quotations about marriage
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
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Physiology of Marriage
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
Many brief follies--that is what you call love. And your marriage puts an end to many brief follies, with a single long stupidity.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
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
Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster that devours everything: familiarity.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
attributed, And I Quote
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
Those marriages generally abound most with love and constancy that are preceded by a long courtship.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, December 29, 1711
Marriage does not unite two people; it entangles them.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
Hail wedded love, mysterious law, true source
Of human offspring, sole propriety,
In Paradise of all things common else.
JOHN MILTON
Paradise Lost
Wasn't marriage, like life, unstimulating and unprofitable and somewhat empty when too well ordered and protected and guarded? Wasn't it finer, more splendid, more nourishing, when it was, like life itself, a mixture of the sordid and magnificent; of mud and stars; of earth and flowers; of love and hate and laughter and tears and ugliness and beauty and hurt?
EDNA FERBER
Show Boat
Marrying to increase love is like gaming to become rich; alas, you only lose what little stock you had before.
WILLIAM WYCHERLEY
The Country Wife
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!
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
Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
The Scarlet Letter
There is almost no marital problem that can't be helped enormously by taking off your clothes.
GARRISON KEILLOR
"The Old Scout", The Writer's Almanac, October 4, 2005
Marriage and its entourage of possession and jealousy enslave the spirit.
IRVIN D. YALOM
When Nietzsche Wept
Marriage is a language of love, equality, and inclusion.
EVAN WOLFSON
Why Marriage Matters
The popular notion about marriage and love is that they are synonymous, that they spring from the same motives, and cover the same human needs. Like most popular notions this also rests not on actual facts, but on superstition. Marriage and love have nothing in common; they are as far apart as the poles; are, in fact, antagonistic to each other. No doubt some marriages have been the result of love. Not, however, because love could assert itself only in marriage; much rather is it because few people can completely outgrow a convention. There are today large numbers of men and women to whom marriage is naught but a farce, but who submit to it for the sake of public opinion. At any rate, while it is true that some marriages are based on love, and while it is equally true that in some cases love continues in married life, I maintain that it does so regardless of marriage, and not because of it. On the other hand, it is utterly false that love results from marriage. On rare occasions one does hear of a miraculous case of a married couple falling in love after marriage, but on close examination it will be found that it is a mere adjustment to the inevitable. Certainly the growing-used to each other is far away from the spontaneity, the intensity, and beauty of love, without which the intimacy of marriage must prove degrading to both the woman and the man.
EMMA GOLDMAN
"Marriage and Love", Anarchism and Other Essays
The key to a successful marriage is picking up your husband's socks.
PIERS MORGAN
Good Morning Britain, November 29, 2017
One of the most common problems in marriage occurs when she wants empathy and he's trying to fix things. Tell your partner what kind of listening you want ... Treat your mate as if he wants to make you happy but doesn't know how. You love him, after all. You picked him. Help him out.
TERRENCE REAL
O Magazine, January 2007