Marriage

I come to wive it wealthily in Padua.

Now join your hands, and with your hands your hearts.

Hasty marriage seldom proveth well.

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.

Servant in love and lord in marriage.

To take a wyf withouten avysement.

No wedded man so hardy be t’assaille His wyves pacience, in trust to fynde Grisildis, for in certein he shal faille!

Never say that marriage has more of joy than pain.

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage and half shut afterwards.

It is not a good thing for an artist to marry. As the ancients used to say, if you serve a Muse, you must serve her and no one else. An unhappy marriage may perhaps contribute to the development of talent, but a happy one is no good at all.

As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.

The chain of wedlock is so heavy that it takes two to carry it - and sometimes three.

Married love between man and woman is bigger than oaths guarded by right of nature.

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, yes, it is the supreme felicity of life. I concede it. And it is also the supreme tragedy of life. The deeper the love the surer the tragedy. And the more disconsolating when it comes.

Both marriage and death ought to be welcome: the one promises happiness, doubtless the other assures it.

Marriage is like putting your hand into a bag of snakes in the hope of pulling out an eel.