’s Texts Index of Biblical Passages Index of Names Index of Places Index of Subjects