At the beginning of a marriage ask yourself whether this woman will be interesting to talk to from now until old age. Everything else in marriage is transitory: most of the time is spent in conversation.
When passion is not fed, it changes to need. At this juncture, marriage becomes a fixed idea in the mind of the bourgeois, being the only means whereby he can win a woman and appropriate her to his uses.
Your most vital necessity in this life is that you shall love your wife completely and implicitly and in an entire nakedness of body and spirit.... this that I tell you is my message as far as I've got any.