Quotes & Sayings About Traditional Marriage

Having a traditional view of marriage should not be seen as discriminatory, unfortunately the bill has promoted this notion. It has not created tolerance and has highlighted division. — Jim Dobbin

Traditional marriage in the platform is the essential building block to our civilization. — Ken Blackwell

The complete destruction of traditional marriage and the nuclear family is the 'revolutionary or utopian' goal of feminism. — Kate Millett

The novel had reached its apogee with the marriage plot and had never recovered from its disappearance. In the days when success in life had depended on marriage, and marriage had depended on money, novelists had had a subject to write about. The great epics sang of war, the novel of marriage. Sexual equality, good for women, had been bad for the novel. And divorce had undone it completely. What would it matter whom Emma married if she could file for separation later? How would Isabel Archer's marriage to Gilbert Osmond have been affected by the existence of a prenup? As far as Saunders was concerned, marriage didn't mean much anymore, and neither did the novel. Where could you find the marriage plot nowadays? You couldn't. You had to read historical fiction. You had to read non-Western novels involving traditional societies. Afghani novels, Indian novels. You had to go, literarily speaking, back in time. — Jeffrey Eugenides

I think that almost all traditional institutions are sexist, and they're probably racist and homophobic, and they're all of these things. But a lot of them, like marriage, are too embedded into the culture to give up. — Jessica Valenti

The death of anti-gay hate speech is no doubt being hastened by the head-spinning speed with which gays as a group - to say nothing of gay marriage - are becoming an unremarkable and even quite traditional parts of American life. — Jeffrey Kluger

Being a housewife, makes women sick.It may therefore be that married women say they are happy because they are sick.To be happy in a relationship which imposes so many impediments on her, as traditional marriage does, women must be slightly mentally ill — Jessie Bernard

Same-sex marriage is not the final nail in the coffin for traditional marriage. It is just another road sign toward the substitution of government for God. Every moral discussion now pits the wisest moral arbiters among us - the Supreme Court, President Obama - against traditional religion. — Ben Shapiro

I oppose any attempt to grant homosexual unions the same legal privileges that civil government affords to traditional marriage and family life. — Todd Akin

I believe in traditional marriage. — Karl Rove

Your mother was a hero. She developed a spell for gnomeatic fever. And she was the youngest headmaster in Watford history."
Baz is looking at Penny like they've never met.
"And," Penny goes on, "she defended your father in three duels before he accepted her proposal."
"That sounds barbaric," I say.
"It was traditional," Baz says.
"It was brilliant," Penny says. "I've read the minutes."
"Where?" Baz asks her.
"We have them in our library at home," she says "My dad loves marriage rites. Any sort of family magic, actually. He and my mother are bound together in five dimensions. — Rainbow Rowell

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

Marriage is the most obvious public practice about which information is readily available. When combined with the traditional Jewish concern for continuity and self-preservation - itself only intensified by the memory of the Holocaust - marriage becomes the sine qua non of social membership in the modern Orthodox community. — Noah Feldman

Dear Jack,
I love you, too.
And I think I know the secret to a long and happy marriage - just choose someone you can't live without.
For me, that would be you.
So if you insist on being traditional ...
Yes.
- Ella — Lisa Kleypas

At a minimum it must involve renouncing any desire or ambition to become wealthy or famous; fostering vertical solidarity between rich and poor as well as horizontal solidarity between consumers and producers; rendering effective assistance to marginalized groups in society such as the poor and immigrants; a shared commitment to traditional values, particularly with respect to sex and marriage, as well as a recognition of the importance of families and children; opposition to abortion; an emphasis on environmental stewardship and caring for creation; and a commitment to nonviolence. — Solidarity Hall

I sprinted into the conference room as my boss, and the owner of this law firm, Cherie Poitras, grabbed her client around the waist, a woman dressed to the nines in high heels and a cream suit. The woman had actually crawled up on the conference table and lunged for her husband. Cherie and I wrestled her off, but not before the husband's attorney put him in a headlock to keep him from strangling his soon-to-be ex-wife. Even in a headlock, the husband, a local politician who stressed the sanctity of marriage and traditional values, struggled to get at his wife, his arms and legs flailing around ... — Cathy Lamb

I have no difficulty with the recognition of civil unions for non-traditional relationships but I believe in law we should protect the traditional definition of marriage. — Stephen Harper

Libertarians see these changes as gains for freedom. No longer under the thumb of traditional marriage and religion, people can make up their own minds about how to live their personal lives, believing what they wish about religion and morality. Maybe so, but that's no basis for a free society. Codified rights offer limited protection. If the Supreme Court can find a right to same-sex marriage in the Constitution, then it can find anything, including dramatically different (and reduced) rights of speech, association, and religion. The most powerful limits to government power are found below and above political life: a strong culture of marriage and family, and robust, assertive religious institutions. A free society depends on strong family loyalties and faith's indomitable resolve. — R. R. Reno

Today we are experiencing a historical revolution every bit as wrenching, far-reaching, and irreversible as the Industrial Revolution. Like that huge historic turning point, the revolution in marriage has transformed how people organize their work and interpersonal commitments, use their leisure time, understand their sexuality, and take care of children and the elderly. It has liberated some people from restrictive, inherited roles in society. But it has stripped others of traditional support systems and rules of behavior without establishing new ones. — Stephanie Coontz

Activist judges and local officials in some parts of the country are not letting up in their efforts to redefine marriage for the rest of America-and neither should defenders of traditional marriage flag in their efforts. — George W. Bush

The Liberals may blather about protecting cultural minorities, but the fact is that undermining the traditional definition of marriage is an assault on multiculturalism and the practices in those communities. — Stephen Harper

Young girls today were more sensible, more sophisticated. Nowadays they worried more about their exam results and did their best to ensure they would have a decent career. For them, going out with boys was simply a game, a distraction based as much as on narcissism as on sexual pleasure. Later, they would try to make a good marriage, basing their decision on a range of social and professional criteria as well as shared interests and tastes. Of course, in doing this, they cut themselves from any possibility of happiness - a condition indissociable from traditional and transient emotions which are incompatible with the practice of reason - but in doing so they hoped to escape the moral and emotional suffering which had so tortured their forebears. — Michel Houellebecq

When you hear all these things about homosexual marriage, this has nothing to do with homosexual rights. The whole objective is the destruction of the traditional family. It has nothing to do with homosexuals. — Rafael Cruz

On the one hand, the idea of marriage and the sort of traditional family life repulses me. But on the other hand, I long for it, you know what I mean? I'm constantly in conflict with things. And it is because of my past and my upbringing and the journey that I've been on. — Madonna Ciccone

In an essay 10 years ago, I pointed out that it is utterly logical for polygamy rights to follow gay rights. After all, if traditional marriage is defined as the union of (1) two people of (2) opposite gender, and if, as advocates of gay marriage insist, the gender requirement is nothing but prejudice, exclusion and an arbitrary denial of one's autonomous choices in love, then the first requirement - the number restriction (two and only two) - is a similarly arbitrary, discriminatory and indefensible denial of individual choice. — Charles Krauthammer

I once asked her if she was happy. "That depends on what I am able to get done today," she said, laughing. She told me that the completion of her daily tasks was the only thing she felt she had control over. They were a form of meditation, of salve. Kept busy, she had no time to ruminate and no time for opinions, certainly not feminist ones. I pressed her: "I mean, are you happy with your life, Rajima?" "I don't know," she said uncomfortably, as if she'd never really considered such a question. "When there is little you can do, you do what you can." Happiness for my grandmother seemed to be a verb rather than a noun. She had so little control over her own life. Yet she took control, out of thin air for herself, when she could. — Padma Lakshmi

Love and the traditional marriage doesn't necessarily go together like a horse and carriage. -Serena Jade — Serena Jade

You can't fight an evil disease with sweet medicine,' says the ng'anga. — Panashe Chigumadzi

In the 21st Century, the anti-traditional marriage community is in league with the anti-life community, and together with the NAACP and other sympathizers, they are seeking a world where homosexual marriage and abortion will supposedly set the captives free. — Alveda King

The usual marriage in traditional cultures was arranged for by the families. It wasn't a person-to-person decision at all ... In the Middle Ages, that was the kind of marriage that was sanctified by the Church. And so the troubadour idea of real person-to-person Amor was very dangerous ... It is in direct contradiction to the way of the Church. The word AMOR spelt backwards is ROMA, the Roman Catholic Church, which was justifying marriages that were simply political and social in their character. And so came this movement validating individual choice, what I call following your bliss. — Joseph Campbell

Like me, the great majority of Americans wish both to preserve the traditional definition of marriage and to oppose bias and intolerance directed towards gays and lesbians. — Mitt Romney

Abel wanted a traditional marriage with a traditional wife. For a long time I wondered why he ever married a woman like my mom in the first place, as she was the opposite of that in every way. If he wanted a woman to bow to him, there were plenty of girls back in Tzaneen being raised solely for that purpose. The way my mother always explained it, the traditional man wants a woman to be subservient, but he never falls in love with subservient women. He's attracted to independent women. "He's like an exotic bird collector," she said. "He only wants a woman who is free because his dream is to put her in a cage. — Trevor Noah

It is in the very nature of conjugal love to be definitive. The lasting union expressed by the marriage vows is more than a formality or a traditional formula; it is rooted in the natural inclinations of the human person. For believers, it is also a covenant before God that calls for fidelity. — Pope Francis

A loving God ordained monogamous marriage and the sanctity of what we call the traditional family. — Billy Graham

I repeat to you-my own view is, is that if a State-if people decide to-what they do in the privacy of their house, consenting adults should be able to do. This is America. It's a free society, but it doesn't mean we have to redefine traditional marriage. — George W. Bush

Had my father loved my mother? He never spoke of her. I always imagined a traditional marriage between them--one built with the strong bones of respect, but stripped of the soft skin of love. — Kay Honeyman

Like it or not, today we are all pioneers, picking our way through uncharted and unstable territory. The old rules are no longer reliable guides to work out modern gender roles and build a secure foundation for marriage. Wherever it is that people want to end up in their family relations today, even if they are totally committed to creating a so-called traditional marrige, they have to get there by a different route from the past. — Stephanie Coontz

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

Bachofen, furthermore, is perfectly right in contending that the transition from what he calls "hetaerism" or "incestuous generation" to monogamy was brought about mainly by women. The more in the course of economic development, undermining the old communism and increasing the density of population, the traditional sexual relations lost their innocent character suited to the primitive forest, the more debasing and oppressive they naturally appeared to women; and the more they consequently longed for relief by the right of chastity, of temporary or permanent marriage with one man. This progress could not be due to men for the simple reason that they never, even to this day, had the least intention of renouncing the pleasures of actual group marriage. Not until the women had accomplished the transition to the pairing family could the men introduce strict monogamy - true, only for women. The — Friedrich Engels

The State Marriage Defense Act helps safeguard the ability of states to preserve traditional marriage for their citizens. — Ted Cruz

It will come as no surprise to anybody to know that I support the traditional definition of marriage as a union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others, as expressed in our traditional common law. — Stephen Harper

Traditional marriage between a man and a woman has been a cornerstone of our society for generations. If we are going to change that, it ought to be done by the will of the people. — Steve Chabot

I'm for traditional marriage, mostly because I want to know how many goats I'm worth. — Sabrina Zbasnik

I've always had bizarre, negative feelings about anything traditional, like marriage and family. I never thought something like that worked. — Gerard Way

We need uniform protection of traditional marriage. You can't have different definitions on something as fundamental as marriage. The Marriage Protection Amendment is the only solution to this problem. — Ernest Istook

To this culture warrior, gay marriage is not a vital issue. I don't believe the republic will collapse if Larry marries Brendan. However, it is clear that most Americans want heterosexual marriage to maintain its special place in American society. And as long as gays are not penalized in the civil arena, I think the folks should make the call at the ballot box. Traditional marriage is widely seen as a social stabilizer, and I believe that is true. — Bill O'Reilly

Traditional marriage is what should be sanctioned. — Jeb Bush

In autumn 2012 I conducted a dedication and blessing service following the Civil Partnership of two wonderful gay Christians. Why? Not to challenge the traditional understanding of marriage - far from it - but to extend to these people what I would do to others: the love and support of our local church. — Steve Chalke

I have been to this point unwilling to sign on to same-sex marriage primarily because of my understandings of the traditional definitions of marriage. But I also think you're right that attitudes evolve, including mine. — Barack Obama

None of this was part of the plan all the girls I'd grown up with had been given. Not a written plan, unless the book about Cinderella counted. The plan was in the water we drank, the air we breathed. It was poured into the pavement on the streets we called home. Marry a nice man, one who was a good provider, and live happily, or at least comfortably, ever after.

Safe to say I'd followed the plan. I'd married a banker. Had a baby. But the plan had failed me. It left me alone huddled in a window seat with every emotion I'd refused to let myself feel seeping through my pores until the air in my bedroom was heavy with sadness and angst and confusion. (p. 235) — Julie Mulhern

My first marriage was very traditional, in the church, and then we left the church and went to the reception hall. So this time, I'd like to go fairy tale all the way. — NeNe Leakes

Supporting the definition of marriage as one man and one woman is not anti-gay: it is pro-traditional marriage. And if support for traditional marriage is bigotry, then Barack Obama was a bigot until just before the 2012 election. — Marco Rubio

I believe that marriage is not just a bond but a sacred bond between a man and a woman ... I have had occasion in my life to defend marriage, to stand up for marriage, to believe in the hard work and challenge of marriage. So I [am] committed to the sanctity of marriage, or to the fundamental bedrock principle that exists between a man and a woman, going back into the mists of history as one of the founding, foundational institutions of history and humanity and civilization, and that its primary, principal role during those millennia has been the raising and socializing of children for the society into which they are to become adults. — Hillary Rodham Clinton

The Left despises Texas, with its stellar record of job growth; Texas, with its strong support for traditional marriage and the sanctity of life; Texas, the root of the conservative tree. Should the Left succeed in its attempt to turn Texas purple, America could turn permanently blue. — Ben Shapiro

Contrary to what we hear, the great American divide is not a clash between conservatives who advocate liberty versus progressives who oppose liberty. Rather, the two sides each affirm a certain type of liberty. One side, for example, cherishes economic liberty while the other champions liberty in the sexual and social domain. Nor is it a clash between patriots and anti-patriots. Both sides love America, but they love a different type of America. One side loves the America of Columbus and the Fourth of July, of innovation and work and the "animal spirit" of capitalism, of the Boy Scouts and parochial schools, of traditional families and flag-saluting veterans. The other side loves the America of tolerance and social entitlements, of income and wealth redistribution, of affirmative action and abortion, of feminism and gay marriage. — Dinesh D'Souza

Legalizing gay marriage is not about making it possible for gay people to become couples. It's about giving the Left the power to force anti-religious values on our children. Once they legalize gay marriage, it will be the bludgeon they use to make sure that it becomes illegal to teach traditional values in the schools. — Orson Scott Card

The problem for those who assert biblical authority in support of traditional definitions of marriage is that one could, with equal validity, assert that the lending of money or certain kinds of haircuts are forbidden by God, or that slavery and the subjugation of women are authorized by the Lord. — Jon Meacham

What is behind homosexual marriage. It's really more about the destruction of the traditional family than about exalting homosexuality, because you need to destroy also loyalty to the family. — Rafael Cruz

I have to wonder at what point the people fighting to protect marriage will realize that traditional couples haven't exactly been doing too good a job of it so far. — Daniel Pearce

Liberal hostility to the traditional family helped to undermine centuries of accumulated wisdom and experience about what was best for children and adults. Far from benefiting only men, marriage confers enormous advantages on women and children as well - a fact that has been thrown into sharp relief by its breakdown over the past forty years. — Mona Charen

There's never been a civilization, ever in history, that has embraced homosexuality and turned away from traditional fidelity and traditional marriage, traditional child rearing, and has survived. — Pat Roberts

I do not believe that defending traditional marriage between one man and one woman excludes anybody or usurps anybody's civil rights and denies anybody their civil rights. — Alan Autry

Many heterosexual marriages are childless; many with children break up: they are no guarantee that children will be raised in a house with two parents of two genders. The courts have scoffed at the reproduction and child-raising argument against marriage equality. And the conservatives have not mounted what seems to be their real objection; that they wish to preserve traditional marriage and more than that, traditional gender roles. — Rebecca Solnit

I think Donald Trump's interpretation of marriage is something that he himself doesn't really believe in. 'Traditional marriage' is where two people love each other, commit to each other, care for each other over the years. It is a meaningful ceremony, and his interpretation of that is not recognizing what real marriage is. — George Takei

I won't have a traditional marriage; I don't find the value in that anymore. But I am such a hopeless romantic and I really want love and I want a committed relationship, so I am going to reinvent marriage for myself. — Halle Berry

The notion that women shouldn't care about personal success
or the work that gets them there
is disengenuous; it is impossible for women not to have jobs anymore, so it doesn't make sense to expect them to structure their lives around getting married. The real failure is our cultural incapacity to make room for women to live and thrive outside of traditional conceptions of femininity and relationships. After all, we can eat without marriage, but not without work. — Samhita Mukhopadhyay

Bush proposed a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Some saw the move as an attempt to preserve traditional values, while others saw it as a cynical ploy to ensure that Vice President ... Cheney will never have to pay for his gay daughter's wedding. — Jon Stewart

I think it's best if there's an amendment that goes on the ballot where the people can weigh in. Every time this issue has gone on the ballot, the people have voted to retain the traditional definition of marriage as recently as California in 2008. — Michele Bachmann

We've arrived at a point where the President of the United States is going to lead a war on traditional marriage. — Rush Limbaugh

I believe in traditional marriage and I believe in the Defense of Marriage Act. — Herman Cain

We begin to understand marriage as the insistently practical union that it is. We begin to understand it, that is, as it is represented in the traditional marriage ceremony, those vows being only a more circumstantial and practical way of saying what the popular songs say dreamily and easily: "I will love you forever"
a statement that, in this world, inescapably leads to practical requirements and consequences because it proposes survival as a goal. Indeed, marriage is a union much more than practical, for it looks both to our survival as a species and to the survival of our definition as human beings
that is, as creatures who make promises and keep them, who care devotedly and faithfully for one another, who care properly for the gifts of life in this world. — Wendell Berry

Even with a more traditional reading that condemns gay sex, the Bible never condemns gay people for who they are and what they feel. We may disagree on whether the Bible can be reconciled with same-sex marriage, but we should be able to agree that the Bible is not homophobic and does not justify the unkind attitudes some Christians have become known for. — Justin Lee

I'm an old-fashioned person and I happen to believe in traditional marriage. — John Kasich

By formally declaring anyone opposed to same-sex marriage an enemy of human decency, the majority arms well every challenger to a state law restricting marriage to its traditional definition. — Antonin Scalia

Looking at traditional marriages, it seems the surest way for a woman to be alone is to get married. — Gloria Steinem

Bajaj, like Birla, a convert to Gandhian principles, raised social issues that most members of the community found unpalatable: inter-caste marriage, expressing concern over the extravagance of marriage celebrations, arguing against the practice of financial speculation, condemning child marriage and asking Marwari women to give up their traditional dress and jewellery. — Akshaya Mukul

Since the dawn of time, traditional marriage - the union between one man and one woman - has been the building block of civilization, and at no point in our nation's history has that foundation been under more severe attack than now. — Jim DeMint

Fighting the Traditional Marriage is provoking God;Beheading Jesus is to lead the church without His rulership or Counsel.Woe to theme who — Paul Gitwaza

When you're suddenly pregnant and no one is standing by your side, even if you're in your 30s, it's a hard conversation. I'm a traditional girl, and I believe in marriage, and I just always thought that's the way I'd be doing this. — Bridget Moynahan

I believe people ought to be treated fairly under the law. I see no reason why if the marriage contract conveys certain things that if you want to marry another woman that you can do that and have a contract. But the thing is is the religious connotation of marriage that has been going on for thousands of years, I still want to preserve that. And you probably could have both. You could have both traditional marriage, which I believe in. And then you could also have the neutrality of the law that allows people to have contracts with another. — Rand Paul

As I got older, the role that I ended up (playing) on One Life to Live was a mother because, by then, I had a stable marriage - so I thought - and a beautiful son and mother roles became what I was doing well. I was still the Latina mom who very much related to people who love family. All those traditional values (were) coming back into my life. — Patricia Mauceri

I would sign an executive order protecting religious liberty, our first amendment rights, so Christian business owners and individuals don't face discrimination for having a traditional view of marriage. — Bobby Jindal

That single moment's intensity hasn't been matched in my life before or since. A woman I didn't know had chosen to accept me, in body and mind. Perhaps it is this instant that forms the basis of traditional marriage - a complete stranger is suddenly mine. And then, I am hers, too; I must offer her my all. I want her to wield her power over me as an acknowledgment of my love. The rush of those feelings all at once is too much to describe. Language communicates in terms of what is already known; it chokes up when asked to deal with the entirely unprecedented. — Vivek Shanbhag

You'll marry your studies? Marry your books? You already have one degree but you want another. You'll marry your degrees? — Chinelo Okparanta

Liberating ourselves from the traditional strictures of marriage altogether, and/or transforming those strictures to include all of us -- gay, feminist, career-focused, baby crazy, monogamous, non-monogamous, skeptical, romantic, and everyone in between -- is the challenge facing this generation. As we consciously opt out or creatively reimagine marriage one loving couple at a time, we'll be able to shift societal expectations wholesale, freeing younger generations from some of the antiquated assumptions we've faced (that women always want to get married and men always shy away from commitment, that gender parity somehow disempowers men, that turning 30 makes an unmarried woman into an old maid). — Courtney E. Martin

For the first time in history, middle-class women do not need men in the traditional ways - for safety, for money, for a life. So they're demanding instead what they always wanted but couldn't ask for: emotional connection, presence, intimacy. Sex with enough foreplay, enough seduction, enough closeness to please them. Men are baffled not only because the needs they are being asked to fill differ so from what their fathers and grandfathers understood to be their jobs but also because full-fledged intimacy requires strengths and skills they've never learned. Moreover ... they're strengths and skills that were once left solely to women: Men didn't have to develop them. This maturational mismatch may be contributing to distrust among lovers of all ages. — Dalma Heyn

If traditional marriage is not the law of the land, the institution of the family will cease to exist. — James Dobson

Americans have swapped the awkward phrase "same-sex marriage" for the term "marriage equality." The phrase is ordinarily employed 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. — Rebecca Solnit

The presumption that the law can tell us what natural institution is supposed to be is a formula for totalitarianism. There's not equality in a family; there never is. And yet for that reason, the family is condemned as patriarchal. The goal of this sort of legislation is about the destruction of the traditional family, not just marriage. — Francis George

I think there are a whole host of things that are civil rights, and then there are other things - such as traditional marriage - that, I think, express a community's concern and regard for a particular institution. — Barack Obama

Traditionalists like me believe the USA has become strong because of its core values, the freedom, individual responsibility and institutions like traditional marriage, which foster common goals. — Bill O'Reilly

My greatest concern is that Mitt Romney seldom addresses the social issues publicly ... I'm referring to the sanctity of human life, the traditional definition of marriage, and religious liberty. — James Dobson

Marriage and family life give us constant opportunities to deny ourselves for the sake of others. And yet self-denial is not a mask for self-contempt, but the necessary means for achieving self-mastery; for self-mastery makes possible our self-giving and self-fulfillment. Sin is not wanting too much, but settling for too little. It's settling for self-gratification rather than self-fulfillment. — Scott Hahn

Out of control judicial activism threatens traditional marriage in America. — Ernest Istook