This book on the rise and fall of the Pietist ideal of marriage as friendship is a welcome arrival, for the subject has been neglected for far too long. In their edited work, “Der Herr wird seine Herrlichkeit an uns offenbahren.” Liebe, Ehe und Sexualität im Pietismus (2011), Wolfgang Breul and Christian Soboth observed that, apart from Fritz Tanner's 1952 dissertation and minor individual studies, neither marriage, nor love and sexuality within marriage, nor the family has received any significant attention from scholars of German Pietism up to this point.

This book is a difficult one to review. On the one hand, it deals with a fascinating subject and is filled with a wealth of information and some interesting anecdotes. The book's chapters consider the roots of the medieval Western marriage tradition in Latin patristic teaching, as well as Germanic tribal and kinship customs; marriage and early Lutheran piety; Philipp Melanchthon and later Lutheran thinking about marriage; debates about marriage inspired by Christian Thomasius; Pietism and polygamy in South India; sexuality and marriage among the Moravians; F. C. Oetinger's 1777 essay on marriage; as well as the view of marriage held by Halle's descendants in North America. We learn that, in Pennsylvania, Henry Melchior Mühlenberg “was besieged by people with matrimonial quarrels and troubles” (209). He refers to a German husband in New York who disciplined his wife by hitting her with a copy of the Augsburg Confession. On the other hand, Roeber fails to present a clear and convincing case that “holy marriage” was a serious option among the Pietists. Rather than offering a tight, cogent argument, the book offers a scattergun approach that is disappointing and unconvincing.

The book sets out to address a seemingly straightforward question: what happened to the shared vision of Martin Luther and Philip Jacob Spener of a relationship of partnership between husband and wife, a hopeful vision of spouses as friends as they pursued holiness together? The book's premise, not convincingly demonstrated, is that an unofficial theology of companionate marriage was one that “Luther articulated, Spener revived, and many ordinary believers found compelling.” Over time, Luther's and Spener's hopes for spouses succumbed to pragmatic concerns for property succession. Spousal relationships came to be dictated by economic and social standing in Europe, India, and North America. Conflicts over marriage were fought out “on European, South Indian, and North American ground” (xxi).

Roeber offers some interesting and insightful observations along the way. He shows that in German mysticism, Luther discovered images of the bride and bridegroom that stimulated his thinking on marriage. Melanchthon remained silent about “the graced quality of married life” (39) because he so sharply distinguished grace from nature. Later Lutheran treatises and guidebooks generally “left undeveloped the mystical roots that nourished Luther, who affirmed the presence of God in the creation” (47). Christian Thomasius antagonized the Pietists when he defended concubinage and saw marriage as an expression of natural law, which he understood as the command to do “all those actions that promote sociability” (71-72). In South India, the Pietist demand for simplicity in the marriage rite was not accepted by the Tamils without resistance. Tamil marriage practice included the fixing of the bride price; the groom tying the tali, an amulet, around the neck of the bride; the groom's mother blessing the couple; and ceremonial cooking of rice. Zinzendorf claimed that the Moravians realized the full implications of Luther's idealization of marriage. Moravians viewed intercourse as the sacramental sign of mystical, spiritual marriage with God. Halle Pietists were disturbed by Moravian teachings and practices, and taught that, even in marriage, sexuality was tainted by lust. In central Europe in the late eighteenth century, “social conditions allowed a companionate and celebratory vision of the estate . . . only among the propertied [class]” (244).

The author has read widely in German and English scholarship on the Pietist movement, but certain studies that are central to the subject are ignored, including the edited work by Breul and Soboth. The recent doctoral thesis of Denise Kettering on Spener's view of marriage is not cited, and there is no reference to Inge Mager's work on Melanchthon's family life and his view of marriage as a constant, never-ending “school of life.” Cornelia Niekus Moore is cited on Spener and marriage, but her insistence that Spener's view of marriage was entirely traditional goes against Roeber's argument.

More important, Roeber offers no convincing evidence that the notion of “companionate marriage” was held by Spener or Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg, or was ever a serious option among the Pietists. The discussion in chapter two is preoccupied with providing reasons that Spener and church Pietists failed to define marriage publicly in terms of a relationship designed for mutual friendship, support, and holiness, but the reasons are unconvincing. For example, after the scandal that surrounded Eva von Buttlar in 1700, “Pietist authors had to be careful in writing or preaching about spousal relations in marriage”; “Spener might have initially been silent about marriage as an instrument of renewal because he wanted to avoid bringing direct attention to conventicles” (50, 52, 55). Or: “Spener's difficulties with Gottfried Arnold complicated his endorsement of a more companionate vision of the spousal relationship in marriage” (57-58). Spener comes across as paranoid, convinced that if he expressed his true convictions about marriage, he might have gotten into trouble.

Likewise, Roeber's portrayal of Ziegenbalg's views on marriage offers little evidence that friendship constituted the missionary's marriage ideal: “His practical arguments for needing a wife suggest that he regarded a spouse as a helper, of course, but perhaps also as a true friend. Since his married life was so short, his views remain difficult to recover” (129). Yet, the author later speaks confidently of “Ziegenbalg's own companionate view of marriage” (249). In the case of the Georgia missionary Johann Boltzius, Roeber argues that gradually “an unofficial endorsement of marriage as friendship emerges from his experiences” (192). But no evidence is provided that this ever happened. Finally, the author's reference to conflicts over marriage being fought out “on European, South Indian, and North American ground” is a claim again not supported by evidence.

A leitmotif in the work is Roeber's lament that so many Pietists failed to speak of marriage in terms of friendship and mutual striving for holiness, as he thinks they should have spoken of it. In the end, it is disappointing that the book provides little or no empirical foundation for its thesis on the rise and fall of the companionate marriage ideal in German Pietism.