quotations about marriage
I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict Scripture.
MARTIN LUTHER
letter to Chancellor Gregory Brück, January 13, 1524
Five times? Wedding bells must sound like an alarm clock to you.
MAE WEST
I'm No Angel
The present relationship existing between husband and wife, where one claims a command over the actions of the other, is nothing more than a remnant of the old leaven of slavery. It is necessarily destructive of refined love; for how can a man continue to regard as his type of the ideal a being whom he has, be denying an equality of privilege with himself, degraded to something below himself?
HERBERT SPENCER
An Autobiography
No marriage is "too dead" for the Lord to restore.
CHARLES R. SWINDOLL
Marriage: From Surviving to Thriving
Not everyone believes that marriage transforms miserable and immature single people into paragons of maturity and bliss.
BELLA DEPAULO
Singled Out
Marriage and its entourage of possession and jealousy enslave the spirit.
IRVIN D. YALOM
When Nietzsche Wept
The most difficult years of marriage are those following the wedding.
GARY SMALLEY
attributed, Worth Repeating
The longer a marriage is put off, the less probability that it will occur at all.
EDGAR WATSON HOWE
Country Town Sayings
Every marriage tends to consist of an aristocrat and a peasant. Of a teacher and a learner.
JOHN UPDIKE
Couples
In the New Testament a totally new concept of marriage is being introduced; it is directly dependent upon the "Good News" of the Resurrection which was brought to Christ. A Christian is called--already in this world--to experience new life, to become a citizen of the Kingdom; and he can do so in marriage. But then marriage ceases to be either a simple satisfaction of temporary natural urges, or a means for securing an illusory survival through posterity. It is a unique union of two beings in love, two beings who can transcend their own humanity and thus be united not only "with each other," but also "in Christ."
JOHN MEYENDORFF
Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective
Happiness in marriage results in perfect union of soul between a married pair. Hence it follows that in order to be happy a man must feel himself bound by certain rules of honor and delicacy. After having enjoyed the benefit of the social law which consecrates the natural craving, he must obey also the secret laws of nature by which sentiments unfold themselves. If he stakes his happiness on being himself loved, he must himself love sincerely: nothing can resist a genuine passion.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Marriage does not unite two people; it entangles them.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
The present marriage laws are very propitious towards making Cuckoldom the normal state of men.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
Thrice happy's the wooing That's not long a-doing!
So much time is saved in the billing and cooing --
The ring is now bought, the white favours, and gloves,
And all the et cetera which crown people's loves.
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
The Ingoldsby Legends
Marriage is like a book. The whole story takes place between the covers.
MAE WEST
Sextette
Our parents' marriage makes a huge impact on our own marriage. Our parents teach us what relationships are and give us scripts for the way we understand love. What's more, we are drawn to the familiar. This is why people who resemble our parents feel like home and, in effect, why many of us marry someone like our opposite-sex parent. While this seems like great news for those of us who grew up with positive experiences of love, it might be a little disheartening for those who didn't.
LAURA TRIGGS
"Why I Stopped Comparing My Marriage to My Parents' Marriage", Verily Mag, November 30, 2017
The secret to a long and healthy marriage is to work at it and don't try and change each other.
JACK LALANNE
interview with James Marshall, September 16, 2007
Ah. That ceremony. I see. That's it, then. A formula, a shibboleth meaningless as a child's game, performed by someone created by the situation whose need it answered: a crone mumbling in a dungeon lighted by a handful of burning hair, something in a tongue which not even the girls themselves understand anymore, maybe not even the crone herself, rooted in nothing of economics for her or for any possible progeny since the very fact that we acquiesced, suffered the farce, was her proof and assurance of that which the ceremony itself could never enforce; vesting no new rights in anyone, denying to none the old--a ritual as meaningless as that of college boys in secret rooms at night, even to the same archaic and forgotten symbols?--you call that a marriage, when the night of a honeymoon and the casual business with a hired prostitute consists of the same suzerainty over a (temporarily) private room, the same order of removing the same clothes, the same conjunction in a single bed? Why not call that a marriage too?
WILLIAM FAULKNER
Absalom, Absalom!
Marriage is the union of two hearts, without which there can be no marriage; but where this is the case, and the legal ceremony takes place, it is registered in Heaven. A father or mother getting their daughter to marry a man she does not care for is simply selling her, and a sin in all concerned, which cannot turn out for her happiness, but must lead to a life of mental misery and mental degradation. Having given their children a good Christian education, parents have no right to prevent, or try to prevent, their children marrying whosoever they choose, provided there is nothing against the character of the person chosen. Selling a young woman to an old man who is wealthy is a loathsome and disgusting sight; and the young woman should resist such a union at all hazards; for with such a marriage, or so-called marriage, ends all hope of earthly happiness and self-respect.
T. AUGUSTUS FORBES LEITH
"On Marriage", Short Essays
Marriage cures nothing--and least of all does it solve anyone's emotional problems.
SMILEY BLANTON
Love or Perish