quotations about marriage
A little weeping, a little wheedling, a little self-degradation, a little careful use of our advantages, and then some man will say--"Come, be my wife!" With good looks and youth marriage is easy to attain. There are men enough; but a woman who has sold herself, even for a ring and a new name, need hold her skirt aside for no creature in the street. They both earn their bread in one way. Marriage for love is the beautifullest external symbol of the union of souls; marriage without it is the uncleanliest traffic that defiles the world.
OLIVE SCHREINER
The Story of an African Farm
Ask any woman in an arranged marriage. Love is the least stressful way out.
FAY WELDON
The Spa
A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.
MIGNON MCLAUGHLIN
The Neurotic's Notebook
By taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first, by showing that she made him so happy as a married man, that he wishes to be so a second time.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
attributed, Life of Samuel Johnson
Courtship to marriage, as a very witty prologue to a very dull Play.
WILLIAM CONGREVE
The Old Bachelor
The marriage tie becomes possessed of a history and takes to itself traditions. This history and these traditions form a great fund, to which changing conditions and growing imagination constantly add. And the traditions, more especially, bear heavily upon the individual, overmastering his natural expression of the love instinct and forcing him to an artificial expression of that love instinct. He loves, not as his savage forbears loved, but as his group loves.
JACK LONDON
The Kempton-Wace Letters
Marriage is divine in its institution, sacred in its union, holy in the mystery, sacramental in its signification, honourable in its appellative, religious in its employments: it is advantage to the societies of men, and it is "holiness to the Lord."
JEREMY TAYLOR
The Marriage Ring
Marriage problems are relationship problems, they are the result of how two people interact with each other. You may abandon a troubled marriage, but you will still bring the way you interact with others along with you.
MARK GUNGOR
Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage
Marriage is a sort of poetical see-saw.
G. K. CHESTERTON
What's Wrong with the World
Society is built on marriage ... marriage and its consequences.
JOHN GALSWORTHY
The Forsyte Saga
Matrimony is an engagement which must last the life of one of the parties, and there is no retracting ... therefore, to avoid all the horror of a repentance that comes too late, men should thoroughly know the real causes that induce them to take so important a step, before they venture upon it; do they stand in need of a wife, an heiress, or a nurse; is it their passions, their wants, or their infirmities, that solicit them to wed?
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
That a marriage ends is less than ideal; but all things end under heaven, and if temporality is held to be invalidating, then nothing real succeeds.
JOHN UPDIKE
foreword, Too Far To Go
Marriages are always moving from one season to another. Sometimes we find ourselves in winter--discouraged, detached, and dissatisfied; other times we experience springtime, with its openness, hope, and anticipation. On still other occasions we bask in the warmth of summer--comfortable, relaxed, enjoying life. And then comes fall with its uncertainty, negligence, and apprehension. The cycle repeats itself many times throughout the life of a marriage, just as the seasons repeat themselves in nature.
GARY D. CHAPMAN
note to readers, Summer Breeze
If you exchanged wedding vows, tape them to your bathroom mirror and read them aloud to yourself every morning along with the ritual brushing of teeth. It's not realistic to believe that you will live your promises as a daily practice -- unless you're a saint or a highly evolved Zen Buddhist. Not where marriage is concerned. But you can make a practice of returning to your vows when the going gets rough.
HARRIET LERNER
"Returning To Your Wedding Vows", Huffington Post, April 2, 2012
Men and women are natural enemies, like cat and dog--only more so. They are forced to live together for a time, or this wonderful race couldn't go on.
NEITH BOYCE
Enemies
Marriage is commonly a meal wherein the soup is better than the desert.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.
OSCAR WILDE
A Woman of No Importance
It's terribly hard to be married ... harder than anything else. I think you have to be an angel.
AUGUST STRINDBERG
A Dream Play
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
It is internal union, not external agreement, that makes the real marriage.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust