quotations about marriage
"Happy marriage" is a contradiction in terms.
DOUGLAS CARLTON ABRAMS
The Lost Diary of Don Juan
But the child, how is it to be protected, if not for marriage? After all, is not that the most important consideration? The sham, the hypocrisy of it! Marriage protecting the child, yet thousands of children destitute and homeless. Marriage protecting the child, yet orphan asylums and reformatories overcrowded, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children keeping busy in rescuing the little victims from "loving" parents, to place them under more loving care, the Gerry Society. Oh, the mockery of it! Marriage may have the power to bring the horse to water, but has it ever made him drink? The law will place the father under arrest, and put him in convict's clothes; but has that ever stilled the hunger of the child? If the parent has no work, or if he hides his identity, what does marriage do then? It invokes the law to bring the man to "justice," to put him safely behind closed doors; his labor, however, goes not to the child, but to the State. The child receives but a blighted memory of his father's stripes.
EMMA GOLDMAN
"Marriage and Love", Anarchism and Other Essays
Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Maxims for Revolutionists
It will perhaps appear extraordinary that in speaking of marriage we have touched upon so many subjects; but marriage is not only the whole of human life, it is the whole of two human lives. Now just as the addition of a figure to the drawing of a lottery multiplies the chances a hundredfold, so one single life united to another life multiplies by a startling progression the risks of human life, which are in any case so manifold.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
No man of common sense will value a woman the less, for not giving herself up at the first attack, or for not accepting his proposal without enquiring into his person or character; on the contrary, he must think her the weakest of all creatures in the world, as the rate of men now goes; in short, he must have a very contemptible opinion of her capacities, nay, even of her understanding, that having but one cast for her life, shall cast that life away at once, and make matrimony like death, be a leap in the dark.
DANIEL DEFOE
Moll Flanders
God has given the human reality of marriage the nature it has because he wills to integrate it into his divine plan and to make it a means of holiness, of sanctification.
WILLIAM E. MAY
Marriage: The Rock on Which the Family Is Built
'Tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion.
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
The Rivals
One of the best wedding gifts God gave you was a full-length mirror called your spouse. Had there been a card attached, it would have said, "Here's to helping you discover what you're really like!"
GARY & BETSY RICUCCI
attributed, Sacred Marriage
Marriage is the only war where one sleeps with the enemy.
MEXICAN PROVERB
[Marriage] is the merciless revealer, the great white searchlight turned on the darkest places of human nature.
KATHERINE ANNE PORTER
The Days Before
Marriage is often like Procrustes' famous code of hospitality. Procrustes built a bed for his guests the same way we build a marriage: according to his own expectations. Shorter visitors were stretched to fit; taller folks were surgically shortened. Likewise, your spouse will try to change you into what he or she thinks you should be, just as you have fine-tuning in mind for your partner.... Marriage is the procrustean bed in which we can develop and enhance our psychological and ethical integrity. It can be the cradle of adult development.
DAVID MORRIS SCHNARCH
Passionate Marriage
The key to a successful marriage is picking up your husband's socks.
PIERS MORGAN
Good Morning Britain, November 29, 2017
Marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice. Rape, originally defined as abduction, became marriage by capture. Marriage meant the taking was to extend in time, to be not only use of but possession of, or ownership.
ANDREA DWORKIN
Pornography
Maybe marriages were made in heaven, but we believe in giving the old-fashioned porch-swing some credit.
ROBERT ELLIOTT GONZALES
Poems and Paragraphs
Love and fairytales are nice, but marriage is technically a contract, and it's worth reading the fine-print before signing your name.
MAUREEN SHAW
"The Sexist and Racist History of Marriage That No One Talks About", Teen Vogue, November 28, 2017
I don't know why some people get worked up about gay people marrying. It's not gay people who are "ruining the sanctity of marriage," it's celebrities.
CRAIG FERGUSON
The Late Show with Craig Ferguson, November 1, 2011
According to a new survey, people who get divorced die early. People who stay married live longer. The difference is they just wish they were dead.
DAVID LETTERMAN
Late Show with David Letterman, January 11, 2012
Marriage may sometimes be compared to a lottery, in which it is better not to have purchased a ticket than to have drawn a blank.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
Well-married, a man is winged--ill-matched, he is shackled.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster that devours everything: familiarity.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
attributed, And I Quote