Sourced and curated.

The sum which two married people owe to one another defies calculation. It is an infinite debt, which can only be discharged through all eternity.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Elective Affinities · 1808

★ 6.2

Letter

In the true marriage relation, the independence of the husband and wife is equal, the dependence mutual and their obligations reciprocal.

Lucretia Mott

1880

★ 6.1

Supreme Court opinion · Legal opinion · Legal writing

These men and women...ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.

Anthony Kennedy

Obergefell v. Hodges · 2015

★ 6.1

Novel · Magazine

Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.

Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray · 1890

★ 5.5

Essay

It happens as with the cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.

Michel de Montaigne

Essays · 1580

★ 5.4

Lecture

The legal theory is, that marriage makes the husband and wife one person, and that person is the husband.

Lucretia Mott

Discourse on Woman · 1849

★ 5.3

Interview · TV program

There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.

Diana, Princess of Wales

1995

★ 4.7

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

Genesis 2:24

1405 BC

★ 4.6

Marriage must ceaselessly combat a monster that devours everything: habit.

Honore de Balzac

Physiologie du Mariage · 1829

★ 4.5

The best part of married life is the fights. The rest is merely so-so.

Thornton Wilder

1954

★ 4.5

He who finds a wife finds a good thing, And obtains favor from the Lord.

Proverbs 18:22

686 BC

★ 4.4

Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and, however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want.

Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice · 1813

★ 3.9

Novel · Coming of age story

Reader, I married him.

Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre: An Autobiography · 1847

★ 3.9

Historical literature

A Roman divorced from his wife, being highly blamed by his friends, who demanded, "Was she not chaste? Was she not fair? Was she not fruitful? Holding out his shoe, asked them whether it was not new and well made. "Yet," added he, "none of you can tell where it pinches me."

Plutarch

Plutarch's Lives · 119

★ 3.8

Play · History (play)

For what is wedlock forced but a hell, An age of discord and continual strife? Whereas the contrary bringeth bliss And is a pattern of celestial peace.

William Shakespeare

Henry VI, Part 1 · 1592

★ 3.8

If there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and have more occasion to know one another...upon familiarity will grow more content.

William Shakespeare

The Merry Wives of Windsor · 1602

★ 3.8

Personal journal

No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.

Mark Twain

1894

★ 3.8

Film · Comedy drama (film) · Romantic comedy (film) · Comedy drama · Romantic comedy

I just woke up one day and I knew.

Summer

(500) Days of Summer · 2009

★ 3.8

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

God

Exodus 20:14 · 1405 BC

★ 3.7

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 sharpen'd from its high celestial flavour, Down to a very homely household savour.

Lord Byron

Don Juan · 1821

★ 3.7

Essay · Political literature

Marriage is the only actual bondage known to our law. There remain no legal slaves, except the mistress of every house.

John Stuart Mill

The Subjection of Women · 1869

★ 3.7

Essay · Political literature

No slave is a slave to the same lengths, and in so full a sense of the word, as a wife is.

John Stuart Mill

The Subjection of Women · 1869

★ 3.7

Play

There is one thing worse than an absolutely loveless marriage. A marriage in which there is love, but on one side only.

Oscar Wilde

An Ideal Husband · 1895

★ 3.7

Film · Mystery (film) · Thriller (film) · Mystery · Thriller

Every man's ready for marriage when the right girl comes along.

Stella

Rear Window · 1954

★ 3.7

Film · Drama (film) · Drama

Even if a husband lives two hundred fucking years, he'll never be able to discover his wife's real nature. I mean, I might be able to comprehend the universe, but, I'll never discover the truth about you. Never.

Paul

Last Tango in Paris · 1972

★ 3.7

Play · History (play)

Hasty marriage seldom proveth well.

William Shakespeare

Henry VI, Part 3 · 1595

★ 3.6

Essay

He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question when a man should marry, "A young man not yet, an elder man not at all."

Francis Bacon

1625

★ 3.6

Courtship to marriage, as a very witty prologue to a very dull play.

William Congreve

1693

★ 3.6

Autobiography and memoir

Marriage is a sacrament which I detest... Because it is the tomb of love.

Giacomo Casanova

1838

★ 3.6

Essay · Political literature

The moral regeneration of mankind will only really commence, when the most fundamental of the social relations is placed under the rule of equal justice, and when human beings learn to cultivate their strongest sympathy with an equal in rights and in cultivation.

John Stuart Mill

The Subjection of Women · 1869

★ 3.6

He is dreadfully married. He's the most married man I ever saw in my life.

Artemus Ward

1869

★ 3.6

Essay

Marriage is like life in this-that it is a field of battle, and not a bed of roses.

Robert Louis Stevenson

1876

★ 3.6

Religious literature

Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder.

The Book of Common Prayer

1928

★ 3.6

Bigamy is having one husband too many. Monogamy is the same.

Erica Jong

Fear of Flying · 1973

★ 3.6

Film · Road movie · Comedy (film) · Comedy

Love...is not a big enough word. It's not a big enough word for how I feel about my wife.

Del Griffith

Planes, Trains and Automobiles · 1987

★ 3.6

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.

Ephesians 5:25

★ 3.5

I would be married, but I'de have no Wife, I would be married to a single Life.

Richard Crashaw

1646

★ 3.5

Then be not coy, but use your time; And while ye may, go marry For having lost but once your prime, You may forever tarry.

Robert Herrick

1648

★ 3.5

Letter

In matters of religion and matrimony I never give any advice; because I will not have anybody's torments in this world or the next laid to my charge.

Lord Chesterfield

1765

★ 3.5

Marriage may often be a stormy lake, but celibacy is almost always a muddy horsepond.

Thomas Love Peacock

1817

★ 3.5

Letter

A good marriage is that in which each appoints the other guardian of his solitude.

Rainer Maria Rilke

1901

★ 3.5

Meek wifehood is no part of my profession; I am your friend, but never your possession.

Vera Brittain

1926

★ 3.5

Religious literature

If any man can show just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.

The Book of Common Prayer

1928

★ 3.5

In every house of marriage there's room for an interpreter.

Stanley Kunitz

1930

★ 3.5

Religious literature

To have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.

The Book of Common Prayer

1928

★ 3.5

The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.

Peter De Vries

1954

★ 3.5

Marriage is a wonderful invention; but, then again, so is a bicycle repair kit.

Billy Connolly

1976

★ 3.5

To marry is to halve your rights and double your duties.

Arthur Schopenhauer

On Women · 1819

★ 2.9

When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.

George Bernard Shaw

1908

★ 2.6

Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.

Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice · 1813

★ 2.4

Play · Tragedy (play)

Never shall I say that marriage brings more joy than pain.

Euripides

Alcestis · 438 BC

★ 2.2

Almanac

In Marriage without love, there will be Love without Marriage.

Benjamin Franklin

1734

★ 2.2

Almanac

Keep your eye wide open before Marriage, half shut afterwards.

Benjamin Franklin

1738

★ 2.2

Almanac

You can bear your own Faults, why not a Fault in your Wife?

Benjamin Franklin

1750

★ 2.2

Film · Epic (film) · Historical romance (film) · Epic · Historical romance

Did you ever think of marrying just for fun?

Rhett Butler

Gone with the Wind · 1939

★ 2.2

Fragment

Marriage, if one will face the truth, is an evil, but a necessary evil.

Menander

290 BC

★ 2.1