The year polygamy became Law in Germany
Much has been said about the author of *The Handmaid’s Tale*’s statement that her story is not based on anything that hasn’t already happened. It is the result of a combination of events that took place in different places and at different times. But one of the most incredible events is the story I’m about to tell you.
For 16 months, polygamy was mandatory in the city of Münster, Germany, and anyone who refused to obey this law was tortured and killed. This story took place in 1534, and it helps us understand how the effects of a severe climate crisis can shape the consciousness and customs of a conservative society and cause behaviors previously considered absurd and depraved to be adopted by the majority as the solution for regaining balance in a “new normal.”
At that time, the Northern Hemisphere was experiencing what is now known as the Little Ice Age, which lasted from the year 1300 to 1850; in 1534, Europe was enduring one of its most severe cold spells, coinciding with the rapid advance of glaciers in the Alps. The extreme cold and incessant rains caused the roots of crops to rot and prevented the grains from ripening. Entire harvests were lost, and as a result, Europe plunged into a long period of famine, wars, religious intolerance, and plagues. People believed that all these misfortunes were a sign that the end of the world was near.
The village of Münster was in the throes of a profound social, economic, and religious crisis. The town was ruled by a prince-bishop and an elite class of traditionalist patricians, who exploited the people by imposing exorbitant taxes in order to maintain their luxurious standard of living even in times of scarcity. Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation had broken the Catholic Church’s monopoly and plunged the people into a religious crisis: which was the true faith to embrace? The peasants lived under a regime of servitude and hunger, and were dying like flies, victims of the bubonic plague.
In February 1534, two Anabaptist leaders from the Netherlands landed at the port of Münster. One was originally a baker, and the other a tailor’s apprentice, but both had become charismatic leaders due to their oratory skills. They were Jan Matthys and Jan van Leiden.
Jan de Matthys became a prophet amid the chaos, promising to transform Münster into a divine kingdom—which he named “New Jerusalem”—where there would be no private property, taxes, or poverty. He expelled from the city the Catholics and Lutherans who refused to join his sect and encouraged the arrival of radical Anabaptist immigrants from all over Europe. Most of those who managed to infiltrate the besieged city were single women, widows, and mothers fleeing poverty and religious persecution. Meanwhile, the city’s men were dying in daily battles with the Prince-Bishop’s army. The result was a city where women made up the overwhelming majority of the population: for every man, there were three women.
This gender imbalance served as an argument for Jan Matthys to propose polygamy as an absolute divine duty. Leaving women of childbearing age unmarried was seen as a grave sin against God’s will. Monogamous restrictions came to be viewed as Roman corruptions that needed to be destroyed. The Apocalypse was imminent, and the Earth would need to be repopulated, with polygamy serving as the theological mechanism to accelerate this process.
Regime officials began going door to door, registering unmarried virgins, widows, and abandoned wives. They were then assigned to men based on requests made by the men, which were approved by spiritual leaders. Women’s traditional civil rights were suppressed. They were denied the right to refuse marriage, legal protection against male adultery, the right to own property and inherit, the right to manage urban businesses, the right to custody and family structure, and the right to religious dissent.
Women and men who refused to adopt polygamy were tortured and executed. This measure was also adopted to silence gossip against the regime, complaints about the growing famine resulting from the state of siege under which they lived, and comments about the privileged economic circumstances enjoyed by Jan van Leiden and his 16 wives.
Finally, in 1535, after a long and severe siege, the city was liberated; the troops executed nearly all of the remaining inhabitants, and the Anabaptist leaders were captured, their tongues torn out with iron tongs and a red-hot dagger thrust into their hearts. Their bodies were left on display in iron cages suspended from the bell tower of the Church of St. Lamberto until they rotted away. Fifty years later, their bones were finally removed, but the cages remain in place to this day so that no one will forget this story.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
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