quotations about marriage
The next step was the use of huts and skins and fire,
And women became the property of one man.
So the chaste pleasures of a private Venus
Were first invented and couples had their own children.
It was then that the human race began to soften.
LUCRETIUS
De Rerum Natura
Our expectations for what we want the marriage to provide us have gotten higher in a lot of ways, more sophisticated in a number of other ways, more emotional, more psychological, and because of this additional complexity, more of our marriages are falling short, leaving us disappointed.
ELI FINKEL
"A relationship psychologist explains why marriage seems harder now than ever before", Business Insider, November 14, 2017
A marriage bound together by commitments to exploit the other for filling one's own needs (and I fear that most marriages are built on such a basis) can legitimately be described as a "tic on a dog" relationship. Just as a hungry tic clamps on to a nourishing host in anticipation of a meal, so each partner unites with the other in the expectation of finding what his or her personal nature demands. The rather frustrating dilemma, of course, is that in such a marriage there are two tics and no dog!
LARRY CRABB
The Marriage Builder
Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Maxims for Revolutionists
The key to a successful marriage is picking up your husband's socks.
PIERS MORGAN
Good Morning Britain, November 29, 2017
I've been married eleven times. It would have been twelve, but one of my ex-wives tracked down all the others.
FERN MICHAELS
The Marriage Game
People who have found everything disappointing are surprised and pained when marriage proves no exception. Most of the complaints about ... matrimony arise not because it is worse than the rest of life, but because it is not incomparably better.
JOHN LEVY
attributed, Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts
A true Christian marriage proposal is an offer, not a request. Rather than saying in effect, "Will you do this for me?" when we invite another to enter the marriage relationship, the real question should be, "Will you accept what I want to give?"
GARY THOMAS
Sacred Marriage
Marriage that daily doom.
JOHN UPDIKE
Rabbit is Rich
If sex is supposed to be satisfying and anxiety-free once we are safely ensconced in marriage, how come that's when many of us stop wanting it?
DAVID MORRIS SCHNARCH
Passionate Marriage
A man in love is incomplete until he has married--then he's finished.
ZSA ZSA GABOR
Newsweek, March 28, 1960
Marriage, rightly concluded, is an incarnation of love--poetry expressed in action--a sweet embellishment of an otherwise prosaic existence.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Possibilities for the success of a marriage are endless. But you have to be willing to search for them.
JASON R. REDMOND
Are You Talking?
A man and a woman who, in their young days, agree to have done with sentimental life thereby renounce the search for adventure, the intoxication of new encounters, and the amazing refreshment produced by falling in love again. Their most vital source of energy is cut off; they are doomed to premature insensibility. Their life, scarcely begun, is finished. Nothing can break the monotony of an existence made up of burdens and duties. No further hope, no surprises, no conquests. Their one love will soon be tainted by the cares of housekeeping and the children's education. They will reach old age without ever having known the joys of youth. Marriage destroys romantic love which alone could justify it.
ANDRÉ MAUROIS
An Art of Living
I think people really marry far too much; it is such a lottery after all.
QUEEN VICTORIA
letter to her daughter, May 3, 1858
Marriage is punishment for shoplifting in some countries.
GARTH ALGAR (DANA CARVEY)
Wayne's World
Marriage is like life in this -- that it is a field of battle, and not a bed of roses.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
Virginibus Puerisque
Our natural tendency in the middle of winter is to avoid the elements as much as possible. When the weather turns frigid, we retreat inside for survival and wait for it to warm up or for the season to change. In a winter marriage, there may be a similar tendency to "avoid the elements." Spouses may withdraw within themselves, hunkering down and trying to ride out the cold season, hoping for spring but not taking any positive steps to move their marriage toward spring. However, unlike the natural seasons, the seasons of a marriage do not typically change without some positive action--unless it's a change from bad to worse.
GARY D. CHAPMAN
The Four Seasons of Marriage
She is always married too soon, who gets a bad husband, and she is never married too late, who gets a good one.
DANIEL DEFOE
Moll Flanders
Marriage, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary