#matrimony

"I know enough to know that no woman should ever marry a man who hated his mother."

"LEONATOWell, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.BEATRICENot till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a pierce of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren; and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred."

"I disapprove of matrimony as a matter of principle.... Why should any independent, intelligent female choose to subject herself to the whims and tyrannies of a husband? I assure you, I have yet to meet a man as sensible as myself! (Amelia Peabody)"

"LEONATOWell, then, go you into hell?BEATRICENo, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say 'Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here's no place for you maids:' so deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long."

"There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose."

"Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry without affection."

"They say all marriages are made in heaven, but so are thunder and lightning."

"[Marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out."

"Marriage is not a process for prolonging the life of love, sir. It merely mummifies its corpse."

"[O]ur honeymoon will shine our life long: its beams will only fade over your grave or mine."