“Vom Ehebruch und weglauffen”

In 1539, Johann Bugenhagen wrote a book, Vom Ehebruch und weglauffen (“On adultery and desertion”), to advice King Christian III on the handling of marital cases. Based on Scripture, divorce is allowable only if a spouse commits adultery or runs away secretly. The article compares Bugenhagen’s two grounds for divorce with those found in Niels Hemmingsen’s Libellus de coniugio, repudio, et divortio from 1572 and in the Marriage Ordinance of King Frederik II of 1582. It is argued that Hemmingsen in allowing six grounds for divorce, including e.g. violence and impiety, follows Philipp Melanchthon, who not only accepted the two scriptural grounds, but also a number of additional grounds from Roman Law and Canon Law. With its three grounds for divorce – adultery, desertion, and impotence – the Marriage Ordinance of 1582 reflected legal practice developed in the law courts that had been handling marital cases since the introduction of the Reformation.