Matrimony Quotes

Incompatibility. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination. ~ Ambrose Bierce

I know enough to know that no woman should ever marry a man who hated his mother. ~ Martha Gellhorn

You and Beatrix haven't known each other long enough to consider matrimony. A matter of weeks, to my knowledge. And what about Prudence Mercer? You're practically betrothed, aren't you?"
"Those are valid points," Christopher said. "And I will answer them. But you should know right away that I'm against the match."
Leo blinked in bemusement. "You mean you're against a match with Miss Mercer?"
"Well…yes. But I'm also against a match with Beatrix."
Silence fell over the room.
"This is a trick of some sort," Leo said.
"Unfortunately, it's not," Christopher replied.
Another silence.
"Captain Phelan," Cam asked, choosing his words with care. "Have you come to ask for our consent to marry Beatrix?"
Christopher shook his head. "If I decide to marry Beatrix, I'll do it with or without your consent."
Leo looked at Cam. "Good God," he said in disgust. "This one's worse than Harry."
Cam wore an expression of beleaguered patience. "Perhaps we should both talk to Captain Phelan in the library. With brandy."
"I want my own bottle," Leo said feelingly, leading the way. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make curtsy and say 'Father, as it please you.' But yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy and say 'Father, as it please me. ~ William Shakespeare

A pall fell over the room. A black shroud of disease and deathbeds and all the worst things from all the worst places. This mutant world, a tragic portmanteau, the unnatural marriage of two roots as different as could be. 'And do you, Ability take Vitriol to be your lawfully wedded suffix?' I wanted to scream objections to the unholy matrimony, but nothing came out. My mouth was clammy and dry, full of sand. Dr. Wilson smiled on, rambling about the benefits of Abilitol while my father nodded like a toy bobblehead immune to the deepening shadow in the room.

As they spoke, I caught my mother's eye. I could tell by her face that she felt the deepening shadow too.

Neither of us smiled.
Neither of us spoke.
We felt the shadow together. ~ David Arnold

Men often marry in hasty recklessness and repent afterward all their lives. ~ Moliere

When a man mentally undresses a woman it's merely sex; but when a woman mentally dresses a man he's in dire danger of matrimony. ~ Helen Nielsen

Some women marry houses. ~ Anne Sexton

Matrimony is the union of meanness and martyrdom. ~ Karl Kraus

...a husband cannot be guilty of the rape of his wife because the wife hath given up herself in this kind to her husband, which she cannot retract. Sex in matrimony cannot be rape as the defense shall prove in this trial; and that Bode Ross is a fine, understanding and sweet husband who won't perpetrate such a dastardly act. ~ S.A. David

The laws that Charondas gave to Catana, ... A man might divorce his wife, or a wife her husband, said Charondas, but then he or she must not marry anyone younger than the divorced mate. ~ Will Durant

I never understood exactly why people get engaged
The only time I ever did the most disastrous things happened
but I feel that there's a great deal to be said for immediate matrimony always. If I once got started I'd probably have to become a mormon to cover my confusion. What I mean is that if he and she are crazy about each other it is sheer tempting God to stay apart, come what may. And if people arent crazy about each other being engaged wont help them. ~ John Dos Passos

Love is dirty-sloppy-stupid. The problem has always been: How do we contain such a dangerous substance (love) in the confines of holy matrimony without hurting or killing someone?
pg ii ~ Michael Ben Zehabe

I wish one half the world were not fools, and the other half idiots. ~ Fanny Fern

What woman, however old, has not the bridal-favours and raiment stowed away, and packed in lavender, in the inmost cupboards of her heart? ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

Misses! the tale that I relate This lesson seems to carry
Choose not alone a proper mate, But proper time to marry. ~ William Cowper

There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose. ~ Charles Dickens

But no, music lasted longer than anything it inspired. After LPs, cassettes, and CDs, when matrimony was about to decay into its component elements - alimony and acrimony - the songs startled him and regained all their previous, pre-Rachel meanings, as if they had not only conjured her but then dismissed her, as if she had been entirely their illusion. He listened to the old songs again, years later on that same dark promenade, when every CD he had ever owned sat nestled in that greatest of all human inventions, the iPod, dialed up and yielding to his fingertip's tap. The songs now offered him, in exchange for all he had lost, the sensation that there was something still to long for, still, something still approaching, and all that had gone before was merely prologue to an unimaginably profound love yet to seize him. If there was any difference now, it was only that his hunger for music had become more urgent, less a daily pleasure than a daily craving. ~ Arthur Phillips

I disapprove of matrimony as a matter of principle ... Why should any independent, intelligent female choose to subject herself to the whims and tyrannies of a husband? I assure you, I have yet to meet a man as sensible as myself! (Amelia Peabody) ~ Elizabeth Peters

The First Bond of Society is Marriage. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

Women are always anxious to urge bachelors to matrimony; is it from charity, or revenge ?. ~ Louis Gustave Vapereau

Lastly no woman should marry a teetotaller, or a man who does not smoke. It is not for nothing that this "ignoble tobagie" as Michelet calls it, spreads all over the world. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Husbands and wives talk of the cares of matrimony, and bachelors and spinsters bear them. ~ Wilkie Collins

Dorothea, with all her eagerness to know the truths of life, retained very childlike ideas about marriage. She felt sure that she would have accepted the judicious Hooker, if she had been born in time to save him from that wretched mistake he made in matrimony; or John Milton when his blindness had come on; or any of the other great men whose odd habits it would have been glorious piety to endure; but an amiable handsome baronet, who said "Exactly" to her remarks even when she expressed uncertainty,
how could he affect her as a lover? The really delightful marriage must be that where your husband was a sort of father, and could teach you even Hebrew, if you wished it. ~ George Eliot

He knew taht many of his compatriots avoided marriage at all costs. They saw matrimony as an annoyance, a wife as another person who would nag and prod. But when he repeated his vows, he heard "as long as we both shall life" and he hoped. ~ Courtney Milan

After fourteen years of matrimony, I have discovered that hoping your other half telepathically reads your mind only leads to someone wanting to punch the other one in the face. ~ Twinkle Khanna

My first [wife] was an angel; My second a silly woman; My third a Roman Senator; My fourth a pretty little thing; My fifth - all woman! ~ Nat C. Goodwin

For the shallow delights of matrimony and opera I have no courage. ~ Johannes Brahms

[Matrimony] is the grave of love. ~ Giacomo Casanova

True it is, as society is instituted, marriage becomes somewhat of a lottery, for all its votaries are either the victims of Cupid or cupidity; in either instance, they are under the blinding influence of passion, and consequently but little subject to the control of reason. ~ Arthur Frederick Saunders

Men in general sooner forget the lost their matrimony than the death of their father ~ Mario Puzo

I am humbly following in your footsteps and having a row with the Government over the iniquity of the Marriage Tax in the form of supertax ... our incomes being added together we are liable for supertax which we are refusing to pay on the grounds of morality as I consider in a Christian country it is an immoral and outrageous act to tax me because I am living in Holy matrimony instead of as my husband's mistress. ~ Marie Stopes

LEONATO
Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.
BEATRICE
Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a pierce of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren; and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred. ~ William Shakespeare

You should indeed have longer tarried By the roadside before you married. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Are you ready to go home, Catherine?" he asked. "It's warm inside the house. I kept a fire going for you."

I continued looking at him, unsure how to respond. "Thanks," I managed to say and then glanced in the direction of his house - our house.

"Well, you are my wife. And I know you don't like the cold."

I'm his wife, I thought to myself. He had said the words as if that simple fact made it necessary to be both thoughtful and kind. As if having gained a wife or husband meant having also gained her or his concerns, and hence the need to consider the person's needs, wants, and preferences as strongly as one's own. It struck me as a perfect description of what marriage ought to be. An agreeable notion that had not entered into my petty way of viewing matrimony. I would have assumed it to be above Thaddeus' egotistical mindset as well.

"Catherine?" he said again, watching me regard him with a quizzical expression. "Are you ready to go home?"

I nodded, which made him smile. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

That alliance may be said to have a double tie, where the minds are united as well as the body; and the union will have all its strength when both the links are in perfection together. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

It seemed to me pretty plain, that they had more of love than matrimony in them. ~ Oliver Goldsmith

Dearly beloved: We have come together in the presence of God to witness and bless the joining together of this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony. The bond and covenant of marriage was established by God in creation, and our Lord Jesus Christ adorned this manner of life by his presence and first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. It signifies to us the mystery of the union between Christ and his Church, and Holy Scripture commends it to be honored among all people.
The union of husband and wife in heart, body, and mind is intended by God for their mutual joy; for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity; and, when it is God's will, for the procreation of children and their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord. Therefore marriage is not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently, deliberately, and in accordance with the purposes for which it was instituted by God.
I glanced at Marlboro Man, who was listening intently, taking in every word. I held his bicep in my hand, squeezing it lightly and trying to listen to Father Johnson despite the distraction of Marlboro Man's work-honed muscles. Everything else was a blur: iron candlesticks attached to the end of each pew…my mother's olive green silk jacket with the mandarin collar…Mike's tuxedo…Mike's bald head…
Will you have this man to be your husband; to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness ~ Ree Drummond

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune. ~ Sorcha MacMurrough

(Response to King Erik XIV of Sweden's proposal of marriage:)

"[W]hile we perceive ... the zeal and love of your mind towards us is not diminished, yet in part we are grieved that we cannot gratify your Serene Highness with the same kind of affection. And that indeed does not happen because we doubt in any way of your love and honour, but, as often we have testified both in words and writing, that we have never yet conceived a feeling of that kind of affection towards anyone.

We therefore beg your Serene Highness again and again that you be pleased to set a limit to your love, that it advance not beyond the laws of friendship for the present nor disregard them in the future. ...

We certainly think that if God ever direct our hearts to consideration of marriage we shall never accept or choose any absent husband how powerful and wealthy a Prince soever. But that we are not to give you an answer until we have seen your person is so far from the thing itself that we never even considered such a thing. I have always given both to your brother ... and also to your ambassador likewise the same answer with scarcely any variation of the words, that we do not conceive in our heart to take a husband but highly commend this single life, and hope that your Serene Highness will no longer spend time in waiting for us. ~ Elizabeth I

Adrian Mole's father was so angry that so many pepole got divorced nowadays. HE had been unhappilly married for 30 years, why should everybody else get away? ~ Sue Townsend

When the blind lead the blind, no wonder they both fall into - matrimony. ~ George Farquhar

The state of matrimony is the chief in the world after religion; but people shun it because of its inconveniences, like one who, running out of the rain, falls into the river. ~ Martin Luther

Well married, a man is winged - ill-matched, he is shackled. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

As far as my experience of matrimony goes
I think it tends to draw you out of, and away from yourself. ~ Charlotte Bronte

Take one Naive Girl. Bring to room temperature in the Big City. Add three cups Academia. If in one cup Encouragement. Fold in two drop Love. Sprinkle with one teaspoon Adoration. Mix thoroughly. Spoon carefully into greased Pan of Matrimony. Bake in Desert Heat for 25. Test doneness with Careless Toothpick. Let cool on Wire Rack of Inertia. Serve with generous dollops of Benign Neglect. ~ Elizabeth J. Church

There must be some other possibility than death or lifelong penance ... some meeting, some intersection of lines; and some cowardly, hopeful geometer in my brain tells me it is the angle at which two lines prop each other up, the leaning-together from the vertical which produces the false arch. For lack of a keystone, the false arch may be as much as one can expect in this life. Only the very lucky discover the keystone. ~ Wallace Stegner

Astrology is framed by the devil, to the end people may be scared from entering into the state of matrimony, and from every divine and human office and calling. ~ Martin Luther

Marriage is not a process for prolonging the life of love, sir. It merely mummifies its corpse. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

O, girls! set your affections on cats, poodles, parrots or lap-dogs; but let matrimony alone. It's the hardest way on earth to getting a living. ~ Fanny Fern

No man of common sense will value a woman the less, for not giving herself up at the first attack, or for not accepting his proposal without enquiring into his person or character; on the contrary, he must think her the weakest of all creatures in the world, as the rate of men now goes; in short, he must have a very contemptible opinion of her capacities, nay, even of her understanding, that having but one cast for her life, shall cast that life away at once, and make matrimony like death, be a leap in the dark. ~ Daniel Defoe

The rake himself lived up to Amy's expectations, however, when he came out to greet his guests. Tall, dark, handsome, and dressed with devastating informality in an open-necked shirt, sleeves rolled up to expose his arms like a laborer. No one could fair to be aware of a lithe body beneath the slight amount of clothing, and there was a wicked gleam in his eye even if he was supposed to have been tamed by matrimony.
Amy found it difficult to believe that the very ordinary woman by his side had achieved such a miracle. Lady Templemore was short and her gown was a simple green muslin. Her face was close to plain and her brown hair was gathered into a simple knot at the back.
But then she smiled at her guests and was beautiful. When she turned to her husband with a comment, she was dazzling, and the look in his eye showed he was tamed indeed, if devotion so heated could be called tame at all. ~ Jo Beverley

She that weds well will wisely match her love, Nor be below her husband nor above. ~ Ovid

A marriage of two independent and equally irritable intelligences seems to me reckless to the point of insanity. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

In the consciousness of belonging together, in the sense of constancy, resides the sanctity, the beauty of matrimony, which helps us to endure pain more easily, to enjoy happiness doubly, and to give rise to the fullest and finest development of our nature. ~ Fanny Lewald

[Exchange] the galling burden of bachelorship for the easy yoke of matrimony. ~ James Madison

When choosing a life partner, do not leave anything to chance. If a young girl gets pregnant for you, it is not enough reason to marry her. You should take responsibility and care for the young child and mum as far as you can, but, that shouldn't be a compulsion towards matrimony! If you are the lady, you must decide if you would ordinarily marry this young man if there were no pregnancies. If no, move on.

When choosing a life partner, look as far into the future as you can and see what is required in the goal you have chosen to pursue and get someone who is as hungry and as interested in those goals as you.

When choosing a life partner, LEAVE NOTHING TO DOUBT AND CHANCE. ~ Magnus Nwagu Amudi

One survey found that ten percent of Americans thought Joan of Arc was Noah's wife. ~ Rita Mae Brown

People are always asking couples whose marriage has endured at least a quarter of a century for their secret for success. Actually, it is no secret at all. I am a forgiving woman. Long ago, I forgave my husband for not being Paul Newman. ~ Erma Bombeck

Izzy was utterly convinced. Never mind Arabian horses, African cheetahs. No creature in the world could bolt so quickly as a rake confronted with the word "marriage". They ought to shout it out at footraces rather than using starting pistols.
Ready, steady ... matrimony! ~ Tessa Dare

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 Edmonstone Ferrier

The happy State of Matrimony is, undoubtedly, the surest and most lasting Foundation of Comfort and Love ... the Cause of all good Order in the World, and what alone preserves it from the utmost Confusion. ~ Benjamin Franklin

It is easier to avoid great matrimonial catastrophes than trivial everyday miseries. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want. ~ Jane Austen

An unhappy gentleman, resolving to wed nothing short of perfection, keeps his heart and hand till both get so old and withered that no tolerable woman will accept them. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

And such is your definition of matrimony and dancing. Taken in that light, certainly their resemblance is not striking; but I think I could place them in such a view. You will allow that in both man has the advantage of choice, woman only the power of refusal; that in both it is an engagement between man and woman, formed for the advantage of each; and that when once entered into, they belong exclusively to each other till the moment of its dissolution; that it is their duty each to endeavor to give the other no cause for wishing that he or she had bestowed themselves elsewhere, and their best interest to keep their own imaginations from wandering towards the perfections of their neighbors, or fancying that they should have been better off with any one else. ~ Jane Austen

LEONATO
Well, then, go you into hell?
BEATRICE
No, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say 'Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here's no place for you maids:' so deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long. ~ William Shakespeare

O marriage! marriage! what a curse is thine, Where hands alone consent and hearts abhor. ~ Aaron Hill

Some men are born for matrimony, some achieve matrimony
but most of them are merely poor dodgers. ~ Helen Rowland

Margaret Fuller Slack I WOULD have been as great as George Eliot But for an untoward fate. For look at the photograph of me made by Penniwit, Chin resting on hand, and deep - set eyes - Gray, too, and far-searching. But there was the old, old problem: Should it be celibacy, matrimony or unchastity? Then John Slack, the rich druggist, wooed me, Luring me with the promise of leisure for my novel, And I married him, giving birth to eight children, And had no time to write. It was all over with me, anyway, When I ran the needle in my hand While washing the baby's things, And died from lock - jaw, an ironical death. Hear me, ambitious souls, Sex is the curse of life. ~ Edgar Lee Masters

He that said it was not good for man to be alone, placed the celibate amongst the inferior states of perfection. ~ Robert Boyle

I don't want to suggest that matrimony was necessarily a tragic affair - some of our neighbours' marriages seemed quite functional, if somewhat routine; nevertheless, in the workaday world, it is wedlock that is most likely to offer the occasion for life-threatening disappointment. ~ John Burnside

How many women are there ... who because of their husbands' harshness spend their weary lives in the bond of marriage in greater suffering than if they were slaves among the Saracens? ~ Christine De Pizan

What are man and woman if not members of two very different and warring tribes Yet decade after decade, century after century, they attempt in marriage to reconcile and forge a union. Why I don't know. Biological imperative Divine law Or just a desire to connect to that mysterious other In any case, it's always struck me as a hopeful thing. ~ Andrew Schneider

I see no room in holy Scripture for any sexual activity outside of matrimony. ~ George Carey

May your union be filled with love
Annealed by passion
Built on a strong foundation
And tempered by time ~ Richard L. Ratliff

As for women that do not think their own safety worth their thought, that impatient of their present state, resolve as they call it to take the first good Christian that comes; that runs into matrimony, as a horse rushes into battle; I can say nothing to them, but this, that they are a sort of ladies that are to be pray'd for among the rest of distemper'd people; and to me they look like people that venture their whole estates in a lottery where there is a hundred thousand blanks to one prize. ~ Daniel Defoe

No compass has ever been invented for the high seas of matrimony. ~ Heinrich Heine

It had been, in Robin's view, the most perfect proposal, ever, in the history of matrimony. He had even had a ring in his pocket, which she was now wearing; a sapphire with two diamonds, it fitted perfectly, and all the way into town she kept staring at it on her hand as it rested on her lap. She and Matthew had a story to tell now, a funny family story, the kind you told your children, in which his planning (she loved that he had planned it) went awry, and turned into something spontaneous. She loved the tramps, and the moon, and Matthew, panicky and flustered, on one knee; she loved Eros, and dirty old Piccadilly, and the black cab they had taken home to Clapham. She ~ Robert Galbraith

While the moral force of Judeo-Christian tradition and the law have sought to purify the penis, and to restrict its seed to the sanctified institution of matrimony, the penis is not by nature a monogamous organ. It knows no moral code. It was designed by nature for waste, it craves variety, and nothing less than castration will eliminate the allure of prostitution, fornication adultery, or pornography. ~ Gay Talese

It's probably not just by chance that I'm alone. It would be very hard for a man to live with me, unless he's terribly strong. And if he's stronger than I, I'm the one who can't live with him. ... I'm neither smart nor stupid, but I don't think I'm a run-of-the-mill person. I've been in business without being a businesswoman, I've loved without being a woman made only for love. The two men I've loved, I think, will remember me, on earth or in heaven, because men always remember a woman who caused them concern and uneasiness. I've done my best, in regard to people and to life, without precepts, but with a taste for justice. ~ Coco Chanel

A Christian marriage isn't about whether you're in love. Christian marriage is giving you the practice of fidelity over a lifetime in which you can look back upon the marriage and call it love. It is a hard discipline over many years. (Duke Magazine Article, "Faith Fires Back," 2002) ~ Stanley Hauerwas

[Marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out. ~ Michel De Montaigne

An ex-wife is a woman with a crick in the neck from looking back over her shoulder at her matrimony. ~ Ursula Parrott

It is hard to wive and thrive both in a year. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Life is a walk in the fog. Most people don't know that. They're fooled by the sunlight into thinking they can see what's ahead. But it's the reason they are forever getting lost or falling into ditches or committing matrimony. ~ Jack McDevitt

I think marriage is dangerous. The idea of two people trying to possess each other is wrong. I don't think the flare of love lasts. Your mind rather than your emotions must answer for the success of matrimony. It must be friendship - a calm companionship which can last through the years. ~ Carole Lombard

There are some who want to get married and others who don't. I have never had an impulse to go to the altar. I am a difficult person to lead. ~ Greta Garbo

Pardon me; I must seem to you so stupid! Why is the property of the woman who commits Murder, and the property of the woman who commits Matrimony, dealt with alike by your law? ~ Frances Power Cobbe

The critical period of matrimony is breakfast-time. ~ A.P. Herbert

I don't understand art-speak. My pictures are big doodles. I'm amazed what people come up with when they look at them. There's one of a figure with two heads that somebody thought must be a comment on the state of matrimony. None of it is a comment on anything. ~ Billy Connolly

It is obvious that she is more interested in happiness than in the institution of marriage, in love and understanding than matrimony. ~ Azar Nafisi

Matrimony is a very dangerous disorder; I had rather drink. ~ Marie De Rabutin-Chantal, Marquise De Sevigne

The critical period in matrimony is breakfast-time. ~ Alan Patrick Herbert

For St. Paul only says that it is better to be married than to burn. Now I presume that if that apostle had known that providence would at an after day be so kind to any particular set of people as to furnish them with other means of extinguishing their fire than those of matrimony, he would have earnestly recmmended them to their practice. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Women when they marry buy a cat in the bag. ~ Michel De Montaigne

The bonds of matrimony are like any other bonds - they mature slowly. ~ Peter De Vries

I am determined that only the deepest love will induce me into matrimony. So, I shall end an old maid, and teach your ten children to embroider cushions and play their instruments very ill. ~ Jane Austen

Nowadays love is a matter of chance, matrimony a matter of money and divorce a matter of course. ~ Helen Rowland

It goes far towards reconciling me to being a woman, when I reflect that I am thus in no danger of ever marrying one. ~ Mary Wortley Montagu