Marriage is an institution that teaches a man regularity, frugality, temperance, forbearance and many other splendid virtues he would not need had he stayed single.
Yes, marriage is hateful, detestable. A kind of ineffable, sickening disgust seizes my mind when I think of this most despotic, most unrequited fetter which prejudice has forged to confine its energies.
I will be master of what is mine own:
She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,
My household stuff, my field, my barn,
My horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing.
Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?
Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.
Marriage is a fight to the death. Before contracting it, the two parties concerned implore the benediction of Heaven because to promise to love each other forever is the rashest of enterprises.
Protestantism came and gave a great blow to the religious and ritualistic rhythm of the year, in human life. Non-conformity almostfinished the deed.... Mankind has got to get back to the rhythm of the cosmos, and the permanence of marriage.