Luther’s intercourse with his female guests at Wittenberg naturally gave rise to all sorts of tales among his friends, the more so as he was very free and easy in the company of women, and imposed too little restraint upon his conduct. When it was said, even outside Wittenberg circles, that he would marry, he replied, on November 30, 1524, that, according to his present ideas, this would not happen, “not as though I do not feel my flesh and my sex, for I am neither of wood nor of stone, but I have no inclination to matrimony.”[357] He was all the more zealous, however, in urging others, his friend Spalatin in particular, to this step. Spalatin once jokingly reproved him for this, saying he was surprised he did not set the example, being so anxious to induce others to marry. To this friendly poke Luther replied with a strange admixture of jest and earnest. He wrote to him, on April 16, 1525, that, notwithstanding the fact that he himself was far removed from thoughts of marriage, yet, after all, as God was wont to bring the unexpected to pass, it might well be that of the two he would be the first to wed. He also speaks of himself jestingly as a “famous lover.” It was doubtless surprising, he says, that he, such a famous lover, had not married, though, as he wrote so frequently about marriage and had so much to do with women (_misceor feminis_), it was still more astonishing that he had not long ago become a woman.[358] The letter, which has been much discussed in recent times, is not to be taken seriously; here it is that he speaks, with misplaced pleasantry, of the “three wives” whom he had already had on his arm. This letter calls, however, for some further observations. It is hard to believe that Luther, in an everyday letter to a friend, should have spoken in earnest of a previous connection of his with three women at once. Is it likely that he would accuse himself of such intercourse, and that in a letter to a man whose good opinion of himself and his work he was in every way careful to preserve? We are not here concerned with the question whether such jests were suitable, coming from a reformer of faith and morals, yet they certainly do not, as has been thought, contain anything of a nature to compromise him in his relations with the escaped nuns. That Luther is jesting is plain from the conclusion: “Joking apart, I say all this in order to urge you on to what you are striving after [viz. marriage]. Farewell.” Hence it is clear that what precedes was said as a joke. He chose to make the matter one of jest because he fancied that thus he could best answer Spalatin’s objection against his former invitation to him to marry. The latter had retorted: “Why am I expected to start? Set the example yourself by your own marriage!” Luther thereupon replied in the following terms: