Marriage Quotes

I harbor ill feelings toward a society, and a clergy, that allows marriage partners to split over the smallest incompatibility, where divorce comes in a multitude of flavors, like Baskin Robbins ice cream, where men and women can blame one another and everything except themselves for matrimony's mess. They look for externals over which they have no control and, fingering them, take no responsibility.

~ Robert Dykstra

Things were different back then. Today if a woman was asked to do the things we did back then, she would revolt, declare that she wasn’t anyone’s slave, wouldn’t be put upon in that fashion. But you have to remember that this was before automatic washers and dishwashers, before blenders and electric knives. If the carpet was going to get cleaned, someone, usually a woman, would have to take a broom to it, or would have to haul it on her shoulders to the yard and beat the dirt out of it. If the wet clothes were going to get dry, someone had to hang them in the yard, take them down from the yard, heat the iron on the fire, press them, and finally fold or hang them. Food was chopped by hand, fires were stoked by hand, water was carried by hand, anything roasted, toasted, broiled, dried, beaten, pressed, packed, or pickled, was done so by hand. Our version of a laborsaving device was called a spouse. If a man had a woman by his side, he didn’t have to clean and cook for himself. If a woman had a man by her side, she didn’t have to go out, earn a living, then come home and wrestle the house to the ground in the evening.

~ Susan Lynn Peterson

Be a wife of whom he can make no complaint, Margaret. That is the best advice I can give to you. You will be his wife; that is to be his servant, his possession. He will be your master. You had better please him.

~ Philippa Gregory

I feel conscious that I should find no reason to regret abandoning so pleasant a manner of life and such valuable privileges to become a wife of anyone. Beside, marriag is not in my opinion, so exceedingly desirable as some persons think. A woman's career is over when she marries. Once married, all is fixed - certainty takes the place of all her pleasant dreams. For her, no more hopes, no more doubts, no more suspense, no more possibility of anything better. She knows what she is and will be until death. For my part, I like to give free scope to my thoughts.

~ Klementyna Tanska Hoffmanowa

Why is it a girl has to be so silly to catch a husband?”“Ah specs it’s kase gempmums doan know whut dey wants. Dey jes’ knows whut dey thinks dey wants. An’ givin’ dem whut dey thinksdey wants saves a pile of mizry an’ bein’ a ole maid. An’ dey thinks dey wants mousy lil gals wid bird’s tastes an’ no sense atall. It doan make a gempmum feel lak mahyin’ a lady ef he suspicions she got mo’ sense dan he has.

~ Margaret Mitchell

A fine young man and a fine young felly he always was, except that in the old days, before you began coming in here, Mr. Witherwax, he maybe had too much money and spent too much of it on girls. Take them alone, either one; the money without the women, or a good girl without the money that can be a help to a young felly, and he's fixed for life. But put them together; and often as not, the young felly goes on the booze. (The Better Mousetrap)

~ Fletcher Pratt

She thought too that women didn't know what to do with themselves these days which could turn them into harridans. Hardly a female friend she knew wasn't miserable. Either mind dumb with children, or in the married condition married to an earnest toiler, or lonely unmarried in their successful career.

~ J.p. Donleavy

Were kisses all the joys in bed,/One woman would another wed.

~ William Shakespeare

...As marriage was woman's business, unmarried women, though doubtless unfortunate, must simply be considered as business failures: harsh, doubtless, but in tune with the sink-or-swim capitalist times.

~ Ruth Brandon

... I regularly frequent St. George';s, Hanover Square, during the genteel marriage season; and though I have never seen the bridegroom's male friends give way to tears, or the beadles and officiating clergy in any way affected, yet it is not at all uncommon to see women who are not in the least concerned in the operations going on -- old ladies who are long past marrying, stout middle-aged females with plenty of sons and daughters, let alone pretty young creatures in pink bonnets, who are on their promotion, and may naturally taken an interest in the ceremony -- I say it is quite common to see the women present piping, sobbing, sniffling; hiding their little faces in their little useless pocket-handkerchiefs; and heaving, old and young, with emotion.

~ William Makepeace Thackeray

In its various forms, so far as we know them, Love seems always to have a deep significance and a most practical importance to us little mortals. In one form, as the mere semi-conscious Sex-love, which runs through creation and is common to the lowest animals and plants, it appears as a kind of organic basis for the unity of all creatures; in another, as the love of the mother for her offspring—which may also be termed a passion—it seems to pledge itself to the care and guardianship of the future race; in another, as the marriage of man and woman, it becomes the very foundation of human society. And so we can hardly believe that in its homogenic form, with which we are here concerned, it has not also a deep significance, and social uses and functions which will become clearer to us, the more we study it.

~ Edward Carpenter

Now,' Elias said, 'if only I didn't have to go home to my lousy wife. I married her in 1929. A lot of things've changed since 1929.' He sighed. 'What's a woman?' he asked. 'A Woman is a trap.

~ Irwin Shaw

Some women’s love of being loved is insatiable ; and so, often, is their love of loving; and in the last case they may find that they can’t give it continuously to the chamber-officer appointed by the bishop’s licence to receive it.

~ Thomas Hardy

It's as if our being academic equals means we must be inadequate wives and mothers,' says Noura.All of these girls have been called 'intimidating' and 'outspoken' by their Muslim counterparts, simply for being themselves. Their accomplishments usually leave men feeling emasculated, they say.'It's still going to take Muslim men a couple more generations to catch up and realise girls like us want love, not money,' says Ayesha.

~ Sabrina Mahfouz

A woman, desires to hear nice words from a man who can praise her beauty.

~ Auliq Ice

Gender bias is written and practiced throughout all of the world's societies.From the words 'mankind' to 'man'.From the inequality in 'pays for work done' and to 'tasks which are needed to be done'. From the sanctity of marriage when a woman takes a 'man's' name.From the religious overtones when women are not allowed or permitted to join in and be treated as equal and conduct rites.Even the words 'woman' and 'women' are gender orientated.The genders will never be equal, nor will they ever be allowed to be for man has seen to that.To man, everything is about ownership and dominance with the need to control everything that he sees fit.Maybe...it's time for a change in thinking and being.it's a time to be equal and one.

~ Anthony T. Hincks

If a man ever lets you know that he sees marriage as a trap, and women as nothing but scheming connivers, you are by no means to marry him. Any man that sees your entire sex in so harsh a light has nothing to offer you.

~ Courtney Milan

To the young woman I say, This is the moment in your life when he who is wooing you will be at his kindest. And if you do not see kindness in the man you are dating, beware! For the partnership you are looking for will be nourished and nurtured only on the basis of a love that is not arrogant or prideful, but kind.

~ Ravi Zacharias

He is not an ideal husband. I am his wife.

~ Ljupka Cvetanova

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

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.

~ Christina Queen Of Sweden

Women. You have to love them the way they are or they'll drive you insane.

~ James Hauenstein

But men are bound to saySome things that, though untrue,Will get you down the aisleUntil you say I do.

~ Joyce Rachelle

What to do with daughters has always been something of a problem, unless they are so pretty or so passive or so wealthy that they are snatched up as brides as soon as the come of marriageable age.— THE COLLECTORS: DR. CLARIBEL AND MISS ETTA CONE

~ Barbara Pollack

It is merely the egoism of men, who wants to bury a woman like a treasure. All attempts at using vows, contracts, and holy ceremonies have failed to bring permanence into the most changeable aspect of changeable human existence, namely love. Can you deny that our Christina world is rotting?

~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

For men, women are their ‘counter weights’ and when that is not enough, their daughters are their ‘counter weights.’ One can’t do without a counter weight. Otherwise, he will fall over.

~ Dada Bhagwan

Some women would not cheat, and some would not have cheated, had they each married a man whom they love … or at least like.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Until our own time, history focussed on man the achiever; the higher the achiever the more likely it was that the woman who slept in his bed would be judged unworthy of his company. Her husband's fans recoiled from the notion that she might have made a significant contribution towards his achievement of greatness. The possibility that a wife might have been closer to their idol than they could ever be, understood him better than they ever could, could not be entertained.

~ Germaine Greer

Getting married is easy, having sex is easier, but findings someone who can stimulate your mind and make love to your soul, that is rare.

~ Habeeb Akande

Ladies, you have a ton of power if you just understand the fundamental differences between men and women and unaffectedly play by the rules.

~ Julieanne O'connor

My feeling on the subject of sex with a man is - don't give it up unless you're willing to give him up. Not in the beginning. Sex is power!

~ Julieanne O'connor

There will be a time when love is beautiful and passionate and nothing else will exist but you and the person you love, and a time when love hurts so badly that you will wish you wouldn't wake up. I say this. Always, always, always approach love with the heart of the angel you were born with.

~ Julieanne O'connor

Marry for love. But also choose to marry a man or woman who you love that treats you with the ultimate respect for your expression of who you are at your very core.

~ Julieanne O'connor

To love without ownership, to love with total trust and faith in that very love, to love with the same faith you have that your heart will keep beating moments from now, that is the ultimate love.

~ Julieanne O'connor

Life is surreal. When you step back and really take a look at it, the irony is absolute.

~ Julieanne O'connor

We will all experience the judgment of others when we fall in love. Love with your whole being anyway.

~ Julieanne O'connor

Men love pleasure, but women wish for purposeful promise.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

When colleges, both within the Hudson Valley and throughout the country, encouraged women to do little beyond attaining their Mrs. degree in Husbandry, Annandale offered rigorous and prestigious degrees irrespective of gender.

~ Thomm Quackenbush

Benazir Bhutto doesn't cease to exist the moment she gets married. I am not giving myself away. I belong to myself and I always shall.

~ Benazir Bhutto

Women always think in the catastrophic, and when there is a calamity to rectify that might require a unmarried granddaughter, there older women will always act. Their powers of foresight and vigilance might make any disheveled or nubile young haggage ready for the altar in five minutes.

~ Michelle Franklin