Expected Roles. For the majority of people in Renaissance and Reformation Europe, sexual desires and relations did not lead to charges of fornication, infanticide, or homosexuality, but were simply one part of the institution that shaped their lives to a great degree—marriage. Opinions about marriage in this period were varied, but generally became more positive than they had been in the Middle Ages. During the fifteenth century some writers began to argue that God had set up marriage and families as the best way to provide spiritual and moral discipline, and, after the Reformation, Protestants championed marriage with even greater vigor. They wrote many tracts trying to convince men and women to marry or advising spouses (particularly husbands) how best to run their households and families. Johannes Mathesius, for example, a Lutheran pastor, wrote: "A man without a wife...