Even Luther, the renowned reformer who left his monastery to marry, inherited Augustine's bleak view of sex. "No matter what praise is given to marriage," he wrote, "I will not concede that it is no sin." Matrimony was a "hospital for sick people." It merely covered the shameful act with a veneer of respectability, so that "God winks at it." Martin Luther could not see any benefit from a woman but bringing into the world as many children as possible regardless of any side effects: If they become tired or even die, that does not matter. Let them die in childbirth, that's why they are there. Although Luther, like Augustine, seems to have believed that God made sex for reproduction, he made this curious quote:
The reproduction of mankind is a great marvel and mystery. Had God consulted me in the matter, I should have advised him to continue the generation of the species by fashioning them out of clay.
