Luther urges early marriage in the words of an old proverb: “To rise early and to marry young will cause regret to no one.” “It will fare with you,” he says to the same addressee, “as with the nuns to whom they gave carved Jesuses. They cast about for others, who at least were living and pleased them better, and sought how best to escape from their convent.”[489]--“What greater service can one do a girl than to get her a baby? This rids her of many fancies.”[490] Here, and elsewhere too, he is anxious that people should marry, even though there should not be enough to live upon; God would not allow the couple to starve if they did their duty.[491]--“A young fellow should be simply given a wife, otherwise he has no peace. Then the troubles of matrimony will soon tame him.”[492] On another occasion (1540) Luther expresses himself with greater caution about too early matches: “It is not good for young people to marry too soon. They are ruined in their prime, exhaust their strength and neglect their studies.” “But the young men are consumed with passion,” one of those present objected, “and the theologians work upon their conscience and tell them that ‘To marry young will cause regret to no one.’” Luther’s reply was: “The young men are unwilling to resist any temptations.... They should console themselves with the hope of future marriage. We used to be forbidden to marry in almost all the Faculties, hence the youths indulged in all kinds of excesses, knowing that, later on, they would no longer be able to do so. Thus they sunk into every kind of disorder. But now everybody is allowed to marry, even the theologian and the bishop. Hence, in their own interests, they ought to learn to wait.”[493] At other times he was inclined to promote hasty marriages from motives of policy, and, without a thought of the dignity of the conjugal union and the respect due to woman, to use it as a means to increase the number of his followers. This happened in the case of many of his converts from the ranks of the clergy and religious.[494]