quotations about 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
I'll suffer no daughter of mine to play the fool with her heart, indeed! She shall marry for the purpose for which matrimony was ordained amongst people of birth--that is, for the aggrandisement of her family, the extending of their political influence--for becoming, in short, the depository of their mutual interest. These are the only purposes for which persons of rank ever think of marriage.
SUSAN FERRIER
Marriage
Selfish husbands have this advantage in maintaining with easy-minded wives a rigid and inflexible behaviour, viz., that if they do by any chance grant a little favour, the ladies receive it with such transports of gratitude as they would never think of showing to a lord and master who was accustomed to give them everything they asked for.
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
Men's Wives
Married people, for being so closely united, are but the apter to part; as knots the harder they are pulled, break the sooner.
ALEXANDER POPE
"Thoughts on Various Subjects"
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
Propose not to a woman when she hath gotten a new frock, nor when she is puffed up with victories; when she reigneth and rejoiceth in her hour of triumph, come not nigh unto her; but when she be ill or weary, when she is cast down in spirit and needeth a comforter, then be thou ready, and make thy suit.
GELETT BURGESS
The Maxims of Methuselah
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
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 is like life in this -- that it is a field of battle, and not a bed of roses.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
Virginibus Puerisque
Marriage is punishment for shoplifting in some countries.
GARTH ALGAR (DANA CARVEY)
Wayne's World
Marriage that daily doom.
JOHN UPDIKE
Rabbit is Rich
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
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
Ultimately, our marriage is what we make it--both intentionally and unintentionally.
LAURA TRIGGS
"Why I Stopped Comparing My Marriage to My Parents' Marriage", Verily Mag, November 30, 2017
Marriage--what an abomination! Love--yes, but not marriage. Love cannot exist in marriage, because love is an ideal; that is to say, something not quite understood--transparencies, colour, light, a sense of the unreal. But a wife--you know all about her--who her father was, who her mother was, what she thinks of you and her opinion of the neighbours over the way. Where, then, is the dream, the au dela? There is none. I say in marriage an au dela is impossible ... the endless duet of the marble and the water, the enervation of burning odours, the baptismal whiteness of women, light, ideal tissues, eyes strangely dark with kohl, names that evoke palm trees and ruins, Spanish moonlight or maybe Persepolis. The monosyllable which epitomizes the ennui and the prose of our lives is heard not, thought not there--only the nightingale-harmony of an eternal yes. Freedom limitless; the Mahometan stands on the verge of the abyss, and the spaces of perfume and colour extend and invite him with the whisper of a sweet unending yes. The unknown, the unreal ... Thus love is possible, there is a delusion, an au dela.
GEORGE MOORE
Confessions of a Young Man
Marriage and its entourage of possession and jealousy enslave the spirit.
IRVIN D. YALOM
When Nietzsche Wept
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
I'm never going to get married again. Three strikes you're out. I think if I would try to get married again in California I have to go to prison don't I? I think you only get three.
ROSEANNE BARR
Larry King Live, March 2, 2006
The expectations you bring to your partnership can make or break your marriage. Don't miss out on the sterling moments of marriage because your ideals are out of sync with your partner's. Don't believe the myth that you and your partner automatically come with the same expectations for marriage. Instead, remember that the more openly you discuss your differing expectations, the more likely you are to create a vision of marriage that you agree on--and that is unique to the two of you.
LESLIE L. PARROTT
Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts
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