Women To Women Marriage Quotes & Sayings

I don't think young men or women should feel pressured into marriage. You shouldn't marry anyone, in my opinion, who you have to try hard for. — Rachael Ray

Marriage is traditionally the destiny offered to women by society. Most women are married or have been, or plan to be or suffer from not being. — Simone De Beauvoir

A tramp, therefore, is a celibate from the moment when he takes to the road. He is absolutely without hope of getting a wife, a mistress, or any kind of woman except - very rarely, when he can raise a few shillings - a prostitute.
It is obvious what the results of this must be: homosexuality, for instance, and occasional rape cases. But deeper than these there is the degradation worked in a man who knows that he is not even considered fit for marriage. The sexual impulse, not to put it any higher, is a fundamental impulse, and starvation of it can be almost as demoralizing as physical hunger. The evil of poverty is not so much that it makes a man suffer as that it rots him physically and spiritually. And there can be no doubt that sexual starvation contributes to this rotting process. Cut off from the whole race of women, a tramp feels himself degraded to the rank of a cripple or a lunatic. No humiliation could do more damage to a man's self-respect. — George Orwell

It's funny - I read that women look to chiseled-faced guys for one-night stands, and to round-faced guys for marriage. When I'm rounder in the face, I like to say, 'This is my long-term look.' Or 'This is my wife-and-kids look right here.' — Garrett Hedlund

It is the popular misconception of marriage as a mere social convention or quaint tradition invented by the brain of man which has led to the denigrating of this holy relation, the multiplication of unspeakable immorality, the common unrest between husbands and wives, and the gradual disintegration of society and civilization. For if marriage exists merely by human authority then men and women may do with it or conduct themselves in it as they please. They may redefine it, or they may abandon it altogether. But if marriage is a divine institution, then it is governed by a higher authority. It becomes, then, a matter of obedience, and the conduct of husbands and wives within marriage is a conduct for which they must give their account to God. The original institution of marriage is therefore basic to our understanding of marriage, our estimation of marriage, and our right behavior in marriage. — Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

After about 20 years of marriage, I'm finally starting to scratch the surface of what women want. And I think the answer lies somewhere between conversation and chocolate. — Mel Gibson

Do you know what it means to come home at night to a woman who'll give you a little love, a little affection, a little tenderness? It means you're in the wrong house, that's what it means. — Henny Youngman

Throughout adolescence, Muslim men receive strong messages about male dominance in Marriage. The Koran is highly male-focused, with women being of little importance. Mohammed married as many women as he wanted, even a nine-year-old girl. Polygamy was acceptable and women were given in marriage with little consideration. Rules and punishments for women are far harsher than for men. [ ... ] Women are told that their purpose is to please the man and have children. Men are taught that sex with an in infidel woman, especially in another country, is not a sin against Allah. For a Muslim woman, sex with any man except her husband is a crime. — Darrel Ray

All the best women are married, yes, they are - to all the worst men' There was an infinite slow caress in her tone but she went on rapidly 'So I shall never marry you. How should I marry a kind man, a good man? I am a barbarian, and want a barbarian lover, to crush and scarify me, but you are so tender and I am so crude. When your soft eyes look on me they look on a volcano. — A.E. Coppard

Here's my advice to you: don't marry until you can tell yourself that you've done all you could, and until you've stopped loving the women you've chosen, until you see her clearly, otherwise you'll be cruelly and irremediably mistaken. Marry when you're old and good for nothing ... Otherwise all that's good and lofty in you will be lost. — Leo Tolstoy

When I think of New York City, I think of all the girls, the Jewish girls, the Italian girls, the Irish, Polack, Chinese, German, Negro, Spanish, Russian girls, all on parade in the city. I don't know whether it's something special with me or whether every man in the city walks around with the same feeling inside him, but I feel as though I'm at a picnic in this city. I like to sit near the women in the theaters, the famous beauties who've taken six hours to get ready and look it. And the young girls at the football games, with the red cheeks, and when the warm weather comes, the girls in their summer dresses ... — Irwin Shaw

Well, i don't know about you but I'm going to try everything! War, women, travel, marriage, children, the works. [ ... ]. I want to know about things, what makes them work! — Charles Bukowski

The law known as Marchetta, or Marquette, compelled newly married women to a most dishonorable servitude. They were regarded as the rightful prey of the Feudal Lord from one to three days after their marriage, and from this custom the eldest son of the serf was held as the son of the Lord ... Marquette was claimed by the Lord's Spiritual, as well as by the Lord's Temporal. The Church, indeed, was the bulwark of this base feudal claim. — Matilda Joslyn Gage

I would think it odd, he said, that he had never married. I did not, in fact, think it at all odd
the statistical chances against any woman being prepared to endure both the hairiness of his legs and the tedium of his conversation seemed to be negligible. I did not express this view, but said sympathetically that the military life must be difficult to combine with the domestic. — Sarah Caudwell

Women joked amongst themselves: 'Why do you think a bride cries on her wedding day? It's for the love that this marriage is putting an end to for all eternity. Men may think a woman has no past- "you were born and then I married you"- but men are fools. — Nadeem Aslam

Marriage is an intimate relationship between two people. It is a bad idea to involve a third party. — Amy Dickinson

Marry for love. But also choose to marry a man or woman who you love that treats you with the ultimate respect for your expression of who you are at your very core. — Julieanne O'Connor

I have come to the conclusion that women believe marriage is proof that they have worth. It is the ultimate game of choosing sides for teams. It is hard to be picked last, but not to be chosen at all is unbearable - especially if you know that you are a good player and can help the team. Not only are you excluded but you also have to stay around and watch the game. — Kristen McMain Oaks

So it is in our HEART, not in our sexualness, that we human beings think and decide how to live - even if the decision is to indulge in venery of whatever sort. A man sees the complementarity of woman and man not through the eyes of lust but in his heart. Jacob's lust for Rachel distracted him from perceiving the virtue of Leah, a virtue to complement or complete his. It's in his heart, not through the lust of his eyes, that a man sees or learns to see the complementation of woman and man. If a man is 'homosexual' or has little lust toward attractive women, this is no obstacle to his perceiving woman as his complement or helper. — Jonathan Mills

Originally marriage meant the sale of a woman by one man to another; now most women sell themselves though they have no intention of delivering the goods listed in the bill of sale. — Robert Graves

People have been sleeping and/or marrying their way to the top since the first cavewoman said: 'Ugh, that one's the strongest and has the biggest club. I'll shake my mastodon-skin-covered ass at him.'"
"Ugh?"
"Or whatever cave people said. And it's not just women who do it. Cave guy goes: 'Ugh, that one catches the most fish, I'll be dragging her off to my cave now.' Ava sees Tommy and - "
"Says ugh."
"Or today's equivalent thereof."

-Eve & Roarke. . — J.D. Robb

Mr. DeMille's theory of sexual difference was that marriage is an artificial state for women. The want to be taken, ruled, raped. That was his theory. — Hedy Lamarr

He hadn't wooed her, but had simply claimed her. A gold mine ready to dig. There should have been a period of quiet dinners together, of flowers rather than diamonds, of kisses given after permission to kiss, of a slow awakening that predisposed her to greater intimacies. But no, not the great Alexander Kinross! He had met her, he had married her the next day, and climbed into her bed after one kiss in the church. There to prove himself an animal in her eyes. One mistake after another, that was the story of his relationship with Elizabeth. And Ruby had always meant more. — Colleen McCullough

In a world where women work three times as hard for half as much, our achievement has been denigrated, both marriage and divorce have turned against us, our motherhood has been used as an obstacle to our success, our passion as a trap, our empathy for others as an excuse to underpay us. — Erica Jong

She done mellowed plenty since this marriage. Soft around the edges without getting too soft at the center. You fear that sometimes for women, that they would just fold up and melt away. She'd seen it happen so much in her time, too much for her to head on into it without thinking. Yes, that one time when she was way, way young. But after that, looking at all the beating, the badgering, the shriveling away from a lack of true touching was enough to give her pause. Not that she mighta hooked up with one of those. And not that any man - even if he tried - coulda ever soaked up the best in her. But who needed to wake up each morning cussing the day just to be sure you still had your voice? A woman shouldn't have to fight her man to be what she was; he should be fighting that battle for her. — Gloria Naylor

Why is it a girl has to be so silly to catch a husband?"
"Ah specs it's kase gempmums doan know whut dey wants. Dey jes' knows whut dey thinks dey wants. An' givin' dem whut dey thinks
dey wants saves a pile of mizry an' bein' a ole maid. An' dey thinks dey wants mousy lil gals wid bird's tastes an' no sense at
all. It doan make a gempmum feel lak mahyin' a lady ef he suspicions she got mo' sense dan he has. — Margaret Mitchell

Why couldn't Mr. Darcy, in the first half hour of the movie, simply walk up to Elizabeth and say, "Hey, I like you. Do you want to go out on a date? And, by the way, I'm filthy rich." I'll tell you why. Because that would defeat the purpose of a chick flick, which is to entertain women and torture men. — David E. Clarke

The problem, thus, is not whether or not women are to combine marriage and motherhood with work or career but how they are to do so
concomitantly in a two-role continuous pattern or sequentially in a pattern involving job or career discontinuities. — Jessie Bernard

Many married women who have deliberately spurned the "hour" of childbearing are unhappy and frustrated. They never discovered the joys of marriage because they refused to surrender to the obligation of their state. In saving themselves, they lost themselves! — Fulton J. Sheen

In the summer of 1705, an unusually extravagant rumor horrified the citizenry. The Tsar, it was said, had forbidden Russian men to marry for seven years so that Russian women might be married to foreigners being imported by the shipload. To preserve their young women, Astrachaners arranged a mass marriage before the foreigners could arrive, and on a single day, July 30, 1705, a hundred women were married. — Robert K. Massie

Sex discrimination and hate crimes against women don't come from the leather community or its pornography. They occur within contexts like industrial capitalism and marriage that most people take for granted as if they had always existed, like gravity or continental drift. If feminism is going to change the world, it has to focus its critical lens on what most people think is normal, not on what most people think is abnormal. — Patrick Califia-Rice

I asked him what his work was. He answered that he devoted all his time to his political activities ... He was undoubtedly busy with the diplomatic relations between his testicles and women's breast. — Marjane Satrapi

A broken women has nothing to offer a whole man. A broken man has nothing to offer a whole women. Why? The successful relationship is predicated on each person coming to the union to give, give, give ... this is the perfect formula for success! Broken people are needy and selfish!! — Mz Liz

Liberals are doing to the Duggars what they always accuse their opponents of doing - hating. When you disagree with these disciples of diversity on issue A, B, or C, brace yourself to be told that you hate. If you're against paying for other people's contraception and abortion, then you hate women. If you're against redefining marriage, regardless of your religious beliefs, then you hate gay people. On and on it goes. — Anonymous

[God in the Law given to Moses] having forbidden all unlawful marriage, and all unseemly practice, and the union of women with women and men with men. — Eusebius

In a shelter meant for battered women, there were only two reasons a person would decide to leave. One, she had decided to launch out on her own and begin a new life. Or two, she had decided to go back to someone who had hurt her. — Deborah Bedford

Pardon me; I must seem to you so stupid! Why is the property of the woman who commits Murder, and the property of the woman who commits Matrimony, dealt with alike by your law? — Frances Power Cobbe

So when a 'heterosexual' man learns to appreciate the noble woman of Proverbs 31, regardless of her looks, he is transcending his sexuality, not EXPRESSING it. Jacob labored fourteen years for Rachel 'beautiful in form and beautiful of face.' But Leah of the 'tender eyes' (Gen. 29:17) proved a much better and nobler wife. Perhaps a 'homosexual' man - a man whose venereal desires are focused more on men than on women - would not have been distracted by Rachel's looks and could have seen Leah's goodness and nobility from the beginning, as Jacob did not (29:30f). Biblically, the dwindling of such desire is not grounds for divorce (Mal. 2:14-16). — Jonathan Mills

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

She always had a headache, or it was too hot, always, or she pretended to be asleep, or she had her period again, her period, always her period. So much so that Dr. Urbino had dared to say in class, only for the relief of unburdening himself without confession, that after ten years of marriage women had their periods as often as threes times a week. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Who would care if I became pregnant, who would be scandalized? Aunty Eva, Anwar's flatmates. Omar would never know unless I wrote to him. Uncle Saleh was across the world. A few years back, getting pregnant would have shocked Khartoum society, given my father a heart attack, dealt a blow ti my mother's marriage, and mild, modern Omar, instead of beating me, would called me a slut. And now nothing, no one. This empty space was called freedom. — Leila Aboulela

No woman marries for money; they are all clever enough, before marrying a millionaire, to fall in love with him first. — Cesare Pavese

But a woman's right to leave a marriage can also be a lifesaver for men. The Centers on Disease Control reports that the rate at which husbands were killed by their wives fell by approximately two-thirds between 1981 and 1998, in part because women could more easily leave their partners.32 — Stephanie Coontz

Two thirds of the work in the world is done by women. Women own 1 percent of the assets. Young women are sold into prostitution, forced labour, premature marriage, forced to have children they don't want or they can't support. They're abused, raped, beaten up. Domestic violence is supposed to be a cultural problem. They are the first victims of war, fundamentalism, conflict, recession. And young women who have access to education and health care and have resources think that everything was done, they don't have to worry. — Isabel Allende

God bids you not to commit lechery, that is, not to have sex with any woman except your wife. You ask of her that she should not have sex with anyone except you
yet you are not willing to observe the same restraint in return. Where you ought to be ahead of your wife in virtue, you collapse under the onset of lechery ... Complaints are always being made about men's lechery, yet wives do not dare to find fault with their husbands for it. Male lechery is so brazen and so habitual that it is now sanctioned [= permitted], to the extent that men tell their wives that lechery and adultery are legitimate for men but not for women. — Augustine Of Hippo

Ah, selfish. There's that word again." Sherry smirked. "It's been hurled at me many a time, because being a mother and wife is all about selflessness, see?" She imitated a perky, syrupy-sweet voice. "Giving up every molecule of your soul. If you want anything for yourself, you're accused of being selfish. Marriage and especially motherhood mean being condemned to play second fiddle your entire life. — Andrea Lochen

[She] knew there were women who worked successfully out of the home. They ran businesses, created empires and managed to raise happy, healthy, well-adjusted children who went on to graduate magna cum laude from Harvard or became world-renowned concert pianists. Possibly both.
These women accomplished all this while cooking gourmet meals, furnishing their homes with Italian antiques, giving clever, intelligent interviews with Money magazine and People, and maintaining a brilliant marriage with an active enviable sex life and never tipping the scale at an ounce over their ideal weight ...
She knew those women were out there. If she'd had a gun, she'd have hunted every last one of them down and shot them like rabid dogs for the good of womankind. — Nora Roberts

But a girl's love is not a woman's love; above all, it is not a modern woman's love. I, at thirty, cannot accept your views, adopt your methods, and believe your heresies, as you might be able to teach me to do if I were eighteen, - and if I loved you. I have found out my own life-truths, and they do not accord with yours. — Florence Converse

Women are always anxious to urge bachelors to matrimony; is it from charity, or revenge ?. — Louis Gustave Vapereau

Women who seek advice from single women about getting a man is like asking a homeless man how to be rich. — Habeeb Akande

In mid-life the man wants to see how irresistible he still is to younger women. How they turn their hearts to stone and more or less commit a murder of their marriage I just don't know, but they do. — Earl Warren

A wife is property that one acquires by contract, she is transferable, because possession of her requires title; in fact, woman is, so to speak, only man's appendage; consequently, slice, cut, clip her, you have all rights to her. — Honore De Balzac

Neither Emma's tears nor her rage were enough to make Joseph monogamous, however; nor were the prevailing mores of the day. He kept falling rapturously in love with women not his wife. And because that rapture was so wholly consuming, and felt so good, it struck him as impossible that God might possibly frown on such a thing. — Jon Krakauer

The capacity of women to make unsuitable marriages must be considered as the cornerstone of society. — Henry Adams

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

But men are bound to say
Some things that, though untrue,
Will get you down the aisle
Until you say "I do. — Joyce Rachelle

It is a woman's business to get married as soon as possible, and a man's
to keep unmarried as long as he can. — George Bernard Shaw

It matters not at all that I do not want to marry, that I am afraid of the wedding, afraid of consummating the marriage, afraid of childbirth, afraid of everything about being a wife. Nobody even asks if I have lost my childhood sense of vocation, if I still want to be a nun. Nobody cares what I think at all. They treat me like an ordinary young woman, bred for wedding and bedding, and since they do not ask me what I think, nor observe what I feel, there is nothing that gives them pause at all. — Philippa Gregory

Men constantly feel hungry and women constantly feel sad. That's what marriage does to them. ~Teddy Butt, Our Lady of Alice Bhatti — Mohammed Hanif

I sometimes worried I'd never experience that sense of wonder you feel meeting a new friend or traveling to a new place for the first time. I was afraid the major milestones of my life, marriage and childbirth, were past. Was it foolish to hope I still had something exciting ahead of me, something even important, that I could have a life of my own? — Lilly Ledbetter

Indeed, a convent was a kind of early think tank for women, since it was the preferred choice of intellectuals wanting to escape marriage. — Magnus Flyte

Marriage entitles women to the protection of a strong man who will steady the stepladder while they paint the kitchen ceiling. — Fran Lebowitz

It's good you have something to keep you occupied." I smile stiffly and turn away from her. Because I'm this far from asking what the fuck she thinks I do all day. But even through the surge of anger that's rising, I remind myself of what I know is true: she means well. They all do. These women want me to receive all of God's blessings, many of which can be bestowed only after my temple marriage, which should be my first objective. Everything I've done so far (my two graduate degrees, my international travels, my teaching career, my friendships, my creative pursuits), is "preparing." Treading water, keeping time, staying busy until real life begins. — Nicole Hardy

Her voice was erudite, interesting; the voice of someone who straddled two cultures with a surety and style that I wished my boyfriend could find. She was smart, funny, and, above all, completely capable of controlling her life and what happened to it. — Ruth Ahmed

When Stephen talked about stalking chamois his whole expression changed. The features became more aquiline, the nose sharpened, the chin narrowed, and his eyes-steel blue - somehow took on the cold brilliance of a northern sky. I am being very frank about my husband. He attracted me at those times, and he repelled me too. This man, I told myself when I first met him, is a perfectionist. And he has no compassion. Gratified like all women who find themselves sought after and desired - a mutual love for Sibelius had been our common ground at our first encounter - after a few weeks in his company I shut my eyes to further judgment, because being with him gave me pleasure. It flattered my self-esteem. The perfectionist, admired by other women, now sought me. Marriage was in every sense a coup. It was only afterwards that I knew myself deceived. ("The Chamois") — Daphne Du Maurier

Men need marriage more than women do. In fact, they need it to survive. — Hanna Rosin

Why is she so stubborn? And disobedient?" Cameron barked a laugh. "Because Mackenzies always choose headstrong women. You didn't really expect her to obey you, did you? No matter what the marriage vows say? — Jennifer Ashley

Some day, I must ask him what it's like to be married to someone who, eyes narrowed in thought, peers at him over the tops of sociology articles with titles like "Who Gets the Best Deal from Marriage: Women or Men?" We've had our disagreements, of course. When, for example, are a few dirty cups a symbol of the exertion of male privilege, and when are they merely unwashed dishes? — Cordelia Fine

Women's work, married or unmarried, is menial and low paid. Women's right to possess property is curtailed, more if they are married. How can marriage provide security? In any case a husband is a possession which can be lost or stolen and the abandoned wife of thirty odd with a couple of children is far more desolate and insecure in her responsibility than an unmarried woman with or without children ever could be. — Germaine Greer

I'm afraid many women do choose the wedding over the marriage. It seems a steep price to pay, but it comes from a place of deep, sad longing to be loved and to have it proven that you are of value. — Elizabeth Gilbert

If they lived in Saudi Arabia, under Shari'a law, these college girls in their pretty scarves wouldn't be free to study, to work, to drive, to walk around. In Saudi Arabia girls their age and younger are confined, are forced to marry, and if they have sex outside of marriage they are sentenced to prison and flogged. According to the Quran, their husband is permitted to beat them and decide whether they may work or even leave the house; he may marry other women without seeking their approval, and if he chooses to divorce them, they have no right to resist or to keep custody of their children. Doesn't this matter at all to these clever young Muslim girls in America? — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

French novels generally treat of the relations of women to the world and to lovers, after marriage; consequently there is a great deal in French novels about adultery, about improper relations between the sexes, about many things which the English public would not allow. — Lafcadio Hearn

There is a correlation between the number of days since a man last had sex, and, the number of things that he is willing to do for a woman. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Women like clothes, they like shoes, they like flowers and they like people to look at them and think,'God, she's gorgeous.' The more people who think that, the better it is. The one day in your life where you get all that rolled up into one is your wedding day. And it
comes with jewelry and presents and ends
with a vacation where it's practically law that you have to wear fabulous underwear and have lots of sex. — Kristen Ashley

First time since I come to Am'rica, I not with husband or Rekha or in restaurant or store or car or apartment. I's all alone and I loves it. First time I feel everything not borrow. What I mean by that? When I with the husband, I seeing everything through his eyes - moon, sun, sky, tree, parking lot, store, everything. If he feeling sun too hot, I feeling upset. If he cursing the cold, I angry with snow. My brains not thinking my own thoughts. — Thrity Umrigar

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

mong the hundred thousand mysterious influences which a man exercises over a woman who loves him, I doubt if there is any more irresistible to her than the influence of his voice. I am not one of those women who shed tears on the smallest provocation: it is not in my temperament, I suppose. But when I heard that little natural change in his tone my mind went back (I can't say why) to the happy day when I first owned that I loved him. I burst out crying. — Wilkie Collins

[The maid] went on and on about how you and three casks of wine and three women spent the week before our wedding trying to...you know"--Adrienne muttered an unintelligible word--"your brains out."
"To what my brains out?"
"You know." Adrienne rolled her eyes.
"I'm afraid I don't. What was that word again?"
"Adrienne looked at him sharply. Was he teasing her? Were his eyes alight with mischief? That half-smile curving his beautiful mouth could absolutely melt the sheet she was clutching, not to mention her will. "Apparently one of them succeeded, because if you had any brains left you'd get out of my sight now," she snapped.
"It wasn't three." Hawk swallowed a laugh.
"No?"
"It was five."
"Adrienne's jaw clenched. She held her fingers up again. "Fourth--this will be a marriage in name only. Period."
"Casks of wine, I meant."
"You are not funny. — Karen Marie Moning

Greek women were not allowed to be: free and untamed. In fact, Artemis is a bit of a paradox. On the one hand, her commitment to purity must have been greatly admired by Ancient Greeks; yet she is also untamable and answers to no man. She is truly the eternal wild child who never has to grow up and shoulder the responsibilities that adulthood brings. She never has to compromise herself or conform to any of society's standards. No wonder she is associated with the moon - completely untouchable, forever unattainable. If offered the option of becoming one of Artemis' immortal maidens, freed forever from the shackles of marriage or slavery, I think many Ancient Greek women would have jumped on that bandwagon as it careened past — Rick Riordan

The sum and substance of female education in America, as in England, is training women to consider marriage as the sole object in life, and to pretend that they do not think so. — Harriet Martineau

Business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,
if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life. — Hortense Odlum

It is always difficult to make the transition to a modern world. I moved from the world of faith to the world of reason - from the world of excision and forced marriage to the world of secual emancipation. Having made that journey, I know that one of those worlds is simply better than the other. Not because of its flashy gadgets, but fundamentally, because of its values.
The message of this book, if it must have a message, is that we in the West would be wrong to prolong the pain of that transition unnecessarily, by elevating cultures full of bigotry and hatred toward women to the stature of respectable alternative ways of life. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

What makes you think I ever got married? Married women work themselves to death, all their money goes to husbands who gamble it away. Why would I ever do that to myself? — Kim Van Alkemade

Some women are born to be married, some achieve marriage, and others have marriage thrust upon them. — Myrtle Reed

There were three of these women, separated by short intervals of pain, remorse, and despair. When he and the last one had their final quarrel - she threw the breadboard - he was nearly fifty-five, and he gave up on love, save the memory of it. Always his aim had been marriage. He had never entered what he considered to be an affair, something whose end was an understood condition of its beginning. But he had loved and wanted for the rest of his life women who took him in their arms, and even their hearts, but did not plan to keep him. He had known that about them, they had told him no lies about what they wanted, and he had persisted, keeping his faith: if he could not change their hearts, then love itself would. — Andre Dubus

Marriage is not just about love and living together. It's much more complicated, especially when you are going to be making a family. — Laura Schlessinger

That was what stuck in the craws of all the good women of Deptford: Mrs Dempster had not been raped, as a decent woman would have been - no, she had yielded because a man wanted her. The subject was not one that could be freely discussed even among intimates, but it was understood without saying that if women began to yield for such reasons as that, marriage and society would not last long. Any man who spoke up for Mrs Dempster probably believed in Free Love. Certainly he associated sex with pleasure, and that put him in a class with filthy thinkers like Cece Athelstan. — Robertson Davies

Men are pigs, darling. I really have every sympathy for women that they actually have to choose one of these arrogant, stupid morons to settle down with and marry. — Michael Winner

Marriage I think
For women
Is the best of opiates.
It kills the thoughts
That think about the thoughts,
It is the best of opiates.
So said Maria.
But too long in solitude she'd dwelt,
And too long her thoughts had felt
Their strength. So when the man drew near,
Out popped her thoughts and covered him with fear.
Poor Maria!
Better that she had kept her thoughts on a chain,
For now she's alone again and all in pain;
She sighs for the man that went and the thoughts that stay
To trouble her dreams by night and her dreams by day. — Stevie Smith

Do you realize that you've been married to me for just about half of your entire life?"
Her head came down, her eyes opened wide to stare at him. "Is that all?" she asked. "It seems an eternity".
"Did I say a quiet lion?" Alexander pulled a face. "An eternity with me has turned you into a bitch, my dear". — Colleen McCullough

I've never really had any luck with women in my life. Well, at first I was fairly lucky. Then all of a sudden, they all thought they had to get married for some reason. And not to me. It's especially strange, because I almost always fell in love with the very smart girls. Even that didn't help matters. I don't see how any intelligent person could seriously want to get married. — Max Frei

I also suggested that my five cousins establish ground rules in respect of their personal lives, particularly in respect of their marriage to Draupadi. Each brother would have access to Draupadi's bed chamber for one year at a time. This was to prevent disharmony among the five. All the brothers were also allowed to marry other women so that they would have companionship for the four years when Draupadi was inaccessible to them. — Ashwin Sanghi

The opening line of her last column was: You know you really don't fit in with the other housewives you meet when the only way you can contribute to a discussion about babies is by saying, "Yes, that's what my mother used to do." It went on to talk about how a woman could climb Everest, teach schoolchildren in Cambodia and win the Booker Prize but some people would still think she had good news only when she produced progeny. — Shweta Ganesh Kumar

Become what you would want to marry ,as in, become like the person that you would want to marry. — Lisa Bedrick

Elisabetta Gonzaga de Montefeltro, Duchess of Urbino, was one of the most celebrat women of her age. . . She was much praised for her saintliness in enduring a sexless marriage to Guidobaldo who was both impotent and for much of his life crippled by what was described as 'gout' but was probably rheumatoid arthritis, which deformed his body from a young age. According to the archivist Luzio, despite his impotence Guidobaldo was extremely erotically inclined, so that Elisabetta was in a state of suspense every day in case he might fall upon her and have a relapse. — Sarah Bradford

Marriage, to women as to men, must be a luxury, not a necessity; an incident of life, not all of it. And the only possible way to accomplish this great change is to accord to women equal power in the making, shaping and controlling of the circumstances of life. — Susan B. Anthony

Women want certain things in marriage
the right to a title and a front seat in the lap of luxury. — Mae West

If one starts with the anatomical difference, which even a patriarchal Viennese novelist was able to see was destiny, then one begins to understand why men and women don't get on very well within marriage, or indeed in any exclusive sort of long-range sexual relationship. He is designed to make as many babies as possible with as many different women as he can get his hands on, while she is designed to take time off from her busy schedule as astronaut or role model to lay an egg and bring up the result. Male and female are on different sexual tracks, and that cannot be changed by the Book or any book. Since all our natural instincts are carefully perverted from birth, it is no wonder that we tend to be, if not all of us serial killers, killers of our own true nature. — Gore Vidal

In sixteenth-century Spain, women had little opportunity for meaningful lives outside marriage, except as members of religious orders. While convents were often filled with dissatisfied young women, it must also be said that convent life empowered women in many ways. A convent was an acceptable place for women to be free of many of the social constraints of the time. — Helen LaKelly Hunt

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