Marriages stop. Marriages change. People are always saying a married ‘failed’. It’s such a negative way of putting it ... Failure is terribly important. Perhaps that's why I’m saying: the notion that failure is a negative thing is wrong. Emma Thompson, Vanity Fair February 1996
Wedlock, indeed, hath oft compared been
To public fests where neet a public rout,
Where they that are without would fain go in
And they that are within would fain go out. John Davies, 1569-1626
It just isn’t the scene for me. Marianne Faithfull, interview 1968
We do not squabble, fight or have rows. We collect grudges. We’re in an arms race, storing up warheads for the domestic Armageddon. Hugh Leonard, Time Was, 1980
But I tempt you with the joys of married life. It is good for the community. Every time there is a marriage there is more rain in the village. Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger p190
His designs were strictly honourable, as the phrase is; that is, to rob a lady of her fortune by way of marriage. Henry Fielding, Tom Jones
That monstrous animal, a husband and wife. ibid.
One fool at least in every married couple. ibid.
From marrying in haste, and repenting at leisure;
Not liking the person, yet liking his treasure: Elizabeth Thomas, 1722
Love and marriage rarely can combine,
Although they both are born in the same clime;
Marriage from love, like vinegar from wine –
A sad, sour, sober beverage – by time
Is sharpened from its high celestrial flavour,
Down to a very homely household savour. Lord Byron, Don Juan
Still I can’t contradict what as oft has been said,
‘Though women are angels, yet wedlock’s the devil’. Lord Byron, To Eliza
If marriage be such a blessed state, how comes it you may say that there are so few happy marriages? Mary Astell, 1668-1731, Some Reflections Upon Marriage
Tis less to be wondered at that women marry off in haste, for if they took time to consider and reflect upon it, they seldom would. ibid.
Tho’ marriage makes man and wife one flesh, it leaves ’em still two fools. William Congreve, 1670-1729, The Double Dealer
Sharper: Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure:
Married in haste, we may repent at leisure.
Setter: Some by experience find those words misplaced:
At leisure married, they repent in haste. William Congreve, The Old Bachelor
Courtships to married, as a very witty prologue to a very dull play. ibid.
Would I were free from this restraint,
Or else had hopes to win her;
Would she could make of me a saint,
Or I of her a sinner. William Congreve, Pious Selinda Goes to Prayers
Never marry a man who hates his mother, because he’ll end up hating you. Jill Bennett, 1931-1990, Observer Sayings of the Week September 1982
June Whitfield: I could have married anyone I pleased.
Terry Scott: Yes, but you didn’t please anyone. Scott On, late 1960s, writer John Kane
The joys of marriage are the heaven on earth,
Life’s paradise, great princess, the soul’s quiet,
Sinews of concord, earthly immortality,
Eternity of pleasures; no restoratives
Life to a constant woman. John Ford, The Broken Heart
Two souls with but a single thought,
Two hearts that beat as one. Friedrich Halm, De Sohn der Wildnis, 1842
So that is marriage, Lily thought, a man and a woman looking at a girl throwing a ball. Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
Oh! How many torments lie in the small circle of a wedding ring! Colley Cibber, 1671-1757, The Double Gallant
I married beneath me; all women do. Nancy Astor, 1879-1964, attributed
What man thinks of changing himself as to suit his wife? And yet men expect that women shall put on altogether new characters when they are married, and girls think that they can do so. Anthony Trollope, Phineas Redux
There is no road to wealth so easy and respectable as that of matrimony. Anthony Trollope, Doctor Thorne
A living doll, everywhere you look.
It can sew, it can cook,
It can talk, talk, talk.
It works, there is nothing wrong with it.
You have a hole, it’s a poultice.
You have an eye, it’s an image.
My boy, it’s your last resort.
Will you marry it, marry it, marry it. Sylvia Plath, The Applicant, 1966
Marriage is the grave or tomb of wit. Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, 1624-1674
Reading and marriage don’t go well together. Moliere aka Jean-Baptiste Poquelin
Marriage: it is as if a dead and living body had been linked together in loathsome and horrible communion. Percy Bysshe Shelley
Ay, Marry thy Ghastly Wife
Let Fear and Disquiet and Strife
Spread thy couch in the chamber of life!
Marry Ruin Thou Tyrant! and Hell be Thy Guide
To the Bed of thy Bride. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lines Written During the Castlereagh Administration
Alf Garnett: I never attempted to touch your mother until after we was married.
Wife: Well after. Till Death Us Do Part, BBC
Mrs Malaprop: What business have you, Miss, with preference and aversion? They don’t become a young woman; and you ought to know, that as both always wear off, ’tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion. I am sure I hated your poor dear uncle before marriage as if he’d been a blackamoor – and yet, Miss, you are sensible what a wife I made! – and when it pleased Heaven to release me from him, ’tis unknown what tears I shed! Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The Rivals
You had no taste when you married me. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal
No man is in love when he marries. He may have loved before; I have ever heard he has sometimes loved after: but at the time never. There is something in the formalities of the matrimonial preparations that drive away all the little cupidons. Fanny Burney, English novelist & diarist
Then shun, oh! shun all wretched state
And all the fawning flatterers hate:
Value yourselves, and men dispise
You must be proud if you’ll be wise. Mary Lady Chudleigh, 1656-1710, Poems: To the Ladies
It doesn’t much signify whom one marries, for one is sure to find next morning that it was someone else. Samuel Rogers, 1763-1855
Every woman wants the wedding of her dream. Every bridge wants the perfect day. What happens when your dream is on prison lockdown? Every year over two million couples tie the knot across the United States. Married Behind Bars, Channel 4 2015
The service will last roughly five minutes ... They will not be allowed to touch. The whole ceremony will be behind bullet proof glass. ibid.
Marriage is not something that falls out of the sky ready-made on to beautiful people in white linen suits, it involves endless hard work and love. Lord Justice Coleridge, The Mail p6 30th April 2012
In marriage, a man becomes slack and selfish, and undergoes a fatty degeneration of his moral being. Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque, 1881