August 18, 1525.
To the Honorable, Wise and Worthy Mayor, Councillor, and Mr. Michael, Preacher at Domich, my favorable gentlemen and friends.
Grace and peace in Christ. Honorable, wise, worthy, dear sirs. Regarding your writing about your preacher's marital status, this is my recent good opinion: Because his wife is so dishonorable toward him, I cannot stretch his right any further or narrower than God Himself has stretched it, who through St. Paul, 1 Cor. 7, 15, makes such a judgment in such matters: "If the unbeliever divorces, let him depart.
den; it is not bound the brother or sister in such cases."
So I also say: whoever does not want to stay, let him always go, the other part is therefore not bound to stay without marriage; as I have written further in the booklet about the same chapter, which you may read. If he now cannot be without a wife, then he frees another in the name of God, because she does not want to. Hereby commanded by God. At Wittenberg, Friday after Assumptionis Mariae (Assumption of the Virgin Mary), An. 1525.
Martinus Luther.