About love. A mathematician's choice of wife.

If a man's true lovers are Venus and the Moon, it is not easy for earthly women to compete with them.

This is the story of how Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) - the greatest German scientist, forerunner of modern science: astrologer, astronomer, astrophysicist, mathematician chose his second wife out of 11 applicants.

Copy from an unsaved original 1610 in the Benedictine monastery in Kremsmünster, Austria

At first, he thought that, since he was already old, he should take a widow as a wife, perhaps one of the friends of Barbara Müller, his first wife. However, the widow he found had "bad breath", which "could be a symptom of internal illness". Then Kepler decided to pay attention to younger girls and even considered whether he would not marry the daughter of one of the applicants. But she seemed too rich and too young. The third applicant accepted the proposal, but the groom soon changed his mind. The fourth was tall, well-built, with a rich dowry, but there was a fifth bride, Susanna, modest, thrifty and hardworking. Kepler seemed to prefer her, but then decided to return to the fourth bride. However, the latter grew tired of his indecision, and the scientist was rejected.

Then he again turned his eyes to Suzanne, but the scientist's stepdaughter Regina believed that the stepfather should strive for greater nobility and wealth, and he began to look for such a wife. However, the sixth contender seemed too ambitious, and Kepler was afraid of the high costs of the wedding. The seventh and eighth were beautiful and noble. Kepler, who could not make up his mind, offered the eighth candidate his hand and heart seven times. He found the ninth bride painful. The tenth came from a respectable and wealthy family, but was not handsome, "low in stature and fat".

Eleventh all liked Kepler, but was too young. In the end, the scientist returned to the fifth candidate, Susanna. "Having exhausted all the advice of friends, I returned to the fifth candidate at the last moment before leaving for Regensburg, gave her my word, and she gave me hers." In the end, Kepler, to the great displeasure of his friends and stepdaughter Regina, tied his life to Susanna, a poor girl of no noble lineage.

This choice of bride, a cold and impartial analysis of the qualities of eleven candidates, Kepler detailed in his rather frivolous letter, addressed to an unknown nobleman. The scientist was not sure of his choice and therefore hesitated, listened to friends and advisers, but in the end still did his own way.

Researchers know little about the women the scientist met in his life. Apparently, he did not attach much importance to love or simply sought to protect his privacy. In the horoscope, which the astronomer made for himself at the age of 20, it is written:

"1591. Cold weather brought a new outbreak of scabies. When Venus was in the seventh house, I made peace with Ortholphus; when she returned, I introduced them to each other. When she returned for the third time, we quarreled again because I was suffering from a love wound. The beginning of love: April 26."

There is also an entry in the horoscope about the year 1592, when Johannes was 21: "I was proposed to meet a girl. The meeting took place on New Year's Eve. I could hardly stand it, as I was tormented by sharp pains in my gall bladder." More about the youthful hobbies of the great scientist nothing is known.

Johannes Kepler and Barbara Müller, his first wife. After her death in 1611, the astronomer married Susanna Rüttinger in 1613.

It cannot be said that he was delighted with his first marriage to Barbara Müller in 1597. However, it is not known whether the surname of Kepler's first wife was Müller or Mülek. Her father, the owner of the mill in Mulek, was very rich, and the bride herself, although she was only 23 years old, has already been widowed twice. The future father-in-law was not comfortable with the idea of marrying his daughter to a man, as he said, so modest origin, by which the miller meant that Kepler did not have a penny. However, the scientist's friends, who acted as intermediaries, managed to convince Barbara's father.

At that moment Kepler himself was in Stuttgart, working on a model of a bowl with a celestial vault and the intersecting orbits of the planets. His friends asked him to come immediately, for the date of the wedding had already been set. However, the scientist returned to Graz only three months later, when the bride had already despaired of seeing him and changed her mind about getting married. Friends of the astronomer managed to soften Barbara and her father, and eventually the 26-year-old Kepler married. In short, the cup interested the scientist far more than his own wedding.

Johannes Kepler. Mysterium Cosmographicum. 1597

"She was stupid and unfriendly, had a character inclined to loneliness and melancholy," - so wrote Johannes Kepler about his first wife Barbara.

However, a rich dowry played its role. The scientist did not despise money, necessary at least to engage in scientific activity. Barbara's father, for his part, had never been particularly generous to either his daughter or her dreamer husband. "She is unjustly prevented from disposing of her property, and can only rely on the services of a poor maid," Kepler told Hans Georg Herwarth von Hohenburg, with whom he maintained a long correspondence.

Barbara was beautiful, "shallow mind and dense physique," but virtuous, honest and modest. As Kepler himself said, his "marriage was more quiet than happy, although not devoid of love and soulfulness. Knowing the extreme straightforwardness of the scientist, we can assume that he was generally satisfied with family life, which brought a certain harmony and did not interfere with scientific pursuits, although it is not called happy. Apparently, peace in the Kepler family was short-lived, because the astronomer sometimes described his family life as hell. In short, the Keplers had many problems, and they were caused by incompatibility of characters, lack of money, illnesses of both spouses, the death of their first children and religious persecution, which the family had to endure.

Barbara's horoscope informed the scholar of a "sad and unhappy fate."

Before the wedding, he wrote to Möstlin: "I will have to spend a large sum of money, as it is the custom here to celebrate lavish weddings. And, if God gives me a few more years of life, I will be forever attached to this place (...) because my wife has property and friends here, and her well-to-do father lives here. It seems that in a few years I will no longer need a salary either".

The letter doesn't sound much like a lover's letter. To Barbara's credit, she was pleasant to talk to and acted like a loving woman, even though she and her husband did not understand each other. Barbara had absolutely no interest in astronomy, she had no idea what her husband did, and she did not understand his desire to spend all his time on books and scientific works. She herself read only a prayer book and often broke the seclusion of the scientist, calling him to do household chores. Over time, Kepler stopped arguing, learned to be silent and patient.

The couple was very much looking forward to their first child, as the horoscope predicted numerous successes in his life. But the infant passed away at the age of two months. The Keplers' daughter, as well as the eldest son, died of meningitis. Only two children survived, who, along with Barbara's daughter from a previous marriage, Regina, were the first Kepler family. Barbara began to lose her memory and died at the age of 37 in 1611. Another of their sons also died the same year.

What little we know about Barbara comes from Kepler's writings. But about his second wife, Susanne Rüttinger (1595-1635), nothing is known at all: Kepler does not mention her, which can be interpreted as a lack of interest or, on the contrary, as a sign of harmony in family relations. Susanna was an orphan. At the time of her marriage, in 1613, she was 24 years old. The astronomer does not speak of her modesty or other virtues, but she was Kepler's choice among 11 candidates for wife.

Portrait of Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), xylograph. Österreichische Nationalbibliothek

Kepler had seven children by his marriage to Susanne. It is not known for certain whether the scientist was a good husband, but some of his actions speak for themselves. When Kepler traveled to Ulm in search of a publisher for Rudolf's Tables, he left Susanne and the children in Regensburg and did not return until 10 months later. Almost immediately he went to Prague, where he stayed for another five months. And then he went to Linz. Susanne can only sympathize.

Finally, the family settled in Sagan and no longer had money problems. It was at this point that the scientist, apparently in a state of inadequacy, suddenly left in an almost unknown direction, taking his books and a considerable sum of money with him. Some time later he died suddenly in Regensburg.

His widow moved to Frankfurt, where she lived out her days in poverty without receiving all the money owed to her husband.

Thanks for reading!

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