| Zürich (Reformed) | 1525 | 1525 | 1525 (M) | 1525 |
| Nürnberg (Evangelical) | 1524-1525 | 1525 | 1526 (M) | 1533 |
| Lindau (Reformed) | 1524-1525 | 1524 | 1540 (M) | 1566 |
| Bern (Reformed) | 1528 | 1525 | 1528 (M) | 1529 |
| Sankt Gallen (Reformed) | 1528 | 1526 | 1526 (M) | 1547 |
| Konstanz (Reformed) | 1524 | 1527 | 1531 (G) | 1531 |
| Strasbourg (Reformed) | 1524 | 1529 | 1529 (M) | 1529 |
| Ulm (Evangelical) | 1531 | 1529 | 1534 (M) | 1531 |
| Basel (Reformed) | 1529 | 1529 | 1529 (M) | 1530 |
| Memmingen (Reformed) | 1526 | 1528 | 1532 (C) | 1532/1569 |
| Augsburg (Evangelical) | 1524 | 1537 | 1537 (M/G) | 1537 |
| Geneva (Reformed) | 1536 | 1536 | 1541 (C) | 1561 |
| Speyer (Evangelical) | 1556 | 1556 | 1556 (G/C) | Late 1600s |
Territorial Jurisdictions:
| Württemberg (Evangelical) | 1524 | 1524 | 1525-1526 (M) | 1537; 1553 |
| East Prussia (Evangelical) | 1525 | 1525 | 1525 (M) | 1539 |
| Albertine Saxony (Evangelical) | 1539 | 1539 | 1525 (G/M) | 1545 |
| Hessen (Evangelical) | 1528 | 1528 | 1567 (C) | 1572 |
| Brandenburg (Evangelical) | 1539-1540 | 1539 | 1572-1573 (C) | 1540; 1573 |
| Palatinate (Reformed) | 1546 | 1556 | 1563 (M/G) | 1556; 1563 |
Source: Joel
Harrington, Reordering Marriage and Society
in Reformation Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1995),
138.
2. Protestant Divorce
Rates
The most radical transformation in marriage law produced by the
Protestant territories and city-states was the introduction of legal
divorce. As we know, the doctrine of marital indissolubility had
informed all canon law on the subject, so that the mere fact of
legalizing divorce on any grounds represented a major cultural shift.
Luther had argued that divorce should be permitted on three grounds,
namely impotence, adultery, and refusal "to fulfill conjugal duty or to
live with the other person" (i.e., desertion); Jean Calvin's admitted only
two, adultery and desertion; his successor, Theodore Beza, restricted
the list even further by eliminating involuntary desertion. Some
polities handled divorce more loosely. In Basel in 1533, for instance,
divorce became legal for reason of adultery, refusal to cohabit, abuse,
impotence, and conviction for a capital offense; in Strasbourg, Martin
Bucer believed that justification for divorce should include
witchcraft, sacrilege, a husband's sexual lewdness within his wife's
sight, and marital violence. In general, however, reformers strove to
keep the legal grounds for divorce as few as possible and resisted
making divorce, let alone remarriage, too accessible. Few authorities,
for example, followed Bucer's advice and considered physical violence
as legitimate reason for ending a marriage. Such hesitation should come
as no surprise, since all of them saw in marriage both a fulfillment of
"divine ordinance" and a necessary restraint on the evil effects of
human sexuality. It is also reflected the hesitance of Protestant
marriage courts to grant actual divorces. The following chart reveals
that despite the legalization of divorce, sixteenth-century Protestant
polities exhibited extremely low divorce rates. The first column
indicates the locality from which data on divorce rates survive; the
second gives the total number of divorces granted during the period for
which we possess the information; and the third column gives the annual
percentage per 1,000 population.
| Zürich (1523-1531) | 28 | 0.74 |
| Basel (1525-1592) | 374 | 0.57 |
| Augsburg (1537-1546) | 86 | 0.29 |
| Württemberg (1544-1547; 1567-1590) | 221 | 0.02 |
| Neuchâtel (1547-1706) | 93 | 0.02 |
| Zweibrücken (1557-1596) | 57 | 0.02 |
| Geneva (1559-1569) | 3 | 0.01 |
For comparison: the United States divorce rate, 1950-2000
| 1950 | 2.6 |
| 1960 | 2.2 |
| 1970 | 3.5 |
| 1980 | 5.2 |
| 1990 | 4.7 |
| 2000 | 4.4 |
Source: Joel Harrington, Reordering Marriage and Society in Reformation Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 270.