Quotes About Marriage

It is not we as individuals, then, who must bend uncomfortably around the institution of marriage; rather, it is the institution of marriage that has to bend uncomfortably around us.

There are always two figures in a marriage, two votes, two conflicting sets of decisions, desires and limitations.

In every possible instance Saint Paul begged Christians to restrain themselves to contain their carnal yearnings to live solitary and sexless lives on earth as it is in heaven. But if they cannot contain Paul finally conceded then let them marry for it is better to marry than to burn. Which is perhaps the most begrudging endorsement of matrimony in human history.

The Silly Putty-like malleability of the institution [marriage], in fact, is the only reason we still have the thing at all. Very few people... would accept marriage on it's thirteenth-century terms. Marriage survives, in other words, precisely because it evolves. (Though I suppose this would not be a very persuasive argument to those who probably also don't believe in evolution).

The Buddha referred to married people as "householders." He even gave clear instructions as to how one should be a good householder: Be nice to your spouse, be honest, be faithful, give alms to the poor, buy some insurance against fire and flood . . . I'm dead serious: The Buddha literally advised married couples to buy property insurance.

Marriage is a game. They (the anxious and powerful) set the rules. We (the ordinary and subversive) bow obediently before those rules. And then we go home and do whatever the hell we want anyhow.

This is what intimacy does to us over time. That's what a long marriage can do: It causes us to inherit and trade each other's stories. This, in part, is how we become annexes of each other, trellises on which each other's biography can grow.

The emotional place where a marriage begins is not nearly as important as the emotional place where a marriage finds itself toward the end, after many years of partnership.

For the first time in my life, it occurred to me that perhaps I was asking too much of love. Or, at least, perhaps I was asking too much of marriage. Perhaps I was loading a far heavier cargo of expectation onto the creaky old boat of matrimony than that strange vessel had ever been built to accommodate in the first place.

I remember saying once to my friend Susan, when my marriage was becoming intolerable, I don't want my children growing up in a household like this. Susan said, Why don't you leave those so-called children out of the discussion? They don't even exist yet. Why can't you just admit that you don't want to live in unhappiness anymore?

Wanting to get married, for me, is all about a desire to feel chosen." She went on to write that while the concept of building a life together with another adult was appealing, what really pulled at her heart was the desire for a wedding, a public event "that will unequivocally prove to everyone, especially to myself, that I am precious enough to have been selected by somebody forever.

And try not to make a habit of getting engaged in the first place, Vivvie. It can leade to marriage if you're not careful.

So when modern-day religious conservatives wax nostalgic about how marriage is a sacred tradition that reaches back into history for thousands of uninterrupted years, they are absolutely correct, but in only one respect—only if they happen to be talking about Judaism.

I asked for so little!" she kept saying, as though her diminished demands alone should have protected her against any disappointments. But I think she was mistaken; she had actually asked for a lot. She had dared to ask for happiness, and she had dared to expect that happiness out of her marriage. You can't possibly ask for more than that.

C. S. Lewis, when he wrote of his wife, "We both knew this: I had my miseries, not hers; she had hers, not mine.

There's something about a white gown - setting aside the obnoxious question of virginity - that signals to a man that this day is not like any other day. It shows him that he's been chosen. It means a lot to men, I have learned over the years, to see their brides walking toward them in white. Helps to quiet their insecurities. And you'd be surprised how insecure the men can be.

Minu jaoks on abielu nagu operatsioon, mis õmbleb kaks inimest kokku; lahutus seevastu meenutab amputatsiooni ja sellest tervenemine võtab kõvasti aega. Mida kauem kooselu kestis või mida jõhkramalt teid lahku amputeeriti, seda raskem on lahutusest toibuda.

I see marriage as an operation that sews two people together, and divorce is a kind of amputation that can take a long time to heal. The longer you were married, or the rougher the amputation, the harder it is to recover.

i don't want to be marry anymore

I don't think that marriage means to suffer endlessly, in order to prove that you can honor a commitment. I don't think marriage is supposed to be an endurance contest.

Getting out of a marriage is rough, though, and not just for the legal / financial complications or the massive lifestyle upheaval. (As my friend Deborah once advised me wisely: Nobody ever died from splitting up furniture.) It's the emotional recoil that kills you, the shock of stepping off the track of a conventional lifestyle and losing all the embracing comforts that keep so many people on that track forever.

Like a dog, I have pack needs; like a cat, he prefers a quieter house. As long as he is married to me, his house will never be quiet.

My husband was sleeping in the other room, in our bed. I equal parts loved him and could not stand him. I couldn't wake him to share in my distress-what would be the point?

We'd been fighting and crying, and we were weary in that way that only a couple whose marriage is collapsing can be weary. We had the eyes of refugees.