quotations about marriage
Marriage is a matter concerning the whole of life, whilst love aims only at pleasure. On the other hand, marriage will remain when pleasures have vanished, and it is the source of interests far more precious than those of the man and woman entering on the alliance.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Letters of Two Brides
I always compare marriage to communism. They're both institutions that don't conform to human nature, so you're going to end up with lying and hypocrisy.
BILL MAHER
Rolling Stone, August 24, 2006
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
Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier of all laws, of all conventions; love, the freest, the most powerful molder of human destiny; how can such an all-compelling force be synonymous with that poor little State- and Church-begotten weed, marriage?
EMMA GOLDMAN
Anarchism and Other Essays
Marriage can give one the deepest, happiest moments of life. And that's one of the reasons God created it. It was part of God's "Happiness Plan."
DAVID MICHAEL THOMAS
Christian Marriage
Marriage is the comfort of the considerate and prudent; but the torment of the inconsiderate and self-willed.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
That little ditty about love coming first, then marriage, then the baby carriage--it's history. Over the past few decades more and more single people have been having children, and more and more married couples have not been.
BELLA DEPAULO
Singled Out
When a girl marries, she exchanges the attentions of all the other men of her acquaintance for the inattention of just one.
HELEN ROWLAND
Reflections of a Bachelor Girl
Marriage is only another word for irremediable slavery.
CHARLES WILLIAM DAY
The Maxims, Experiences, and Observations of Agogos
According to a new survey, people who get divorced die early. People who stay married live longer. The difference is they just wish they were dead.
DAVID LETTERMAN
Late Show with David Letterman, January 11, 2012
But the child, how is it to be protected, if not for marriage? After all, is not that the most important consideration? The sham, the hypocrisy of it! Marriage protecting the child, yet thousands of children destitute and homeless. Marriage protecting the child, yet orphan asylums and reformatories overcrowded, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children keeping busy in rescuing the little victims from "loving" parents, to place them under more loving care, the Gerry Society. Oh, the mockery of it! Marriage may have the power to bring the horse to water, but has it ever made him drink? The law will place the father under arrest, and put him in convict's clothes; but has that ever stilled the hunger of the child? If the parent has no work, or if he hides his identity, what does marriage do then? It invokes the law to bring the man to "justice," to put him safely behind closed doors; his labor, however, goes not to the child, but to the State. The child receives but a blighted memory of his father's stripes.
EMMA GOLDMAN
"Marriage and Love", Anarchism and Other Essays
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
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
It's a funny thing, but when a guy asks for your hand in marriage, he wants to hear the actual word yes escape from your lips. For him, that's the moment when he can celebrate. The longer you sit there speechless, the quicker he'll go into a panic. So say yes, aloud, and then you can start to hyperventilate with joy.
JANIS SPINDEL
How to Date Men
The husband who wants a happy marriage should learn to keep his mouth shut and his checkbook open.
GROUCHO MARX
attributed, Wise Words and Quotes
No greater evil can a man endure
Than a bad wife, nor find a greater good
Than one both good and wise; and each man speaks
As judging by the experience of his life.
SOPHOCLES
fragment
Ah, traditions. They carry with them a sense of nostalgia and solidarity. And, in the case of some wedding rituals--a bride literally being handed over to her groom by her father (or other male figure), vowing to "love, honor, and obey," male-dominated speeches--sexism. Considered individually, these customs may seem innocuous. But taken collectively, they reflect the sexist roots of the institution of marriage, when women were voiceless and goods to be traded and acquired.
MAUREEN SHAW
"The Sexist and Racist History of Marriage That No One Talks About", Teen Vogue, November 28, 2017
We could probably date the conception of "modern" marriage at around 1850, with its gestation through the Gilded Age, and its birth about 1920. Not coincidentally, serenading that pregnancy and birth has been a steadily rising chorus of outcries about the death of marriage and the family. By the 1920s every third magazine article seemed to be titled "Will Modern Marriage Survive?" Of course, reports of marriage's death have been greatly exaggerated: even laying aside the peculiar 1950s (which none of "the family" doomsayers foresaw), marriage remains outrageously popular, divorce statistics and all.
E. J. GRAFF
What is Marriage for?
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
The marriage relationship is one of God's creations for building up people. It gives husbands and wives the chance to minister to an immortal human being in a uniquely intimate fashion. To enjoy the meaningfulness of marriage, then, requires a once-made but ongoing commitment of mutual ministry to our mates and the more we seize them, the more meaning our marriage will have.
LARRY CRABB
The Marriage Builder