Marriage Matrimonial Quotes & Sayings

Luck which so often defies anticipation in matrimonial affairs, giving attraction to what is moderate rather than to what is superior. — Jane Austen

A love story can never be about full possession. The happy marriage, the requited love, the desire that never dims
these are lucky eventualites but they aren't love stories. Love stories depend on disappointment, on unequal births and feuding families, on matrimonial boredom and at least one cold heart. Love stories, nearly without exception, give love a bad name.
We value love not because it's stronger than death but because it's weaker. Say what you want about love: death will finish it. You will not go on loving in the grave, not in any physical way that will at all resemble love as we know it on earth. The perishable nature of love is what gives love its importance in our lives. If it were endless, if it were on tap, love wouldn't hit us the way it does.
And we certainly wouldn't write about it. — Jeffrey Eugenides

The essential matrimonial facts: that to be happy you have to find variety in repetition; that to go forward you have to come back to where you begin. — Jeffrey Eugenides

There is yet another kind of matrimonial dialect (which naturally succeeds this of talking at each other), which may very properlybe styled The Language Contradictory ... In the former, however plain the object of satire may be exhibited to the whole company, yet there always remains some little covering ... But in this last method, the defiance becomes more open and the impetuosity with which these contradictions are uttered (although the subjects of them are often of the most indifferent nature) evidently prove that they arise from passion. — Sarah Fielding

She is the swelling sail, trim rigging and bust sunlit deck of our matrimonial yacht. I am the low hull, with the invisible ballast and keel. — Alasdair Gray

When it comes to love, there are a million theories to explain it. But when it comes to love stories, things are simpler. A love story can never be about full posession. The happy marriage, the requited love, the desire that never dims
these are lucky eventualities but they aren't love stories. Love stories depend on disappointment, on unequal births and feuding families, on matrimonial boredom and at least one cold heart. Love stories, nearly without exception, give love a bad name. — Jeffrey Eugenides

(Nicholas)"Am I dead?"
An odd question, but then she rememberd her mourning attire. "No sir, you are not."
He relaxed a moment, then turned his head slightly as if searching for other passengers. His brows dived in a scowl.
Am I married?"
She wasn't sure how to answer. His kid gloves hid any evidence of his matrimonial state, but his expression of instantaneous alarm and regret suggested he was referring specifically to her.
No sir, we are not. — Donna MacMeans

I never did, nor do I believe I ever shall, give advice to a woman who is setting out on a matrimonial voyage; first, because I never could advise one to marry without her own consent; and, secondly, I know it is to no purpose to advise her to refrain when she has obtained it. A woman very rarely asks an opinion or requires advice on such an occasion, till her resolution is formed; and then it is with the hope and expectation of obtaining a sanction, not that she means to be governed by your disapprobation, that she applies. — George Washington

The Matrimonial Act:

Bless your wife with all of your strength;
she deserves your protection.
Bless your wife with all of your mind;
she deserves your attention.
Bless your wife with all of your heart;
she deserves your affection.
Bless your wife with all of your soul;
she deserves your devotion.
Bless your wife with all of you;
she deserves your adoration.

Accept her suggestions.
Accept her instructions.
Accept her recommendations.
Accept her supplications.
Accept her imperfections.
Accept her ambitions.
Accept her contributions. — Matshona Dhliwayo

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. — Jean Baptiste Massillon

That nameless and infinitely delicate aroma of inexpressible tenderness and attentiveness which, in every refined and honorable attachment, is contemporary with the courtship, and precedes the final banns and the rite; but which, like the bouquet of the costliest German wines, too often evaporates upon pouring love out to drink, in the disenchanting glasses of the matrimonial days and nights. — Herman Melville

Feeling unable to maintain this detachment of attitude towards human- and, in especial, matrimonial- affairs, I asked whether it was not true that she had married Bob Duport. She nodded; not exactly conveying, it seemed to me, that by some happy chance their union had introduced her to an unexpected terrestrial paradise. — Anthony Powell

As his hero and heroine pass the matrimonial barrier, the novelist generally drops the curtain, as if the drama were over then: the doubts and struggles of life ended: as if, once landed in the marriage country, all were green and pleasant there: and wife and husband had nothing to do but to link each other's arms together, and wander gently downwards towards old age in happy and perfect fruition. But our little Amelia was just on the bank of her new country, and was already looking anxiously back towards the sad friendly figures waving farewell to her across the stream, from the other distant shore. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Don't expect to drop into matrimonial harmony with the end of the honeymoon; you have not thoroughly learned to know each other's foibles by that time. — Blanche Ebbutt