ABSTRACT
Hanne Marie Johansen This chapter examines marital breakdown in early modern Norway and the extent to which economic questions came into the issues of separation and divorce in early modern Norway. Protestant reformers rejected the Catholic doctrine of marital indissolubility. They looked upon divorce as the lesser of two evils, or as a means to correct an injustice. Luther, who was directly responsible for the implementation of divorce laws both in Germany and in the Nordic countries in the sixteenth century, thought that divorce should be given in accordance with the words of Christ in Matthew 5, 31-2.1 Luther accepted sexual deception or dysfunction as a reason for divorce, but rejected the notion of divorce by mutual consent or for temperamental or emotional incompatibility, or even on grounds of violence.2
