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C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Matrimony

It is not good that the man should be alone.

Bible.

The bloom or blight of all men’s happiness.

Byron.

What, therefore, God hath joined together let not man put asunder.

Bible.

Hearts with equal love combined kindle never-dying fires.

Carew.

Of earthly goods the best, is a good wife.

Simonides.

Wedlock’s a lane where there is no turning.

Miss Mulock.

Marriages are made in heaven.

Tennyson.

He that takes a wife takes care.

Franklin.

If you wish to ruin yourself, marry a rich wife.

Michelet.

Marriages are best of dissimilar material.

Theodore Parker.

Married in haste, we repent at leisure.

Congreve.

It is hard to wive and thrive both in a year.

Tennyson.

An obedient wife commands her husband.

Tennyson.

Well-married, a man is winged: ill-matched, he is shackled.

Henry Ward Beecher.

Hasty marriage seldom proveth well.

Shakespeare.

Marriage is a desperate thing.

John Selden.

Man is the circled oak; woman the ivy.

Aaron Hill.

Marriage is the nursery of heaven!

Jeremy Taylor.

A light wife doth make a heavy husband.

Shakespeare.

A young man married is a man that’s marred.

Shakespeare.

Hanging and wiving go by destiny.

Shakespeare.

Marriage is a feast where the grace is sometimes better than the dinner.

Colton.

Men are April when they woo, December when they wed.

Shakespeare.

Husbands and wives talk of the cares of matrimony, and bachelors and spinsters bear them.

Wilkie Collins.

Strong are the instincts with which God has guarded the sacredness of marriage.

Maria M’Intosh.

No man can either live piously or die righteous without a wife.

Richter.

I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well.

Goldsmith.

Hail, wedded love, mysterious law, true source of human offspring!

Milton.

A man finds himself seven years older the day after his marriage.

Bacon.

The instances, that second marriage move, are base respects of thrift, but none of love.

Shakespeare.

A wife is a gift bestowed upon a man to reconcile him to the loss of paradise.

Goethe.

  • The world well tried, the sweetest thing in life
  • Is the unclouded welcome of a wife.
  • Willis.

    Humble wedlock is far better than proud virginity.

    St. Augustine.

    Never marry but for love; but see that thou lovest what is lovely.

    William Penn.

    Should all despair that have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind would hang themselves.

    Shakespeare.

  • If you would have the nuptial union last,
  • Let virtue be the bond that ties it fast.
  • Rowe.

  • Domestic happiness, thou only bliss
  • Of paradise that has survived the fall.
  • Cowper.

    Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children.

    William Penn.

    As the husband is, the wife is; thou art mated with a clown.

    Tennyson.

    The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie.

    Shakespeare.

    Go down the ladder when thou marriest a wife; go up when thou choosest a friend.

    Rabbi Ben Azai.

    It is in vain for a man to be born fortunate, if he be unfortunate in his marriage.

    Dacier.

  • Ay, marriage is the life-long miracle,
  • The self-begetting wonder, daily fresh.
  • Charles Kingsley.

    Two consorts in heaven are not two, but one angel.

    Swedenborg.

    There are good marriages, but there are no delightful ones.

    La Rochefoucauld.

    Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.

    Shakespeare.

    Oh! how many torments lie in the small circle of a wedding ring.

    Colley Cibber.

  • I will fasten on this sleeve of thine;
  • Thou art an elm, my husband, I, a vine.
  • Shakespeare.

  • There swims no goose so gray, but soon or late
  • She finds some honest gander for her mate.
  • Pope.

    When men enter into the state of marriage, they stand nearest to God.

    Henry Ward Beecher.

    Matrimony,—the high sea for which no compass has yet been invented.

    Heine.

  • Look down, you gods,
  • And on this couple drop a blessed crown.
  • Shakespeare.

  • She that weds well will wisely match her love,
  • Nor be below her husband nor above.
  • Ovid.

    A husband is a plaster that cures all the ills of girlhood.

    Molière.

    Marriage must be a relation either of sympathy or of conquest.

    George Eliot.

  • O marriage! marriage! what a curse is thine,
  • Where hands alone consent and hearts abhor.
  • Hill.

  • Wedlock’s a saucy, sad, familiar state,
  • Where folks are very apt to scold and hate.
  • Dr. Wolcot.

    God has set the type of marriage everywhere throughout the creation.

    Luther.

  • She’s not well married, that lives married long;
  • But she’s best married, that dies married young.
  • Shakespeare.

    When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.

    Shakespeare.

    Heaven will be no heaven to me if I do not meet my wife there.

    Andrew Jackson.

    No navigator has yet traced lines of latitude and longitude on the conjugal sea.

    Balzac.

    There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.

    Thoreau.

    For parents to restrain the inclinations of their children in marriage is an usurped power.

    Fielding.

    The Italians have this proverb: In buying houses and taking a wife, shut your eyes and commend yourself to God.

    Duclos.

    Let still the woman take an elder than herself; so wears she to him, so sways she level in her husband’s heart.

    Shakespeare.

    It goes far towards reconciling me to being a woman, when I reflect that I am thus in no danger of ever marrying one.

    Lady Montagu.

    Men should keep their eyes wide open before marriage, and half shut afterwards.

    Mlle. Scudéri.

    If people only made prudent marriages, what a stop to population there would be!

    Thackeray.

    God, the best maker of all marriages, combine your hearts in one, your realms in one.

    Shakespeare.

    Marriage, by making us more contented, causes us often to be less enterprising.

    Bovee.

    When a man and woman are married, their romance ceases and their history commences.

    Rochebrune.

    There cannot be any great happiness in the married life except each in turn give up his or her own humors and lesser inclinations.

    Richardson.

    When thou choosest a wife, think not only of thyself, but of those God may give thee of her, that they reproach thee not for their being.

    Tupper.

    Marriage is the best state for man in general; and every man is a worse man in proportion as he is unfit for the married state.

    Johnson.

    Love in marriage should be the accomplishment of a beautiful dream, and not, as it too often proves, the end.

    Alphonse Karr.

    The reason why so few marriages are happy is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.

    Swift.

    The first bond of society is marriage; the nest, our children; then the whole family and all things in common.

    Cicero.

    Her gentle spirit commits itself to yours to be directed, as from her lord, her governor, her king.

    Shakespeare.

  • Marriage to maids is like a war to men;
  • The battle causes fear, but the sweet hopes
  • Of winning at the last, still draws ’em in.
  • Nat. Lee.

    He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.

    Bacon.

    They that marry ancient people, merely in expectation to bury them, hang themselves, in hope that one will come out and cut the halter.

    Thomas Fuller.

  • For what thou art is mine:
  • Our state cannot be severed; we are one,
  • One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself.
  • Milton.

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

    Montaigne.

  • And, to all married men, be this a caution,
  • Which they should duly tender as their life,
  • Neither to doat too much, nor doubt a wife.
  • Massinger.

    I have met with women whom I really think would like to be married to a Poem, and to be given away by a Novel.

    Keats.

    From my experience, not one in twenty marries the first love; we build statues of snow and weep to see them melt.

    Walter Scott.

  • But happy they, the happiest of their kind!
  • Whom gentle stars unite, and in one fate
  • Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend.
  • Thomson.

    As a walled town is more worthier than a village, so is the forehead of a married man more honorable than the bare brow of a bachelor.

    Shakespeare.

    But earthlier happy is the rose distilled than that which, withering on the virgin thorn, grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.

    Shakespeare.

    To be man’s tender mate was woman born, and in obeying nature she best serves the purposes of heaven.

    Schiller.

    It is to be feared that they who marry where they do not love will love where they do not marry.

    Fuller.

    To love early and marry late is to hear a lark singing at dawn, and at night to eat it roasted for supper.

    Richter.

    However old a conjugal union, it still garners some sweetness. Winter has some cloudless days, and under the snow a few flowers still bloom.

    Mme. de Staël.

  • From that day forth, in peace and joyous bliss
  • They liv’d together long without debate;
  • Nor private jars, nor spite of enemies,
  • Could shake the safe assurance of their state.
  • Spenser.

  • The kindest and the happiest pair
  • Will find occasion to forbear;
  • And something, ev’ry day they live,
  • To pity, and perhaps forgive.
  • Cowper.

    Man and wife are equally concerned, to avoid all offence of each other, in the beginning of their conversation. Every little thing can blast an infant blossom.

    Jeremy Taylor.

    Such a large sweet fruit is a complete marriage, that it needs a very long summer to ripen in and then a long winter to mellow and season it.

    Theodore Parker.

    Every effort is made in forming matrimonial alliances to reconcile matters relating to fortune, but very little is paid to the congeniality of dispositions, or to the accordance of hearts.

    Massillon.

  • No jealousy their dawn of love o’ercast,
  • Nor blasted were their wedded days with strife;
  • Each season look’d delightful as it past,
  • To the fond husband, and the faithful wife.
  • Beattie.

    Happy and thrice happy are they who enjoy an uninterrupted union, and whose love, unbroken by any complaints, shall not dissolve until the last day.

    Horace.

    A good wife is like the ivy which beautifies the building to which it clings, twining its tendrils more lovingly as time converts the ancient edifice into a ruin.

    Dr. Johnson.

    God has set the type of marriage everywhere throughout the creation. Each creature seeks its perfection in another. The very heavens and earth picture it to us.

    Luther.

  • Let us no more contend, nor blame
  • Each other, blamed enough elsewhere, but strive
  • In offices of love, how we may lighten
  • Each other’s burden, in our share of woe.
  • Milton.

  • She is mine own,
  • And I as rich in having such a jewel
  • As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
  • The water nectar and the rocks pure gold.
  • Shakespeare.

    A man may be cheerful and contented in celibacy, but I do not think he can ever be happy; it is an unnatural state, and the best feelings of his nature are never called into action.

    Southey.

  • Wedlock’s a saucy, sad, familiar state,
  • Where folks are very apt to scold and hate:—
  • Love keeps a modest distance, is divine,
  • Obliging, and says ev’ry thing that’s fine.
  • Peter Pindar.

    An unhappy gentleman, resolving to wed nothing short of perfection, keeps his heart and hand till both get so old and withered that no tolerable woman will accept them.

    Nathaniel Hawthorne.

  • The joys of marriage are the heaven on earth,
  • Life’s paradise, great princess, the soul’s quiet,
  • Sinews of concord, earthly immortality,
  • Eternity of pleasures.
  • John Ford.

  • Marriage, from love, like vinegar from wine—
  • A sad, sour, sober beverage—by time
  • Is sharpened from its high celestial flavor
  • Down to a very homely household savor.
  • Byron.

  • All of a tenor was their after-life,
  • No day discolored with domestic strife;
  • No jealousy, but mutual truth believed,
  • Secure repose, and kindness undeceiv’d.
  • Dryden.

    The man at the head of the house can mar the pleasure of the household; but he cannot make it. That must rest with the woman, and it is her greatest privilege.

    Helps.

  • I am asham’d, that women are so simple
  • To offer war, where they should kneel for peace
  • Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,
  • When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.
  • Shakespeare.

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

  • She shall watch all night:
  • And if she chance to nod I’ll rail and brawl
  • And with the clamour keep her still awake.
  • This is the way to kill a wife with kindness.
  • Shakespeare.

    It resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing any one who comes between them.

    Sydney Smith.

    A man of sense and education should meet a suitable companion in a wife. It is a miserable thing when the conversation can only be such as whether the mutton should be boiled or roasted, and probably a dispute about that.

    Dr. Johnson.

    An idol may be undeified by many accidental causes. Marriage, in particular, is a kind of counter-apotheosis, or a deification inverted. When a man becomes familiar with his goddess, she quickly sinks into a woman.

    Addison.

    Marriage enlarges the scene of our happiness and miseries. A marriage of love is pleasant; a marriage of interest, easy; and a marriage where both meet, happy. A happy marriage has in it all the pleasures of friendship, all the enjoyments of sense and reason, and, indeed, all the sweets of life.

    Addison.

    The most unhappy circumstance of all is, when each party is always laying up fuel for dissension, and gathering together a magazine of provocations to exasperate each other with when they are out of humor.

    Steele.

    As a looking-glass, if it is a true one, faithfully represents the face of him that looks in it, so a wife ought to fashion herself to the affection of her husband; not to be cheerful when he is sad, nor sad when he is cheerful.

    Erasmus.

  • As unto the bow the cord is,
  • So unto the man is woman;
  • Though she bends him she obeys him
  • Though she draws him, yet she follows,
  • Useless each without the other!
  • Longfellow.

  • Here love his golden shafts employs, here lights
  • His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings,
  • Reigns here and revels.
  • Rowley.

  • Therefore God’s universal law
  • Gave to the man despotic power
  • Over his female in due awe,
  • Not from that right to part an hour,
  • Smile she or lour.
  • Milton.

    In the opinion of the world, marriage ends all; as it does in a comedy. The truth is precisely the reverse. It begins all. So they say of death, “It is the end of all things.” Yes, just as much as marriage.

    Madame Swetchine.

    That alliance may be said to have a double tie, where the minds are united as well as the body; and the union will have all its strength when both the links are in perfection together.

    Colton.

  • Are we not one? are we not join’d by heav’n?
  • Each interwoven with the other’s fate?
  • Are we not mix’d like streams of meeting rivers
  • Whose blended waters are no more distinguish’d,
  • But roll into the sea one common flood?
  • Rowe.

    He that marries is like the doge who was married to the Adriatic. He knows not what there is in that which he marries; mayhap treasures and pearls, mayhap monsters and tempests, await him.

    Heinrich Heine.

    I believe 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 the characters and circumstances, without the parties having any choice in the matter.

    Dr. Johnson.

    The moment a woman marries, some terrible revolution happens in her system; all her good qualities vanish, presto, like eggs out of a conjuror’s box. ’Tis true that they appear on the other side of the box, but for the husband they are gone forever.

    Bulwer.

  • Though fools spurn Hymen’s gentle powers,
  • We, who improve his golden hours,
  • By sweet experience know
  • That marriage rightly understood,
  • Gives to the tender and the good
  • A paradise below.
  • Cotton.

    Up to twenty-one, I hold a father to have power over his children as to marriage; after that age, authority and influence only. Show me one couple unhappy merely on account of their limited circumstances, and I will show you ten who are wretched from other causes.

    Coleridge.

    It is a mistake to consider marriage merely as a scheme of happiness. It is also a bond of service. It is the most ancient form of that social ministration which God has ordained for all human beings, and which is symbolized by all the relations of nature.

    Chapin.

    It is the most momentous question a woman is ever called upon to decide, whether the faults of the man she loves are beyond remedy and will drag her down, or whether she is competent to be his earthly redeemer and lift him to her own level.

    Holmes.

    Save the love we pay to heaven, there is none purer, holier, than that a virtuous woman feels for him she would cleave through life to. Sisters part from sisters, brothers from brothers, children from their parents, but such woman from the husband of her choice never!

    Sheridan Knowles.

    When it shall please God to bring thee to man’s estate, use great providence and circumspection in choosing thy wife. For from thence will spring all thy future good or evil; and it is an action of life, like unto a stratagem of war; wherein a man can err but once!

    Sir P. Sidney.

    It is a delightful thought, that, during the familiarity of constant proximity, the heart gathers up in silence the nutriment of love, as the diamond, even beneath water, imbibes the light it emits. Time, which deadens hatred, secretly strengthens love.

    Richter.

  • Across the threshold led,
  • And every tear kissed off as soon as shed,
  • His house she enters, there to be a light,
  • Shining within, when all without is night;
  • A guardian angel o’er his life presiding,
  • Doubling his pleasures, and his cares dividing!
  • Rogers.

  • He is the half-part of a blessed man
  • Left to be finished by such a she;
  • And she a fair divided excellence,
  • Whose fulness of perfection lies in him.
  • O, two such silver currents, when they join,
  • Do glorify the banks that bound them in!
  • Shakespeare.

  • Such duty as the subject owes the prince,
  • Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
  • And, when she’s froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
  • And not obedient to his honest will,
  • What is she, but a foul contending rebel,
  • And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
  • Shakespeare.

  • Before I trust my Fate to thee,
  • Or place my hand in thine,
  • Before I let thy Future give
  • Color and form to mine,
  • Before I peril all for thee,
  • Question thy soul to-night for me.
  • Adelaide Ann Procter.

    Marriage is the strictest tie of perpetual friendship, and there can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity: and he must expect to be wretched, who pays to beauty, riches, or politeness that regard which only virtue and piety can claim.

    Dr. Johnson.

    Mothers who force their daughters into interested marriage, are worse than the Ammonites who sacrificed their children to Moloch—the latter undergoing a speedy death, the former suffering years of torture, but too frequently leading to the same result.

    Lord Rochester.

    True it is, as society is instituted, marriage becomes somewhat of a lottery, for all its votaries are either the victims of Cupid or cupidity; in either instance, they are under the blinding influence of passion, and consequently but little subject to the control of reason.

    Frederic Saunders.

    The good husband keeps his wife in the wholesome ignorance of unnecessary secrets. They will not be starved with the ignorance, who perchance may surfeit with the knowledge of weighty counsels, too heavy for the weaker sex to bear. He knows little who will tell his wife all he knows.

    Steele.

    Deceive not thyself by over-expecting happiness in the marriage state. Look not therein for contentment greater than God will give, or a creature in this world can receive, namely, to be free from all inconveniences. Marriage is not, like the hill of Olympus, wholly clear without clouds.

    Fuller.

    Jars concealed are half reconciled; ’tis a double task, to stop the breach at home and men’s mouths abroad. To this end, a good husband never publicly reproves his wife. An open reproof puts her to do penance before all that are present; after which, many study rather revenge than reformation.

    Fuller.

    Were a man not to marry a second time, it might be concluded that his first wife had given him a disgust for marriage; but by taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first by showing that she made him so happy as a married man that he wishes to be so a second time.

    Dr. Johnson.

    The good wife is none of our dainty dames, who love to appear in a variety of suits every day new; as if a good gown, like a stratagem in war, were to be used but once. But bur good wife sets up a sail according to the keel of her husband’s estate; and if of high parentage, she doth not so remember what she was by birth, that she forgets what she is by match.

    Fuller.

    Two persons who have chosen each other out of all the species with a design to be each other’s mutual comfort and entertainment have, in that action, bound themselves to be good-humored, affable, discreet, forgiving, patient, and joyful, with respect to each other’s frailties and perfections, to the end of their lives.

    Addison.

  • Thou are mine, thou hast given thy word,
  • Close, close in my arms thou are clinging;
  • Alone for my ear thou art singing
  • A song which no stranger hath heard:
  • But afar from me yet, like a bird,
  • Thy soul in some region unstirr’d
  • On its mystical circuit is winging.
  • E. C Stedman.

    A married man falling into misfortune is more apt to retrieve his situation in the world than a single one, chiefly because his spirits are soothed and retrieved by domestic endearments, and his self-respect kept alive by finding that although all abroad be darkness and humiliation, yet there is a little world of love at home over which he is a monarch.

    Jeremy Taylor.

    We are not very much to blame for our bad marriages. We live amid hallucinations, and this especial trap is laid to trip up our feet with, and all are tripped up first or last. But the mighty mother, who had been so sly with us, as if she felt she owed us some indemnity, insinuates into the Pandora box of marriage some deep and serious benefits, and some great joys.

    Emerson.

    As a great part of the uneasiness of matrimony arises from mere trifles, it would be wise in every young married man to enter into an agreement with his wife, that in all disputes of this kind the party who was most convinced they were right should always surrender the victory. By which means both would be more forward to give up the cause.

    Fielding.

    Marriage has in it less of beauty, but more of safety, than the single life; it hath not more ease, but less danger; it is more merry and more sad; it is fuller of sorrows and fuller of joys; it lies under more burdens, but is supported by all the strengths of love and charity; and those burdens are delightful.

    Jeremy Taylor.

  • There’s a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told,
  • When two, that are link’d in one heavenly tie,
  • With heart never changing, and brow never cold,
  • Love on thro’ all ills, and love on till they die.
  • One hour of a passion so sacred is worth
  • Whole ages of heartless and wandering bliss;
  • And oh! if there be an Elysium on earth,
  • It is this—it is this!
  • Moore.

  • Cling closer, closer, life to life,
  • Cling closer, heart to heart;
  • The time will come, my own wed Wife,
  • When you and I must part!
  • Let nothing break our band but Death,
  • For in the world above
  • ’Tis the breaker Death that soldereth
  • Our ring of Wedded Love.
  • Gerald Massey.

    To tell the truth, however, family and poverty have done more to support me than I have to support them. They have compelled me to make exertions that I hardly thought myself capable of; and often when on the eve of despairing, they have forced me, like a coward in a corner, to fight like a hero, not for myself, but for my wife and little ones.

    Power.

    The best time for marriage will be towards thirty, for as the younger times are unfit, either to choose or to govern a wife and family, so, if thou stay long, thou shalt hardly see the education of thy children, who, being left to strangers, are in effect lost; and better were it to be unborn than ill-bred; for thereby thy posterity shall either perish, or remain a shame to thy name.

    Sir Walter Raleigh.

    Marriages on earth—because they are the seminaries of the human race and of the angels of heaven also; because, likewise, they proceed from a spiritual origin, that is, from the marriage of good and truth; and since, in addition, the Lord’s divine proceeding principally flows into conjugal love—are most holy in the estimation of the angels.

    Swedenborg.

  • Oh, happy, happy, thrice happy state,
  • When such a bright Planet governs the fate
  • Of a pair of united lovers!
  • ’Tis theirs’ in spite of the Serpent’s hiss,
  • To enjoy the pure primeval kiss
  • With as much of the old original bliss
  • As mortality ever recovers!
  • Hood.

  • The husband’s sullen, dogged, shy,
  • The wife grows flippant in reply;
  • He loves command and due restriction,
  • And she as well likes contradiction.
  • She never slavishly submits;
  • She’ll have her way, or have her fits.
  • He his way tugs, she t’ other draws;
  • The man grows jealous and with cause.
  • Gay.

    She that hath a wise husband must entice him to an eternal dearness by the veil of modesty and the grave robes of chastity, the ornament of meekness and the jewels of faith and charity. She must have no painting but blushings; her brightness must be purity, and she must shine round about with sweetness and friendship; and she shall be pleasant while she lives, and desired when she dies.

    Jeremy Taylor.

  • To the nuptial bower
  • I led her, blushing like the morn; all Heaven,
  • And happy constellations on that hour
  • Shed their selectest influence; the earth
  • Gave sign of gratulation, and each hill;
  • Joyous the birds; fresh gales and gentle airs
  • Whisper’d it to the woods, and from their wings
  • Flung rose, flung odours from the spicy shrub.
  • Milton.

  • My fond affection thou hast seen,
  • Then judge of my regret
  • To think more happy thou hadst been
  • If we had never met!
  • And has that thought been shared by thee?
  • Ah, no! that smiling cheek
  • Proves more unchanging love for me
  • Than labor’d words could speak.
  • Thos. Haynes Bayly.

    A good wife is heaven’s last gift to man; his angel and minister of graces innumerable; his gem of many virtues; his casket of jewels; her voice his sweet music; her smiles his brightest day; her kiss the guardian of his innocence; her arms the pale of his safety, the balm of his health, the balsam of his life; her industry, his surest wealth; her economy, his safest steward; her lips, his faithful counselors; her bosom, the softest pillow of his cares; and her prayers, the ablest advocates of heaven’s blessings on his head.

    Jeremy Taylor.

  • Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
  • Thy head, thy sovereign: one that cares for thee,
  • And for thy maintenance: commits his body
  • To painful labor, both by sea and land;
  • To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
  • While thou liest warm at home, secure and safe,
  • And craves no other tribute at thy hands,
  • But love, fair looks, and true obedience;
  • Too little payment for so great a debt.
  • Shakespeare.

  • Why do not words, and kiss, and solemn pledge,
  • And nature that is kind in woman’s breast,
  • And reason that in man is wise and good,
  • And fear of Him who is a righteous Judge,—
  • Why do not these prevail for human life,
  • To keep two hearts together, that began
  • Their spring-time with one love.
  • Wordsworth.

  • Oh, the music and beauty of life lose their worth,
  • When one heart only joys in their smile;
  • But the union of hearts gives that pleasure its birth,
  • Which beams on the darkest and coldest of earth
  • Like the sun on his own chosen isle;
  • It gives to the fireside of winter the light,
  • The glow and the glitter of spring—
  • O sweet are the hours, when two fond hearts unite,
  • As softly they glide, in their innocent flight
  • Away on a motionless wing.
  • Bohn.

    Marriage is the mother of the world, and preserves kingdoms, and fills cities and churches, and heaven itself.
    ***Marriage, like the useful bee, builds a house, and gathers sweetness from every flower, and labors and unites into societies and republics, and sends out colonies, and feeds the world with delicacies, and obeys their king, and keeps order, and exercises many virtues, and promotes the interest of mankind, and is that state of good things to which God hath designed the present constitution of the world.

    Jeremy Taylor.

  • Cursed be the man, the poorest wretch in life,
  • The crouching vassal to the tyrant wife,
  • Who has no will but by her high permission;
  • Who has not sixpence but in her possession;
  • Who must to her his dear friend’s secret tell;
  • Who dreads a curtain lecture worse than hell.
  • Were such the wife had fallen to my part,
  • I’d break her spirit or I’d break her heart.
  • Burns.

  • How near am I to happiness
  • That earth exceeds not? not another like it.
  • The treasures of the deep are not so precious,
  • As are the concealed comforts of a man
  • Lock’d up in woman’s love. I scent the air
  • Of blessings, when I come but near the house;
  • What a delicious breath marriage sends forth.
  • The violet-bed’s not sweeter. Honest wedlock
  • Is like a banqueting-house built in a garden,
  • On which the spring’s chaste flowers take delight
  • To cast their modest odors.
  • Middleton.

  • But happy they! the happiest of their kind!
  • Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate
  • Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend
  • ’T is not the coarser tie of human laws,
  • Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind,
  • That binds their peace, but harmony itself,
  • Attuning all their passions into love
  • Where friendship full exerts her softest power
  • Perfect esteem enlivened by desire
  • Ineffable, and sympathy of soul;
  • Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will
  • With boundless confidence: for nought but love
  • Can answer love, and render bliss secure.
  • Thomson.

    Have ever more care that thou be beloved of thy wife, rather than thyself besotted on her; and thou shalt judge of her love by these two observations: first, if thou perceive she have a care of thy estate, and exercise herself therein; the other, if she study to please thee, and be sweet unto thee in conversation, without thy instruction; for love needs no teaching nor precept.

    Sir Walter Raleigh.

  • And now your matrimonial Cupid,
  • Lash’d on by time, grows tired and stupid.
  • For story and experience tell us
  • That man grows old and woman jealous.
  • Both would their little ends secure;
  • He sighs for freedom, she for power:
  • His wishes tend abroad to roam,
  • And hers to domineer at home.
  • Prior.

  • Ev’n in the happiest choice, where fav’ring heaven
  • Has equal love and easy fortune giv’n,—
  • Think not, the husband gain’d, that all is done;
  • The prize of happiness must still be won:
  • And, oft, the careless find it to their cost,
  • The lover in the husband may be lost;
  • The graces might alone his heart allure;
  • They and the virtues, meeting, must secure.
  • Lord Lyttleton.

    1. The very nearest approach to domestic happiness on earth is in the cultivation on both sides of absolute unselfishness.
    2. Never both be angry at once.
    3. Never talk at one another, either alone or in company.
    4. Never speak loud to one another unless the house is on fire.
    5. Let each one strive to yield oftenest to the wishes of the other.
    6. Let self-denial be the daily aim and practice of each.
    7. Never find fault unless it is perfectly certain that a fault has been committed, and always speak lovingly.
    8. Never taunt with a past mistake.
    9. Neglect the whole world besides rather than one another.
    10. Never allow a request to be repeated.
    11. Never make a remark at the expense of each other,—it is a meanness.
    12. Never part for a day without loving words to think of during absence.
    13. Never meet without a loving welcome.
    14. Never let the sun go down upon any anger or grievance.
    15. Never let any fault you have committed go by until you have frankly confessed it and asked forgiveness.
    16. Never forget the happy hours of early love.
    17. Never sigh over what might have been, but make the best of what is.
    18. Never forget that marriage is ordained of God, and that His blessing alone can make it what it should ever be.
    19. Never be contented till you know you are both walking in the narrow way.
    20. Never let your hopes stop short of the eternal home.

    Cottager and Artisan.