71 Quotes About Matrimony

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

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

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

LEONATOWell, then, go you into hell? B E A T R I C E 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

LEONATOWell, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband. B E A T R I C E 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

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

After one divorce and other on the way I am seriously considering a ME-rriage now and. t's going to be epic! I will ask my hand in me T R Inomy, for it will become a trigamy. And me, my higher self and third I will live happily ever after life... We will live in threesomeness! Ana Claudia Antunes

(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

[F]rom my years of understanding .. I happily chose this kind of life in which I yet live [i.e., unmarried], which I assure you for my own part hath hitherto best contented myself and I trust hath been most acceptable to God. From the which if either ambition of high estate offered to me in marriage by the pleasure and appointment of my prince .. or if the eschewing of the danger of my enemies or the avoiding of the peril of death .. could have drawn or dissuaded me from this kind of life, I had not now remained in this estate wherein you see me. But so constant have I always continued in this determination .. yet is it most true that at this day I stand free from any other meaning that either I have had in times past or have at this present. . Elizabeth I

Which crime has the female sex committed to be sentenced to the harsh necessity which consists of being locked up all life either as a prisoner or a slave? I call the nuns prisoners and the married women slaves. Unknown

The rule seemed to be that a great woman must either die unwed ... or find a still greater man to marry her.... The great man, on the other hand, could marry where he liked, not being restricted to great women; indeed, it was often found sweet and commendable in him to choose a woman of no sort of greatness at all. Dorothy L. Sayers

[I]t is not by being richer or more powerful that a man becomes better; one is a matter of fortune, the other of virtue. Nor should she deem herself other than venal who weds a rich man rather than a poor, and desires more things in her husband than himself. Assuredly, whomsoever this concupiscence leads into marriage deserves payment rather than affection. Unknown

There are certain phrases potent to make my blood boil -- improper influence! What old woman's cackle is that?"" Are you a young lady?"" I am a thousand times better: I am an honest woman, and as such I will be treated. Unknown

No: I shall not marry Samuel Fawthrop Wynne.""I ask why? I must have a reason. In all respects he is more than worthy of you." She stood on the hearth; she was pale as the white marble slab and cornice behind her; her eyes flashed large, dilated, unsm Unknown

[In 16th century European society] Marriage was the triumphal arch through which women, almost without exception, had to pass in order to reach the public eye. And after marriage followed, in theory, the total self-abnegation of the woman. Antonia Fraser

What tale do you like best to hear?' 'Oh, I have not much choice! They generally run on the same theme - courtship; and promise to end in the same catastrophe - marriage. Unknown

I say this explicitly, that it is impossible for me to marry. That is the way it is for me. My temper is a mortal enemy to this horrible yoke, which I would not accept, even if I thus would become the ruler of the world. Unknown

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

To prove to [her friend, Swedish diplomat Count] Gyllenborg that she was not superficial, Catherine composed an essay about herself, "so that he would see whether I knew myself or not." The next day, she wrote and handed to Gyllenborg an essay titled 'Portrait of a Fifteen-Year-Old Philosopher.' He was impressed and returned it with a dozen pages of comments, mostly favorable. "I read his remarks again and again, many times [Catherine later recalled in her memoirs]. I impressed them on my consciousness and resolved to follow his advice. In addition, there was something else surprising: one day, while conversing with me, he allowed the following sentence to slip out: 'What a pity that you will marry! I wanted to find out what he meant, but he would not tell me. . Robert K. Massie

People go on marrying because they can't resist natural forces, although many of them may know perfectly well that they are possibly buying a month's pleasure with a life's discomfort. Thomas Hardy

Wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty like a Scotch jig--and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance and with his bad legs falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave. William Shakespeare

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

Still it is true that many same-sex couples want nothing more than to join society as fully integrated socially responsible family-centered taxpaying Little League-coaching nation-serving respectably married citizens. So why not welcome them in Why not recruit them by the vanload to sweep in on heroic wings and save the flagging and battered old institution of matrimony from a bunch of apathetic ne'er-do-well heterosexual deadbeats like me . Elizabeth Gilbert

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

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

In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved. Samuel Butler

Marriage is one sweet way in which one can taste heaven on earth. Similarly, I can also become hell on earth. Israelmore Ayivor

That's the mistake people make - always searching for the perfect match, when they would be just as happy if they settled for somebody reasonably good. Farahad Zama

A young man married is a man that's marred. William Shakespeare

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

Oh! How many torments lie in the small circle of a wedding-ring! Colley Cibber

What do you mean, 'Angle of Repose?' she asked me when I dreamed we were talking about Grandmother's life, and I said it was the angle at which a man or woman finally lies down. I suppose it is; and yet. . I thought when I began, and still think, that there was another angle in all those years when she was growing old and older and very old, and Grandfather was matching her year for year, a separate line that did not intersect with hers. They were vertical people, they lived by pride, and it is only by the ocular illusion of perspective that they can be said to have met. But he had not been dead two months when she lay down and died too, and that may indicate that at that absolute vanishing point they did intersect. They had intersected for years, for more than he especially would ever admit. Wallace Stegner

[I]t is dangerous for a bride to be apologetic about her husband. Wallace Stegner

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

Only the most passionate love could ever induce me to marry. Melanie Dickerson

May your union be filled with love Annealed by passion Built on a strong foundation And tempered by time Unknown

I am not only not going to be married, at present, but have very little intention of ever marrying at all. Jane Austen

You cannot really get married by mistake. You can only marry the wrong person. Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Marriage is not kick-boxing, it's salsa dancing. Amit Kalantri

To the loyal and to the blood-lovers, in the good families and in the fiery dynasties, life is family and family is life. It is the same people who give advice and their vices to live well who turn out to be the ones who give resource and reason to live long. Criss Jami

The only difference between having an affair here and having an affair there was that the American men would always ended up losing half of his estates over a woman he was infatuated just as much as the next tramp who would come his way, while Japanese men would only earn more respect from their subordinates through the possession of much younger women, as a sign of prowess and affluence, while their wives at home, as if there were rule books distributed nationally on the “proper” marriage etiquette for all young Japanese women to read before they enter into the matrimony, would turn a blind eye on their disloyalty quietly. Vann Chow

An ‘usband should be plain enough to sit at his settle, and simple-minded enough to accept the stew on his plate, rather than looking round ev’ry corner for a more succulent chop, ’ declares Elsie. Emmanuelle De Maupassant

New dreams are like new wines; they grow sweeter over time. With patience, you will be able to climb your spiritual, financial, academic, marital and social ladders in Jesus' name! Israelmore Ayivor

--the ethereal, fine-nerved, sensitive girl, quite unfitted by temperament and instinct to fulfil the conditions of the matrimonial relation with Phillotson, possibly with scarce any man... Thomas Hardy

Throwing caution to the wind, leaping merrily into the unknown, onwards they plunge, into the voyage of matrimony. Gunbir Singh

A man who lives with his wife is safer and more venerable than a man who lives with a tramp. Michael Bassey Johnson

In matters of religion and matrimony I never give advice, because I will not have anybody's torments in this world or the next laid to my charge. Philip Dormer Stanhope

Ode to the Chamber...linger here amidst the chamberin which we embrace our lovetalk to me of sonnetsand call me turtledove... Muse

I shall expect my husband to have no pleasures but what he shares with me; and if his greatest pleasure of all is not the enjoyment of my company - why - it will be the worse for him - that's all.'' If such are your expectations of matrimony, Esther, you must, indeed, be careful whom you marry - or rather, you must avoid it altogether. Unknown

Philip wasn't the sort of man to make a friend of a woman. He wanted devotion. I gave him that. I did, you know. But I couldn't stand being made a fool of. I couldn;t stand being put on probation, like an office-boy, to see if I was good enough to be condescended to. I quite thought he was honest when he said he didn't believe in marriage -- and then it turned out that it was a test, to see whether my devotion was abject enough. Well, it wasn't. I didn't like having matrimony offered as a bad-conduct prize. Dorothy L. Sayers

Marriage is not 'I', its 'We'. Amit Kalantri

Marriage: a deeply peculiar and ultimately unkind thing to inflict on anyone one claims to care for. Alain De Botton

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