Lastly (and this is, perhaps, the golden rule), no woman should marry a teetotaller or a man who does not smoke. ibid.
Marriage is a step so grave and decisive that it attracts light-headed, variable men by its very awfulness. ibid.
Marriage is like life in this – that it is a field of battle, and not a bed of roses. ibid.
To marry is to domesticate the Recording Angel. Once you are married, there is nothing left for you, not even suicide, but to be good. ibid.
The critical period in matrimony is breakfast-time. A P Herbert, Uncommon Law, 1935
The triumph of hope over experience. Samuel Johnson, re man who remarried immediately after death of wife
It is so far from being natural for a man and woman to live in a state of marriage that we find all the motives which they have for remaining in that connection, and the restraints which civilized society imposes to prevent separation are hardly sufficient to keep them together. Samuel Johnson, cited James Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson
Marriages would in general be as happy, and often more so, if they were all made by the Lord Chancellor, upon a due consideration of characters and circumstances, without the parties having any choice in the matter. Samuel Johnson
Udaynath Dakshiniray, 80, from Orali, India, has been married no fewer than 90 times. Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! 2006
If married life were all that it might be expected to be, looking to the laws alone, society would be a hell upon earth. John Stuart Mill
Drunken Bride: Don’t touch me. Well. I shall first of all like to start by apologising for my husband’s fucking dull story. He gets a bit carried away sometimes. John proposed to me seven times. Seven! A lesser man would probably have given up by round four, but not my John. Not my little Johnny. He just kept banging away, wearing me down, until finally to save him any more humiliation I said yes. The Catherine Tate Show
To date I have had thirty-nine. All men. Thirty-nine sexual liaisons. In fifteen active years. I just wish I could remember what number John was. ibid.
Reader, I married him. Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
I am to be married within these three days;
Married past redemption. John Dryden, 1631-1700, Marriage a la Mode
A married man? That’s the whole problem. You know what it means being a married man? It means I suffer. It means I’m a pack animal. I’m a refuge collector. I’m a slave and a serf. Chekhov: Comedy Shorts: A Reluctant Tragic Hero starring Johnny Vegas & Mackenzie Crook, Sky Arts 2010
Marry you? I intend to shoot you on the field of honour. Chekhov: Comedy Shorts: The Bear starring Julian Barratt & Julia David & Reece Shearsmith
Never say that marriage has more of joy than of pain. Euripides, Alcestis, 438 B.C.
He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or of mischief. Francis Bacon, Essays: ‘Of Marriage and the Single Life’, 1625
The heart of marriage is memories. Bill Cosby
Women love scallywags, but some marry them and then try to make them wear a blazer. David Bailey, English photographer, cited Mail on Sunday 16th February 1997
The Catholic Church is right to stand up for the sanctity of marriage ... If it was easier, it would cheapen ... those vows. And abuse God really. Catherine Townsend 4thought.tv
Can’t get away to marry you today,
My wife won’t let me! Fred W Leigh, Waiting at the Church, 1906 song 1906
Why am I always the bridesmaid,
Never the blushing bride? Fred W Leigh, Why am I Always the Bridesmaid? song 1917
How had the Church come to impose rules on the most unpredictable human emotions of love and lust? How were medieval marriages made? Dr Helen Castor, Medieval Lives II: Birth, Death and Marriage, BBC 2013
By the 14th century wherever marriage vows took place, even if it was in a hedgerow, ritual sanction by the Church ensured the union was valid. ibid.
And if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife.
If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins. Exodus 22:16&17
And he shall take a wife in her virginity.
A widow, or a divorced woman, or profane, or an harlot, these shall he not take: but he shall take a virgin of his own people to wife. Leviticus 21:13&14
Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun. Ecclesiastes 9:9
For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. Matthew 22:30
Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman.
Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.
Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.
The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.
I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I.
But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.
And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband:
But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife.
But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away.
And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.
For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.
But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace.
For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? Or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?
Art thou bound unto a wife? Seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? Seek not a wife.
But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you.
But if any man think that he behaveth himself uncomely toward his virgin, if she pass the flower of her age, and need so require, let him do what he will, he sinneth not: let them marry.
Nevertheless he that standeth stedfast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath power over his own will, and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin, doeth well.
So then he that giveth her in marriage doeth well; but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better.
The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord. I Corinthians 7:1-29&36-39