Marriage Laws Quotes & Sayings

There are just so many more laws and rules that apply with marriage that do not come with domestic partnership and also to me it's the commitment. — Wanda Sykes

You don't doubt that the lobby supporting the enactment of same sex-marriage laws in different states is politically powerful, do you? ... As far as I can tell, political figures are falling over themselves to endorse your side of the case. — John Roberts

Marriage has affected the laws of gravity. We will now revolve around each other. You will exert gravity on me, and I will exert gravity on you. We are one another's moons. You are holding onto my feet with both hands, as if otherwise you might fall right off the bed. I think I might float up and hit the ceiling, splat, if you let go. Please don't let go. — Kelly Link

Of course the welfare of our children is a legitimate state interest. However, limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples fails to further this interest. Instead, needlessly stigmatizing and humiliating children who are being raised by the loving couples targeted by Virginia's Marriage Laws betrays that interest. E. S.-T. [the 15-year-old daughter of two of the plaintiffs], like the thousands of children being raised by same-sex couples, is needlessly deprived of the protection, the stability, the recognition and the legitimacy that marriage conveys ... — Arenda L. Wright Allen

What I am recommending to the unmarried person, therefore, comes straight out of the Word: Stay out of bed unless you go there alone! I know that advice is difficult to put into practice today. But I didn't make the rules. I'm just passing them along. God's moral laws are not designed to oppress us or deprive us of pleasure. They are there to protect us from the devastation of sin, including disease, heartache, divorce, and spiritual death. Abstinence before marriage and fidelity afterward is the Creator's own plan, and no one has devised a way to improve on it. — James C. Dobson

Protecting people from their bad habits - in fact, defining which habits should be considered "bad" in the first place - is a prerogative lawmakers have eagerly seized. Prostitution, gambling, liquor sales on the Sabbath, pornography, usurious loans, sexual relations outside of marriage (or, if your tastes are unusual, within marriage), are all habits that various legislatures have regulated, outlawed, or tried to discourage with strict (and often ineffective) laws. When — Charles Duhigg

Marriage made more sense when it was indissoluble. It's the woman trying to cope with the strains of a one-parent family who will suffer most from the relaxation of the divorce laws. — Germaine Greer

Recently, a lot of Americans have swapped the awkward phrase 'same-sex marriage' for the term 'marriage equality'. This phrase is ordinarily implied to mean that same-sex couples will have the rights different-sexed couples do. But it could also mean that marriage is between equals. That's not what traditional marriage was. Throughout much of history in the west, the laws defining marriage made the husband essentially an owner and the wife a possession. Or the man a boss and the woman a slave. — Rebecca Solnit

Successful long term relationships are all about power levels.
A high power level male will attract and succeed with a high level power female.
How do we define those power levels? We can't, they are inherently in us, and invisible to scientists, accountants, psychologists and spiritualists alike. None can explain the Universe in its entirety, and it is more than chemistry, biology, physics, genetics, horoscopes, religion, in-laws, fame, psychology and spirituality.
We may be infatuated by a person, but as soon as we hold their hands, kiss their lips, and especially, make love or have sex with them, their power levels will be instantly exposed. — Robert Black

As Elders we have great respect for all religions and traditions as important forces that bind people together. Faith and tradition provide much of the foundation of our laws and social codes. But where religion and tradition are used to justify discrimination and especially when they are used to justify cruel and harmful practices such as female genital mutilation, infanticide and child marriage, then we believe that is unacceptable. — Mary Robinson

Within there is regard for the law of marriage; without there isn't any. Within, Sita is Rama's wife. Outside, she is a woman for the taking. Ravana knows that if he enters Rama's hut and forces himself on Sita he will be judged by the rules of society. But when he forces himself on Sita outside the Lakshmana-rekha, he will be judged by the laws of the jungle. Within, he will be the villain who disregarded the laws of marriage. Outside, he will be hero, the great trickster. — Devdutt Pattanaik

If the court strikes down the Defense of Marriage Act, is that a 'liberal' result enabling gay couples married in states where gay marriage is legal to enjoy the same economic advantages that federal laws now grant to straight couples? Or is it a 'conservative' ruling, limiting the federal government's ability to override state power? — Jeff Greenfield

The village of Gretna Green lay in the county of Dumfriesshire, just north of the border between England and Scotland. In defiance of the strict marriage laws of England, hundreds of couples had traveled the coaching road from London, through Carlisle, to Gretna Green. They came on foot, by carriage or horseback, seeking an asylum, where they could say their marriage vows and return to England as man and wife. — Lisa Kleypas

There is nothing wrong with your marriage if you're dealing with bills and kids and the broken garbage disposal and in-laws and work demands. That's a normal marriage. — Phil McGraw

Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier of all laws, of all conventions; love, the freest, the most powerful moulder of human destiny; how can such an all-compelling force be synonymous with that poor little State and Church-begotten weed, marriage?love, — Emma Goldman

Rachel, who before her marriage had been a promising pianist, and now sat with the baby on her knee, picking out nursery tunes with one finger. Nev said it wouldn't be like that, and she believed him - or at least she believed he meant it - but it would, because marriage changed everything. It had its own logic, its own laws, and they were independent of the desires and intentions of those who entered into it. She felt a moment's pleasure in the cynicism of this perception, though God knows it was depressing enough. — Pat Barker

Free love? As if love is anything but free! Man has bought brains, but all the millions in the world have failed to buy love. Man has subdued bodies, but all the power on earth has been unable to subdue love. Man has conquered whole nations, but all his armies could not conquer love. Man has chained and fettered the spirit, but he has been utterly helpless before love. High on a throne, with all the splendor and pomp his gold can command, man is yet poor and desolate, if love passes him by. And if it stays, the poorest hovel is radiant with warmth, with life and color. Thus love has the magic power to make of a beggar a king. Yes, love is free; it can dwell in no other atmosphere. In freedom it gives itself unreservedly, abundantly, completely. All the laws on the statutes, all the courts in the universe, cannot tear it from the soil, once love has taken root. — Emma Goldman

Wanting to give her the best fit I could, I sand the knowledge I had learned from Snow Flower. Everyone needs clothing-no matter how cool it is in summer or how warm it is in winter-so make clothes for others without being asked. Even if the table is plentiful, let your in-laws eat first. Work hard and remember three things: Be god to your in-laws and always show respect, be good to your husband and always weave for him, be good to your children and always be a model of decorum to them. If you do these things, your new family will treat you kindly. In that fine home, be calm of heart. — Lisa See

They seemed so united that I loved them as one person. Lee wrote of his son and daughter-in-law on his daughter-in-law's death. — Robert E.Lee

Marriage is an institution necessary to the maintenance of society but contrary to the laws of nature. — Honore De Balzac

Defining marriage is a power that should be left to the states. Moreover, no state should be forced to recognize a marriage that is not within its own laws, Constitution, and legal precedents. — John Sununu

One wonders, in fact, why marriage is a legal issue at all - apart from its relevance to immigration and property laws. Why would something so integral to human nature require such vigilant legal protection? — Christopher Ryan

All that is good and commendable now existing would continue to exist if all marriage laws were repealed tomorrow ... — Victoria Woodhull

True oneness in marriage can not be experienced if you allow in-laws to penetrate the circle. If necessary let them become out-laws. It is crucial that you establish boundaries — DeBorrah K. Ogans

Arranged Marriages don't always have to be risky. Get to know your future in-laws. She's bound to be like one of them. — Siddharth Katragadda

It becomes dangerous for somebody who doesn't want their boss to know their sexual preference to use online networks to push for laws supporting gay marriage or same-sex partner rights if they can't do so with a pseudonym. — Rebecca MacKinnon

Every thing useful and beneficial to man, seems to be connected with obedience to the laws of his nature, the inclinations, the duties, and the happiness of individuals, resolve themselves into customs and habits, favorable, in the highest degree, to society. In no case is this more apparent, than in the customs of nations respecting marriage. — Samuel Williams

So far, 44 States, or 88 percent of the States, have enacted laws providing that marriage shall consist of a union between a man and a woman. Only 75 percent of the States are required to approve a constitutional amendment. — Jack Kingston

The court's injected itself in the definition of marriage, deciding whether or not human life is worth protecting, permitting government to transfer private property from one person to another, even interpreting the Constitution on the basis of foreign and international laws. — Sam Brownback

The question is whether they can find a way out and remain what they are. To adapt themselves to real life, they borrow from each other. Christianity , which has become a church, began to talk about work, wealth, power, education, science, marriage, laws, social justice, and so forth. And materialism , on the other hand, which became socialism or an order, a state, speaks about humanism , morality, art, creation, justice, responsibility, freedom and so forth. — Alija Izetbegovic

While the happy couple are enjoying the thrill of the rose garden, the in-laws are saying that they are just not right for each other. We keep telling them that they cannot pay couples to stay together, and it is clear that it will take more than a three-quid-a-week tax break to keep this marriage together. — Harriet Harman

We often say, and you have heard the expression as it has already been referred to in this conference, that "as man now is, God once was, and as God now is, man may become." The only way man may become as God now is, is through fulfilling the laws of celestial marriage and the laws of the gospel, as I have just read to you the word of the Lord from the D&C. Can we afford to overlook such opportunities for exaltation? Temple marriage is not just another form of church wedding; it is a divine covenant with the Lord that if we are faithful to the end, we may become as God now is. — Eldred G. Smith

While 45 of the 50 States have either a State constitutional amendment or a statute that preserves the current definition of marriage, left-wing activist judges and officials at the local levels have struck down State laws protecting marriage. — John Boehner

When I got married, my marriage was illegal in 17 states because my husband had a different skin color than I did. And we saw those laws go down one at a time. — Tyne Daly

widespread. Some states go so far as to forcibly sterilize people with certain disabilities. Some prohibit marriage for the genetically disabled, for fear of procreating hereditary conditions like mine. Visibly disabled people are actually barred from appearing in public in cities such as Columbus, Ohio - Dad's hometown - until 1972, and Chicago until 1974, under what are collectively called the "ugly" laws because they target anyone perceived as unattractive, for being a disturbance of the peace. The movement to change all this and more is rising in discrete pockets all over, inspired by Black civil rights. Closer to — Ben Mattlin

Traditionally, a fault divorce was the only means for a married couple to get divorced. It means that one of the spouses it at fault having committed one or more of: cruelty(mental, emotional, physical) , adultery, or deserted the other spouse for no good reason, impotence, among other grounds. No-fault divorce is a divorce in which the dissolution of a marriage does not require a showing of wrongdoing by either party. It became passed into family/divorce laws in various western nations in 1960s and 1970s. One would imagine that the fault or no-fault of a husband should have an implication on the maintenance amount he can be asked to pay to wife. Unfortunately, things are not that straightforward. — Vivek Deveshwar

There is absolutely no reason to suspect that prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying and refusing to recognize their out-of-state marriages will cause same-sex couples to raise fewer children or impel married opposite-sex couples to raise more children. The Virginia Marriage Laws therefore do not further Virginia's interest in channeling children into optimal families, even if we were to accept the dubious proposition that same-sex couples are less capable parents. — Henry Franklin Floyd

If we repealed all the laws of the world marriage would still exist. — Tom McClintock

It was important not to offend against the laws of magic. If a woman left you it was because you did not cast the right spell over her, or else because someone else cast a stronger enchantment than yours, or else because your marriage was cursed in such a way that it cut the ties of love between husband and wife. Why did So-and-so enjoy success in his businesses? Because he visited the right enchanter. There was a thing in the emperor that rebelled against all this flummery, for was it not a kind of infantilization of the self to give up one's power of agency and believe that such power resided outside oneself rather than within? This was also his objection to God, that his existence deprived human beings of the right to form ethical structures by themselves. — Salman Rushdie

I told him I had, perhaps, different notions of matrimony from what the received custom had given us of it; that I thought a woman was a free agent as well as a man, and was born free, and, could she manage herself suitably, might enjoy that liberty to as much purpose as the men do; that the laws of matrimony were indeed otherwise, and mankind at this time acted quite upon other principles, and those such that a woman gave herself entirely away from herself, in marriage, and capitulated, only to be, at best, but an upper servant, and from the time she took the man she was no better or worse than the servant among the Israelites, who had his ears bored - that is, nailed to the door-post - who by that act gave himself up to be a servant during life; that the very nature of the marriage contract was, in short, nothing but giving up liberty, estate, authority, and everything to the man, and the woman was indeed a mere woman ever after - that is to say, a slave. — Daniel Defoe

I am a fierce supporter of domestic-partnership and civil-union laws. I am not a supporter of gay marriage as it has been thrown about, primarily just as a strategic issue. I think that marriage, in the minds of a lot of voters, has a religious connotation. I know that's true in the African-American community, for example. And if you asked people, 'should gay and lesbian people have the same rights to transfer property, and visit hospitals, and et cetera,' they would say, 'absolutely.' And then if you talk about, 'should they get married?', then suddenly ... — Barack Obama

In the most rigorous [Roman] laws, a wife was condemned to support a gamester, a drunkard, or a libertine, unless he were guilty of homicide, poison, or sacrilege, in which cases the marriage, as it should seem, might have been dissolved by the hand of the executioner. — Edward Gibbon

The bonds between husband and wife spring from deep laws of destiny and should not be broken lightly. — Lian Hearn

singularities, he asserted, "are a place in which the fiery marriage of Einstein's relativistic laws with the quantum laws is consummated. — Kip S. Thorne

There is no clear place to draw the line once you eliminate the traditional marriage, and it's the same once you start putting limits on what guns can be used, then it's just really easy to have laws that make them all illegal. — Louie Gohmert

Relations which are not consecrated by the laws establish bonds of kinship as manifold, as complex, even more solid than those which spring from marriage. — Marcel Proust

I support ensuring that committed gay couples have the same rights and responsibilities afforded to any married couple in this country. I believe strongly in stopping laws designed to take rights away and passing laws that extend equal rights to gay couples. I've required all agencies in the federal government to extend as many federal benefits as possible to LGBT families as the current law allows. And I've called on Congress to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and to pass the Domestic Partners Benefits and Obligations Act. — Barack Obama

Thirty years ago, interracial marriage was considered to be wrong by the laws of God. Now your society finds it common. The spiritual objections around it were either dropped or "rewritten" by those divinely inspired and authorized to do so. Therefore, your actual interpretations of the instructions from God changed with your society's tolerance level - an interesting thing, indeed, how the interpretations of God seem to change regularly to match a changing culture! — Lee Carroll

If I go into a relationship with an artist, which at most is going to last five years, we have a 100-page contract covering every eventuality. Whereas with marriage you go into it with no contract, with laws that date back hundreds of years, and I don't think that's right. — Simon Cowell

Marriage is like a table with four legs - the couple, the children, the parents and the in-laws. Break any of these and the marriage crashes to the floor — Siddharth Katragadda

[S]ince the dawn of civilization, getting in-laws has been one of marriage's most important functions. — Stephanie Coontz

Modern marriage is first and foremost a romantic and private union, but the tax laws and inheritance laws and religious implications that still surround this institution indicate that marriage has evolved without casting away its earlier purposes or assumptions. It's like we just keep building on this thing, piling new advancements on the old model. — Elizabeth Gilbert

The Christian conception of marriage is one: the other is quite the different question - how far Christians, if they are voters or Members of Parliament, ought to try to force their views of marriage on the rest of the community by embodying them in the divorce laws. A great many people seem to think that if you are a Christian yourself you should try to make divorce difficult for every one. I do not think that. At least I know I should be very angry if the Mohammedans tried to prevent the rest of us from drinking wine.

My own view is that the Churches should frankly recognize that the majority of the British people are not Christian and, therefore, cannot be expected to live Christian lives. There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the church with rules enforced by her on her own members. — C.S. Lewis

Motherhood goes back in history to a time when a father had no way of knowing his children. Fatherhood only became known when class patriarchal society had established itself and imposed monogamous marriage on women. Motherhood is like sun and rain and plants, a quality and product of nature which does not require laws or systems in order to exist. — Nawal El Saadawi

If you want to know, it was the capitalists who invented marriage in order to protect the laws of inheritance. — James Plunkett

The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and injure those whom the state, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity. — Anthony Kennedy

THEIR BELIEF. IT is a strange revelation to find that the natives believe in a common Creator, and that their race sprang from one man and woman. There is no mistake that this it; their belief. Their Creator's name is GNURKER. They allow that he has a wife, who gave birth to the first couple sent to populate the earth. When their God saw that this earth was fit for man, and that all animal life and fishes were plentiful, He caused an immense whirlwind, which reached from Heaven to earth, and sent down him son and daughter with full instructions in all manner of ceremonies. They were to name their children by four tribal names--Banaka, Boorung, Paljarri, Kymera--and thus observe the marriage laws. They were to strictly follow out His commands, and when they died, their and their children's spirits would be received into heaven. They were given control over the fishes of the waters, the birds of the air, all animals, insects, and every living thing--that — John G. Withnell

A marriage is a private thing. It has its own wild laws, and secret histories, and savage acts, and what passes between married people is incomprehensible to outsiders. We look terrible to you, and severe, and you see our blood flying, but what we carry between us is hard-won, and we made it just as we wished it to be, just the color, just the shape. — Catherynne M Valente

Monsieur, if a wife's nature loathes that of the man she is wedded to, marriage must be slavery. Against slavery all right thinkers revolt, and though torture be the price of resistance, torture must be dared: though the only road to freedom lie through the gates of death, those gates must be passed; for freedom is indispensable. Then, monsieur, I would resist as far as my strength permitted; when that strength failed I should be sure of a refuge. Death would certainly screen me both from bad laws and their consequences. — Charlotte Bronte

You talk like there is no church or laws. Like you want to marry me. — Val Kovalin

Liberals don't care. Their approach is to rip out society's foundations without asking if they serve any purpose. Why do we have immigration laws? What's with these borders? Why do we have the institution of marriage, anyway? What do we need standardized tests for? Hey, I like Keith Richards - why not make heroin legal? Let's take a sledgehammer to all these load-bearing walls and just see what happens! — Ann Coulter

Between married persons, the cement of friendship is by the laws supposed so strong as to abolish all division of possessions: andhas often, in reality, the force ascribed to it. — David Hume

Let us suppose that such a person began by observing those Christian activities which are, in a sense, directed towards this present world. He would find that this religion had, as a mere matter of historical fact, been the agent which preserved such secular civilization as survived the fall of the Roman Empire; that to it Europe owes the salvation, in those perilous ages, of civilized agriculture, architecture, laws, and literacy itself. He would find that this same religion has always been healing the sick and caring for the poor; that it has, more than any other, blessed marriage; and that arts and philosophy tend to flourish in its neighborhood. In a word, it is always either doing, or at least repenting with shame for not having done, all the things which secular humanitarianism enjoins. If our enquirer stopped at this point he would have no difficulty in classifying Christianity - giving it its place on a map of the 'great religions. — C.S. Lewis

The situation of women living in Islam-stricken
societies and under Islamic laws is the outrage
of the 21st century. Burqa-clad and veiled women
and girls, beheadings, stoning to death,
floggings, child sexual abuse in the name of
marriage and sexual apartheid are only the most
brutal and visible aspects of women's
rightlessness and third class citizen status in the Middle East — Maryam Namazie

I lived in a suitcase for a year, and then a relationship brought me to New York for about four months, then I lived in Melbourne. Then I moved back to Gothenburg because the immigrant laws are strict for both Australia and the U.S., and I would have to marry someone to get into those countries. But I wouldn't really be able to get involved in a sham marriage without being able to tell anyone about it. — Jens Lekman

For a healthy society, those laws and conventions should always support marriage as an institution characterised by an openness to children and the responsibility of fathers and mothers remaining together to care for children born into their family. — Vincent Nichols

You know, I was thinking about my in-laws." I strolled closer, craving his heat. And his scent. And the power that continuously hummed through him like an infinite source of energy. "You know, from your supernatural side? By being married to you, I am Satan's daughter-in-law, Jehova's sister-in-law, and Jesus's aunt by marriage. — Darynda Jones

It is an old adage, "All is fair in love as in war," but I thought not of general laws, and only felt a private grievance. — Jane Swisshelm

Nonetheless, by the time we arrive at the eighteenth century and the time of the founders, marriage and the family came to look very much as Aristotle had pictured it. In the previous centuries, Lutheran reforms had lodged marriage into the civil structure of society and made it more a concern of civil law,11 but, joined by Calvin, Protestantism retained parental control over the right of children to marry. John Locke, however, saw marriage as contracted political society, and thus his image of the family as a commonwealth made up of combined individuals parallel his image of the formation of the larger political commonwealth as well.12 Furthermore, Locke declares that parents are, "by the law of nature, under an obligation to preserve, nourish and educate" their children.13 Since government is instituted to enforce the laws of nature, Locke states that government should make laws that enforce "the security of the marriage bed.'14 What — Jean Bethke Elshtain

We recognize that same-sex marriage makes some people deeply uncomfortable. However, inertia and apprehension are not legitimate bases for denying same-sex couples due process and equal protection of the laws. Civil marriage is one of the cornerstones of our way of life. It allows individuals to celebrate and publicly declare their intentions to form lifelong partnerships, which provide unparalleled intimacy, companionship, emotional support, and security. — Henry Franklin Floyd

... on May 1, 1855, Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell were married. Before the minister began the ceremony, Henry read the protest which he and Lucy had prepared:

"While acknowledging our mutual affection by publicly assuming the relation of husband and wife, yet in justice to ourselves and a great principle, we deem it a duty to declare this act ... implies no sanction of, nor promise of voluntary obedience to, such of the present laws of marriage as refuse to recognize the wife as an independent, rational being, while they confer upon the husband an injurious and unnatural superiority, investing him with legal powers which no honorable man would exercise, and which no man should possess — Miriam Gurko

There is another aspect of the marriage question to which Plato is a stranger. All the children born in his state are foundlings. It never occurred to him that the greater part of them, according to universal experience, would have perished. For children can only be brought up in families. There is a subtle sympathy between the mother and the child which cannot be supplied by other mothers, or by 'strong nurses one or more' (Laws). If Plato's 'pen' was as fatal as the Creches of Paris, or the foundling hospital of Dublin, more than nine-tenths of his children would have perished. There would have been no need to expose or put out of the way the weaklier children, for they would have died of themselves. — Plato

Many states have laws against cousin marriage, which I think are ridiculous - people should be allowed to make that choice. — Amber Heard

None was more indifferent to convention than herself, and the marriage tie especially excited her ridicule, but she despised entirely those who disregarded the by-laws of society, yet lacked courage to suffer the results of their boldness: to seek the good opinion of the world, and yet secretly to act counter to its idea of decorum, was a very contemptible hypocrisy. — W. Somerset Maugham

Marriage, laws, the police, armies and navies are the mark of human incompetence. — Dora Russell

We may disagree about gay marriage, but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are - whether it's here in the United States or, as Hillary (Clinton) mentioned, more extremely in odious laws that are being proposed most recently in Uganda. — Barack Obama

If love exists between two persons, it is blessed. If love does not exist between two persons, then all your laws put together cannot bridge them. Then they exist separate, then they exist apart, then they exist in conflict, then they exist always in war. And they create all kinds of trouble for each other. They are nasty to each other, nagging to each other, possessive of each other, violent, oppressive, dominating, dictatorial. — Rajneesh

What we need are not prohibitory marriage laws, but a reformed society, an educated public opinion which will teach individual duty in these matters. — Alfred Russel Wallace

The old laws do not stand. Everything can be remade. Marriage does not mean marriage now — Philippa Gregory

What if you kill a man who was plotting to shoot up a McDonald's? What if you commit one murder to prevent a dozen murders? The "obviously correct" judgment of the law starts to sound more and more like an opinion when a new variable is introduced, doesn't it? And okay, these "what if this?" exercises may feel like cerebral game play, but you don't even need to look to extreme examples to see the tenuous, opinion-based nature of laws. Abortion. Gay marriage. Determining fair use in a copyright infringement case. Every time a law is applied, it is applied as a matter of opinion. And those are the laws -- the biggest and baddest rules we have. — Johnny B. Truant

The true marriage movie involving in-laws and children is a story about how marriage is directly affected by external characters who impact the central relationship in various ways. — Jeanine Basinger

American couples have gone to such lengths to avoid the interference of in-laws that they have to pay marriage counselors to interfere between them. — Florence King

Marriage is an institution fits in perfect harmony with the laws of nature; whereas systems of slavery and segregation were designed to brutally oppress people and thereby violated the laws of nature. — Jack Kingston