quotations about marriage
Marriage, it seems, confines every man to his proper rank.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Personal Merit", Les Caractères
Marriage is, in actual fact, just a way of living. Before marriage, we don't expect life to be all sunshine and roses, but we seem to expect marriage to be that way.
LESLIE L. PARROTT
Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts
The concerts you enjoy together
Neighbors you annoy together
Children you destroy together
That make a marriage a joy.
STEPHEN SONDHEIM
Company
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 socialism among two people.
BARBARA EHRENREICH
The Worst Years of Our Lives
Happy marriage is the greatest wealth a man can possess, and one that a peasant can have as easily as a king.
DOUGLAS CARLTON ABRAMS
The Lost Diary of Don Juan
Marriage, the relationship of husband and wife, a faithful union, marks the first human compact. The earliest recognized distinction between that which is lawful and that which is unlawful found its expression in marriage. In some places the old names for "law" and "marriage" are interchangeable. Whatever ceremonies may have accompanied it, however some (at all times) have evaded its obligation, the primæval conscience, the original human instinct, before the formation of any Church or code, recognized the need of a "covenant" first in marriage. Around it laws have grown. It is no invention of legislators. It arose from the divinely implanted necessities of "human" life, and a sense of its excellence above that of other animals "which have no understanding." Thus marriage grew to be called an "honourable estate;" to be surrounded with ceremony and fenced with safeguards.
HARRY JONES
Courtship and Marriage
Probably the institution of marriage had its origin in love of property. Both men and women were united in this--that whatever they loved best, they wished to possess. The usual theory holds that the communal system would not permit the gratification of this desire at the expense of communal rights, and that therefore men were driven to gratify their passion by purchasing or by capturing women from neighboring and hostile tribes.
HENRY ADAMS
Historical Essays
So many promising girls allowed themselves to be submerged altogether in marriage for a time, and when they emerged everyone had forgotten the promise of their début.
HERBERT GEORGE WELLS
Marriage
Were the husband as blind to the faults of the wife, as the lover to the faults of the maiden, few unhappy marriages would follow happy courtships.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
My new found meaning of Marriage is a place where you can be yourself and has breathing space to grow personally and spiritually as and when I want without having to consult my partner about my changes. It is a beautiful place without suffocation, a place where you can learn and teach each other, a place where you do not feel prohibited and a place where you do not have to log in and log out.
JEANETTE DE JONK
Unconventional & Spiritual Marriage
Marriage is a pretty amazing thing when you think about it. For two people to live together for so long under the same roof is a big accomplishment. Fifty-year anniversaries are becoming extinct, yet again proving that long marriages deserve awards and praise. Sometimes I see old people in restaurants sitting together eating their meals and I watch them. Sometimes it makes me sad. They don't even talk. Is it because they have nothing else to say, or can they simply read each other's mind by now?
JENNY MCCARTHY
Life Laughs
Until we have a natural, that is, a conscientious world, it cannot be known by experience what natural law will do for the gratification of a supreme affection; but, if you will give me that world, there will be in it very few not called to marriage, provided society allows proper opportunities for acquaintance between marriageable persons.
JOSEPH COOK
Marriage: With Preludes on Current Events
Nature admits of no permanence in the relation between man and woman.... It is only man's egoism that wants to keep woman like some buried treasure. All endeavors to introduce permanence in love, the most changeable thing in this changeable human existence, have gone shipwreck in spite of religious ceremonies, vows, and legalities.
LEOPOLD VON SACHER-MASOCH
Venus in Furs
Love is free: to promise for ever to love the same woman, is not less absurd than to promise to believe the same creed: such a vow in both cases, excludes us from all enquiry.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
notes, Queen Mab
I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.
RITA RUDNER
stand-up routine
To make a happy fire-side clime
To weans and wife,
That's the true pathos and sublime
Of human life.
ROBERT BURNS
"To Dr. Blacklock"
Marriage is like the army--many complain, but you'd be surprised how many reenlist.
VERNON K. MCLELLAN
attributed, Wise Words and Quotes
When a Man has married a wife
He finds out whether
Her knees & elbows are only
glued together.
WILLIAM BLAKE
Poems from Blake's Notebook
And so the words are spoken, and the indissoluble knot is tied. Amen. For better, for worse, for good days or evil, love each other, cling to each other, dear friends. Fulfil your course, and accomplish your life's toil. In sorrow, sooth eath other; in illness, watch and tend. Cheer, fond wife, the husband's struggle; lighten his gloomy hours with your tender smiles, and gladden his home with your love. Husband, father, whatsoever your lot, be your heart pure, your life honest. For the sake of those who bear your name, let no bad action sully it. AS you look at those innocent faces, which ever tenderly greet you, be yours, too, innocent, and your conscience without reproach. As the young people kneel before the altar-railing, some such thoughts as these pass through a friend's mind who witnesses the ceremony of their marriage. Is not all we hear in that place meant to apply to ourselves, and to be carried away for everyday congitation.
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
Philip