Quotes & Sayings About Wedlock

The stark truth is that as long as the welfare state makes it possible for young women - or teenage girls - to have children without a husband and survive without a job, out-of-wedlock births will remain ruinously high, and the inner city will continue to be marked by crime, poverty, and despair. — David Boaz

Apocalyptic that has no parentage in biblical sources or gospel commitments, does promote a progeny of irresponsibility (and the brats are noisily and distressingly in evidence on every American street), but the real thing, the conceived-in-holy-wedlock apocalyptic, develops communities that are passionately patient, courageously committed to witness and work in the kingdom of God no matter how long it takes, or how much it costs. — Eugene H. Peterson

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. — William Shakespeare

Wedlock joins nothing, if it joins not hearts. — James Sheridan Knowles

I believe it will be found that those who marry late are best pleased with their children; and those who marry early, with their partners. — Samuel Johnson

Leonardo's twenty-six-year-old father, Ser Piero, was (as his honorary title implied) a notary: someone who wrote wills, contracts, and other commercial and legal correspondence. The family had produced notaries for at least five generations, but with Leonardo the chain was to snap. He was, as his grandfather's tax return stated a few years later, "non legittimo" - born out of wedlock - and as such he (along with criminals and priests) was barred from membership in the Guild of Judges and Notaries. Leonardo's mother was a sixteen-year-old girl named Caterina, and an apparent difference in their social status meant she and Piero, a bright and ambitious young man, did not marry. Almost — Ross King

With chaste affections man and wife In solemn wedlock it entwines. Love's laws most trusty comrades bind. How happy is the human race, 30 If Love, by which the heavens are ruled, To rule men's minds is set in place! — Boethius

More than 72 percent of children in the African-American community are born out of wedlock. That means absent fathers. — Don Lemon

The trouble with wedlock is that there's not enough wed and too much lock. — Christopher Morley

Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can't get a job, and if it weren't for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have health care. And that's the story that we're not seeing, and it's unfortunate that we glorify and glamorize the idea of out of children wedlock. — Mike Huckabee

Times are changed with him who marries; there are no more by-path meadows where you may innocently linger, but the road lies long and straight and dusty to the grave — Robert Louis Stevenson

A happy wedlock is a long falling in love. — Theodore Parker

Let's remember the children who come from broken homes, surrounded by crime, drugs, temptation, their peers having babies out of wedlock, but who still manage to get a good education despite the many obstacles they face every day. — Armstrong Williams

The Bible may be the Greatest Story Ever Told, but the most popular story you can ever tell is about a good-looking couple having a really swell time copulating outside wedlock, and having to quit for one reason or another while doing it is still a novelty. — Kurt Vonnegut

I think it's important for those of us in a position of responsibility to be firm in sharing our experiences, to understand that the babies out of wedlock is a very difficult chore for mom and baby alike ... I believe we ought to say there is a different alternative than the culture that is proposed by people like Miss Wolf in society ... And, you know, hopefully, condoms will work, but it hasn't worked. — George W. Bush

It takes years to marry completely two hearts, even of the most loving and well-assorted. A happy wedlock is a long falling in love. Men and women marry fractionally, now a small and then a larger fraction ... Such a long and sweet fruit needs a long summer to ripen in and a long winter to season in. But real and happy marriage is one of those things so handsome that if the sun were, as the Greek poets fabled it, a god, he might stop the world and hold it still now and then to feast his eyes on such a spectacle. — Theodore Parker

Will there not be any scandal if she marries *me*? I asked
not quite believing that living in pseudo-wedlock with a half-human foreign transvestite was any improvement over spinsterhood. — Marie Brennan

Hollywood has glorified adult premarital sex, and that is unhelpful if your goal is to reduce teen pregnancy and out-of-wedlock births. — Joe Lieberman

Do you understand the stakes involved?"
"Other than the financial ones?"
"What other kind of stakes could there be?"
Matthew sent him a sardonic glance. "Your daughter's heart. Her future happiness. Her - "
"Bah! People don't marry to be happy. Or if they do, they soon discover it's hog-swill."
Despite his black mood, Matthew smiled slightly. "If you're hoping to inspire me in the direction of wedlock," he said, "it's not working. — Lisa Kleypas

One child out of wedlock is an error. Two suggests carelessness. Three - and six - is simply wrong. Wrong. — Eloisa James

I feel about lending a book the way most fathers feel about their daughters living with a man out of wedlock. — Anatole Broyard

I think that I shall never know
Why I am thus, and I am so.
Around me, other girls inspire
In men the rush and roar of fire,
The sweet transparency of glass,
The tenderness of April grass,
The durability of granite;
But me- I don't know how to plan it.
The lads I've met in Cupid's deadlock
Were- shall we say?- born out of wedlock.
They broke my heart, they stilled my song,
And said they had to run along,
Explaining, so to sop my tears,
First came their parents or careers.
But ever does experience
Deny me wisdom, calm, and sense!
Though she's a fool who seeks to capture
The twenty-first fine, careless rapture,
I must go on, till ends my rope,
Who from my birth was cursed with hope.
A heart in half is chaste, archaic;
But mine resembles a mosaic-
The thing's become ridiculous!
Why am I so? Why am I thus? — Dorothy Parker

Of all the names Polygamy went by (so as not to exasperate the Gentile population and even some of the wives of the members' own bosoms any more than necessary)
such as Pluralism, Plural or Celestial Wedlock, the Principle, the Doctrine, the New Covenant and the Gospel Dispensation of the Meridian of Consummate Time
the latter was thought to be the least like waving a red flag in front of a bull. But as it was hard to remember and did not make instant or any other kind of sense, it was not much used. — Ardyth Kennelly

Saura nodded, bemused by the code of ethics that allowed for murder and kidnapping but balked at a lady touching a lord outside of the state of wedlock. — Christina Dodd

Everyone is sinning, so it's no longer rebellious to sin. You're just a conformist if you're drunk; and naked; driving around in a loud motorcycle; smoking cigarrettes; breaking commandments; getting pregnant out of wedlock. Everyone's done that. That's so tired! — Mark Driscoll

I don't want to suggest that matrimony was necessarily a tragic affair - some of our neighbours' marriages seemed quite functional, if somewhat routine; nevertheless, in the workaday world, it is wedlock that is most likely to offer the occasion for life-threatening disappointment. — John Burnside

The primary reality is not what I think, but that I live, for those also live who do not think. Although this living may not be a real living. God! What contradictions when we seek to join in wedlock life and reason! — Bruce Lee

JOSIAH FRANKLIN and ABIAH his wife, lie here interred. They lived lovingly together in wedlock fifty-five years. Without an estate, or any gainful employment, By constant labor and industry, with God's blessing, They maintained a large family comfortably, and brought up thirteen children and seven grandchildren reputably. From this instance, reader, Be encouraged to diligence in thy calling, And distrust not Providence. He was a pious and prudent man; She, a discreet and virtuous woman. Their youngest son, In filial regard to their memory, Places this stone. J. — Benjamin Franklin

What we cannot have, as I've said, is half a jungle. We can't have the world in which men and women love one another and raise healthy families, with almost all children born within wedlock and almost all children living with both parents, and their children in turn visiting their still-married grandparents, if at the same time we welcome the rest of the chaos. You can't have a child-friendly and marriage-friendly street with a porn shop and a strip club on it. The principle that the sexual "fulfillment" of adults is trumps must bear fruit accordingly. It is too wild a thing to nip here and there. It has to be uprooted. It is unworthy of a civilized and self-governing people. — Anthony Esolen

But keeping secrets is a discipline. I never use to think of myself as a good liar, but after having had some practice I had adopted the prevaricator's credo that one doesn't so much fabricate a lie as marry it. A successful lie cannot be brought into this world and capriciously abandoned; like any committed relationship it must be maintained, and with far more devotion than the truth, which carries on being carelessly true without any help. By contrast, my lie needed me as much as I needed it, and so demanded the constancy of wedlock: Till death do us part. — Lionel Shriver

The wedlocks of minds will be greater than that of bodies. — Desiderius Erasmus

Men marry. Women wed. — Raheel Farooq

Horses (thou say'st) and asses men may try,
And ring suspected vessels ere they buy;
But wives, a random choice, untried they take;
They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake;
Then, nor till then, the veil's removed away,
And all the woman glares in open day. — Alexander Pope

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

[The Republicans] offer ... a detailed agenda for national renewal ... [On] reducing illegitimacy ... the state will use ... funds for programs to reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies, to promote adoption, to establish and operate children's group homes, to establish and operate residential group homes for unwed mothers, or for any purpose the state deems appropriate. None of the taxpayer funds may be used for abortion services or abortion counseling. — Newt Gingrich

Grave authors say, and witty poets sing, That honest wedlock is a glorious thing. — Alexander Pope

I believe that poverty is often the result of inappropriate behavior - out-of-wedlock births, dropping out of school, crime and drugs - which should not be rewarded. But often it isn't, and common decency requires that we take care of the least of these. — Joe Klein

The horror of wedlock, the most appalling, the most loathsome of all the bonds humankind has devised for its own discomfort and degradation. — Marquis De Sade

Married women vote Republican; single women vote Democratic. That's why liberals promote policies to break up families. Every social malady is a victory for the left. A couple gets divorced and liberals say, "Yay! Another Democratic voter!" A child is born out of wedlock and liberals say, "Yay! Another Democratic voter!" A person gets addicted to drugs and liberals say, "Yay! Another Democratic voter!" — Ann Coulter

The holy heaven yearns to wound the earth, and yearning layeth hold on the earth to join in wedlock; the rain, fallen from the amorous heaven, impregnates the earth, and it bringeth forth for mankind the food of flocks and herds and Demeter's gifts; and from that moist marriage-rite the woods put on their bloom. — Aeschylus

Pain is a partner I did not request;
This is a dance I did not ask to join;
whirled in a waltz when I would stop and rest,
Jolted and jerked, I ache in bone and loin.
Pain strives to hold me close in his embrace;
If I resist and try to pull away
His grasp grows tighter; closer comes his face;
hotter his breath. If he is here to stay
Then must I learn to dance this painful dance,
Move to its rhythm, keep my lagging feet
In time with his. Thus have I a chance
To work with pain, and so may pain defeat.
Pain is my partner. If I dance with pain
Then may this wedlock be not loss but gain. — Madeleine L'Engle

Many of the overlapping crises in American life, from our foreign policy disasters to the housing bubble to the rate of out-of-wedlock births, can be traced to the impulse to emphasize one particular element of traditional Christianity - one insight, one doctrine, one teaching or tradition - at the expense of all the others. The goal is always progress: a belief system that's simpler or more reasonable, more authentic or more up-to-date. Yet the results often vindicate the older Christian synthesis. Heresy sets out to be simpler and more appealing and more rational, but it often ends up being more extreme. — Ross Douthat

Unions in wedlock are perverted by the victory of shameless passion that masters the female among men and beasts. — Aeschylus

The Fawleys were not made for wedlock: it never seemed to sit well upon us. There's sommat in our blood that won't take kindly to the notion of being bound to do what we do readily enough if not bound ... — Thomas Hardy

Too many people embrace religion from the same motives that they take a companion in wedlock, not from true love of the person, but because of a large dowry. — Hosea Ballou

To the moralist prostitution does not consist so much in the fact that the woman sells her body, but rather that she sells it out of wedlock. — Emma Goldman

Their sons go out to nightclubs looking for meat and get their girlfriends pregnant, they have kids out of wedlock and no one says a goddamn thing. Oh, they're just men having fun! I make one mistake and suddenly everyone is talking nang and namoos, and I have to have my face rubbed in it for the rest of my life. — Khaled Hosseini

Anna Wren was not for him. She was of a different class than he, and, moreover, she was a respectable widow from the village. She wasn't a sophisticated society lady who might consider a liaison outside of wedlock. — Elizabeth Hoyt

Wedlock's like wine - not properly judged of till the second glass. — Ernest Jarrold

Look at all of the out-of-wedlock births that are going on, particularly in our inner cities. I have been speaking at a lot of the non-profit organizations that support organizations that support these women so that they don't have an abortion, so that they have the baby. — Benjamin Carson

University of Otago social historian Hera Cook provides a beautiful illustration of exactly this point in her rich account of the sexual revolution.49 Cook notes that in eighteenth-century England, women were assumed to be sexually passionate. But drawing on economic and social changes, fertility-rate patterns, personal accounts, and sex surveys and manuals, Cook charts the path toward the sexual repression of the Victorian era. This was a time of reduced female economic power, thanks to a shift from production in the home to wage earning, and there was less community pressure on men to financially support children fathered out of wedlock. And so, in the absence of well-known, reliable birth control techniques, "women could not afford to enjoy sex. The risk made it too expensive a pleasure."50 — Cordelia Fine

It was more than just material prosperity. America in 1960 was a country where restraint and boundaries were the natural conditions in all arenas. People married younger and stayed married; even with those added twenty-eight million, there were fewer divorces in 1960 than there had been a decade earlier. People did not have children unless they were married - only 2.5 percent of children were born out of wedlock, though the number in black households was disturbingly high - some 20 percent. — Jeff Greenfield

I found him. It was easy. The Church always seems to know where its priests are, even when they're traveling. He remembered me. His hair had turned almost all gray, but he still had his kindly, hesitant manner. "I told him the truth, exactly what had happened. "'The child was conceived out of wedlock,' he said, 'but the child's father was supposed to have been killed in the war. If you marry the mother now, you can adopt him. Then we will "discover" that he is not merely your adopted son, but your natural born son. So, he was your son, he is your son, he will be your son, you will have married his mother, you will have returned from the dead,' he said, counting on his fingers. 'What more can you want? Five out of six. I have no more fingers on this hand.' "'I don't want him to suffer illegitimacy,' I said. "'He won't'. "'Why?' "'I'll take care of it.' "'How?' "'I don't know, but I will.' "And he did. — Mark Helprin

I praise wedlock, I praise marital union, but only because they produce me virgins. — St. Jerome

Wedlock's a lane where there is no turning. — Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

Hate is of all things the mightiest divider, nay, is division itself. To couple hatred, therefore, though wedlock try all her golden links, and borrow to tier aid all the iron manacles and fetters of law, it does but seek to twist a rope of sand. — John Milton

My love has placed her little hand With noble faith in mine, And vowed that wedlock's sacred band Our nature shall entwine. My love has sworn, with sealing kiss, With me to live
to die; I have at last my nameless bliss: As I love
loved am I! — Charlotte Bronte

Wedlock is a padlock. — John Ray

Wedlock is a narrow business. — Sally O'Reilly

After all, wedlock is the natural state of man. A bachelor is not a complete human being. He is like the odd half of a pair of scissors, which has not yet found its fellow, and therefore is not even half so useful as they might be together. — Benjamin Franklin

They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake. — Alexander Pope

I have heard it said - usually behind my back - that Black Lesbians are not normal. But what is normal in this deranged society by which we are all trapped? I remember, and so do many of you, when being Black was considered not normal, when they talked about us in whispers, tried to paint us, lynch us, bleach us, ignore us, pretend we did not exist. We called that racism.
I have heard it said that Black Lesbians are a threat to the Black family. But when 50 percent of children born to Black women are born out of wedlock, and 30 percent of all Black families are headed by women without husbands, we need to broaden and redefine what we mean by family.
I have heard it said that Black Lesbians will mean the death of the race. Yet Black Lesbians bear children in exactly the same way other women bear children, and a Lesbian household is simply another kind of family. Ask my son and daughter. — Audre Lorde

I don't believe in bringing children into the world out of wedlock. — Eartha Kitt

Mary had been chosen, "favored" by God. But what a strange blessing. It brought with it none of the ideals or goals that so consume our daily striving. Today many assume that those whom God favors will enjoy the things we equate with a good life: social standing, wealth and good health. Yet Mary, God's favored one, was blessed with having a child out of wedlock who would later be executed as a criminal. Acceptability, prosperity, and comfort have never been the essence of God's blessing — R. Alan Culpepper

Away with tears and fears and troubles! United in wedlock with the eternal Godhead Itself, our nature ascends into the Heaven of Heavens. So it would be impious to call ourselves 'miserable.' On the contrary, Man is a creature whom the Angels-were they capable of envy-would envy. Let us lift up our hearts! — C.S. Lewis

You cannot really get married by mistake. You can only marry the wrong person. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

God very commonly takes on the character of a husband to us. Indeed, the union by which he binds us to himself when he receives us into the bosom of the church is like sacred wedlock. — John Calvin

The longer a woman remains single, the more apprehensive she will be of entering into the state of wedlock. At seventeen or eighteen, a girl will plunge into it, sometimes without either fear or wit; at twenty, she will begin to think; at twenty-four, will weigh and discriminate; at twenty-eight, will be afraid of venturing; at thirty, will turn about, and look down the hill she has ascended, and sometimes rejoice, sometimes repent, that she has gained that summit sola. — Samuel Richardson

Wedlock is the deep, deep peace of the double bed after the hurly-burly of the chaise lounge. — Mrs. Patrick Campbell

The Equal Rights Amendment would "turn holy wedlock into holy deadlock." — William Rehnquist

A person's character is but half formed till after wedlock. — Charles Simmons

But tell me, I beseech you, what man is that would submit his neck to the noose of wedlock, if, as wise men should, he did but first truly weigh the inconvenience of the thing? Or — Erasmus

Do we honestly believe that hopeless kids growing up under the harsh new rules will turn out to be chaste, studious, responsible adults? On the contrary, by limiting welfare, job training, education and nutritious food, won't we plant the seeds for another bumper crop of out-of-wedlock moms, deadbeat dads and worse? — Richard Stolley

He had brought me to feel that free love was better than that hallowed by the sanctity of marriage, that those bound in wedlock soon wearied and satiated of one another and then awoke to find themselves forever bound together, to shiver for a life-time over the dead embers of an extinct passion, or to break their vows and bring shame and disgrace upon each other, and upon their children. — Margaret Fountaine

Pierre mixed the salad. The romaine and cress he doused with walnut oil chilled to an emulsion, turning it with wooden forks so that the bruises showed on the green in dark lines. He poured on the souring of wine vinegar and the juice of young grapes, seasoned with shallots, pepper and salt, a squeeze of anchovy, and a pinch of mustard. At the Faison d'Or the salad was in wedlock with the roast." (p.24) — Idwal Jones

Marriageable girls as well as mothers understand the terms and perils of the lottery called wedlock. That is why women weep at a wedding and men smile. — Honore De Balzac

How many women are there ... who because of their husbands' harshness spend their weary lives in the bond of marriage in greater suffering than if they were slaves among the Saracens? — Christine De Pizan

Were marriage no more than a convenient screen for sexuality, some less cumbersome and costly protection must have been found by this time to replace it. One concludes therefore that people do not marry to cohabit; they cohabit to marry. They do not seek freedom to rut so much as they seek the rut of wedlock. — Virgilia Peterson

Huts they made then, and fire, and skins for clothing, And a woman yielded to one man in wedlock ... Common, to see the offspring they had made; The human race began to mellow then. Because of fire their shivering forms no longer Could bear the cold beneath the covering sky. — Lucretius

Before the code, women on screen took lovers, had babies out of wedlock, got rid of cheating husbands, enjoyed their sexuality, held down professional positions without apologizing for their self-sufficiency, and in general acted the way many of us think woman acted only after 1969. — Mick LaSalle

For any man to match above his rank is but to sell his liberty. — Philip Massinger

The lads I've met in cupid's deadlock
Were - shall we say? - born out of wedlock — Dorothy Parker

Divorce is the key that opens the strongbox where the bonds of matrimony are kept under wedlock. — Evan Esar

It began to really eat away with me that in the '60s the federal government, desiring to help poor moms who were dealing with deadbeat dads, decided, 'We'll help: we'll give a check for every child you can have out of wedlock.' — Louie Gohmert

The Epistle to the Galatians is my epistle. To it I am as it were in wedlock. It is my Katherine. — Martin Luther

But who can describe the overweening pride of men? Or women mad with passion, reckless in their hearts, soulmates to every kind of ruin that befalls us? Wild passion, unrestrained, boundless, that overcomes the women, perverts the yoke of wedlock for beasts and men alike. — Aeschylus

Contraception leads to more babies being born out of wedlock, like fire extinguishers lead to more fires. — Stephen Colbert

If she be not honest, chaste, and true, there's no man happy. — William Shakespeare

If you will learn the seriousness of life, and its beauty also, live for your husband; make him happy. — Fredrika Bremer

I hear the chipper voice of the Church magazines chirping in my brain: You're in a relationship with a boy who treats you as his emotional and spiritual equal. You feel a desire to express your affection through physical acts that will bring mutual pleasure. Do you (a) go for it! Sex is a natural gift from God, and a lot of fun so long as you do it safely!; (b) get him to propose! Sex is only fun if you do it in a Church of America-approved union! Plus, babies are so cute!; or (c) seek guidance from your local pastor for your sinful thoughts and ask for tips on expressing your love in a holy, nonphysical way? TRICK QUESTION! The answer is (d) the fact that you even momentarily considered having sex out of wedlock proves that you have no place in God's eternal kingdom, you reprehensible slut. — Katie Coyle

The zooming wealth of the top 1 percent is a problem, but it's not nearly as big a problem as the tens of millions of Americans who have dropped out of high school or college. It's not nearly as big a problem as the 40 percent of children who are born out of wedlock. It's not nearly as big a problem as the nation's stagnant human capital, its stagnant social mobility and the disorganized social fabric for the bottom 50 percent. — David Brooks

Conservatives were sure that if you eliminated welfare for single moms, it would eliminate - or at lease greatly reduce - single motherhood. So in 1996 we had welfare reform. Did not change the trend in the least. Soon half of all babies will be born out of wedlock. — Gail Collins