Other related topics at:
Families
76. Adultery; Marriage
He talked of the heinousness of the crime of adultery, by which
the peace of families was destroyed. He said, "Confusion of
progeny constitutes the essence of the crime; and therefore a
woman who breaks her marriage vows is much more criminal than a
man who does it. A man, to be sure, is criminal in the
sight of
God; but he does not do his wife a very material injury, if he
does not insult her; if for instance, from mere wantonness of
appetite, he steals privately to her chambermaid. Sir, a wife
ought not to greatly resent this. I would not receive home a
daughter who had run away from her husband on that account. A
wife should study to reclaim her husband by more attention to
please him. Sir, a man will not, once in a hundred instances,
leave his wife and go to a harlot, if his wife has not been
negligent of pleasing."
Boswell: Life
Link
78. Marriage
When I censured a gentleman of my acquaintance for marrying a
second time, as it shewed a disregard of his first wife, he said,
"Not at all, Sir. On the contrary, were he not to marry again,
it might be concluded that his first wife had given him a disgust
to marriage; but by taking a second wife he pays the highest
compliment to the first, by shewing that she made him so happy as
a married man, that he wishes to be so a second time."
Boswell: Life
Link
89. Marriage
On second marriages: "The triumph of hope over experience."
Boswell: Life
Link
139. Marriage
"Marriage is the best state for a man in general; and every man
is a worse man, in proportion as he is unfit for the married
state."
Boswell: Life
Link
186. Marriage
"I believe marriages would in general be as happy, and often more
so, if they were all made by the Lord Chancellor, upon a due
consideration of characters and circumstances, without the
parties having any choice in the matter."
Boswell: Life
Link
187. Marriage
Boswell: "Pray, Sir, do you not suppose that there are
fifty women in the world, with any one of whom a man may be as
happy, as with any one woman in particular?" Johnson:
"Ay, Sir, fifty thousand."
Boswell: Life
Link
192. Marriage
"Marriage, Sir, is much more necessary to a man than to a woman;
for he is much less able to supply himself with domestick
comforts."
Boswell: Life
Link
197. Marriage
"It is commonly a weak man who marries for love."
Boswell: Life
Link
205. Marriage
I repeated to him an argument of a lady of my acquaintance, who
maintained, that her husband's having been guilty of numberless
infidelities, released her from conjugal obligations, because
they were reciprocal. Johnson: "This is miserable stuff,
Sir. To the contract of marriage, besides the man and wife,
there is a third party -- Society; and, if it be considered as a
vow -- GOD: and, therefore, it cannot be dissolved by their
consent alone. Laws are not made for particular cases, but for
men in general. A woman may be unhappy with her husband; but
she cannot be freed from him without the approbation of the civil
and ecclesiastical power. A man may be unhappy, because he is
not so rich as another; but he is not to seize upon another's
property with his own hand." Boswell: "But, Sir, this
lady does not want that the contract should be dissolved; she
only argues that she may indulge herself in gallantries with
equal freedom as her husband does, provided she takes care not to
introduce a spurious issue into his family. You know, Sir, what
Macrobius has told us of Julia." Johnson: "This lady of
yours, Sir, I think, is very fit for a brothel."
Boswell: Life
Link
460. Marriage; Solitude
"Many other evils infest private life. Some are the slaves of
servants whom they have trusted with their affairs. Some are
kept in continual anxiety by the caprice of rich relations, whom
they cannot please and dare not offend. Some husbands are
imperious, and some wives perverse: and as it is always more
easy to do evil than good, though the wisdom or virtue of one can
very rarely make many happy, the folly or vice of one may often
make many miserable." [Princess Nekayah]
"If such be the general effect of marriage," said the prince, "I
shall, for the future, think it dangerous to connect my interest
with another, lest I should be unhappy by my partner's
fault."
"I have met," said the princess, "with many who live single for
that reason; but I have never found that their prudence ought to
raise envy. They dream away their time without friendship,
without fondness, and are driven to rid themselves of the day,
for which they have no use, by childish amusements or vicious
delights. They act as beings under the constant sense of some
known inferiority, that fills their minds with rancor; and their
tongues with censure. They are peevish at home, and malevolent
abroad; and, as the outlaws of human nature, make it their
business and their pleasure to disturb that society which debars
them from its priveleges."
Johnson: Rasselas
Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from
Rasselas.
Link
462. Celibacy; Charity; Involvement;
Marriage; Stoicism; Solitude
"To live without feeling or exciting sympathy, to be fortunate
without adding to the felicity of others, or afflicted without
tasting the balm of pity, is a state more gloomy than solitude;
it is not retreat, but exclusion from mankind. Marriage has many
pains, but celibacy has no pleasures."
Johnson: Rasselas [Princess Nekayah]
Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from
Rasselas.
Link
467. Marriage
"Marriage is evidently the dictate of nature; men and women are
made to be companions of each other, and therefore I cannot be
persuaded but that marriage is one of the means of
happiness."
Johnson: Rasselas [Rasselas]
Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from
Rasselas.
Link
468. Marriage
"I know not ... whether marriage be more than one of the
innumerable modes of human misery. When I see and reckon the
various forms of connubial infelicity, the unexpected causes of
lasting discord, the diversities of temper, the oppositions of
opinion, the rude collisions of contrary desire where both are
urged by violent impulses, the obstinate contests of disagreeable
virtues where both are supported by consciousness of good
intention, I am sometimes disposed to think, with the severer
casuists of most nations, that marriage is rather permitted than
approved, and that none, but by the instigation of a passion too
much indulged, entangle themselves with indissoluble
compacts."
Johnson: Rasselas [Princess Nekayah]
Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from
Rasselas.
Link
470. Marriage
"Such is the common process of marriage. A youth and maiden
exchange meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice,
exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream of
one another. Having little to divert attention, or diversify
thought, they find themselves uneasy when they are apart, and
therefore conclude that they shall be happy together. They
marry, and discover what nothing but voluntary blindness had
before concealed; they wear out life in altercations, and charge
nature with cruelty."
Johnson: Rasselas [Rasselas]
Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from
Rasselas.
Link
556. Marriage
"There is no observation more frequently made by such as employ
themselves in surveying the conduct of mankind, than that
marriage, though the dictate of nature, and the institution of
Providence, is yet very often the cause of misery, and that those
who enter into that state can seldom forbear to express their
repentance, and their envy of those whom either chance or caution
hath withheld from it."
Johnson: Rambler #18 (May 19, 1750)
Link
558. Marriage; Virtue
"...Marriage is the strictest tie of perpetual friendship, and
there can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence
without integrity; and that he must expect to be wretched, who
pays to beauty, riches, or politeness, that regard which only
virtue and piety can claim."
Johnson: Rambler #18 (May 19, 1750)
Link
618. Marriage; Youth
"It is ... common to hear both sexes repine at their change
[Marriage], relate the happiness of their earlier years,
blame the folly and rashness of their own choice, and warn those
whom they see coming into the world against the same precipitance
and infatuation. But it is to be remembered, that the days which
they so much wish to call back, are the days not only of celibacy
but of youth, the days of novelty and improvement, of ardour and
of hope, of health and vigour of body, of gaiety and lightness of
heart. It is not easy to surround life with any circumstances in
which youth will not be delightful; and I am afraid that,
whether married or unmarried, we shall find the vesture of
terrestrial existence more heavy and cumbrous the longer it is
worn."
Johnson: Rambler #45 (August 21, 1750)
Link
620. Marriage
"Every man recounts the inconveniences of his own station, and
thinks those of any other less, because he has not felt them.
Thus the married praise the ease and freedom of a single state,
and the single fly to marriage from the weariness of
solitude."
Johnson: Rambler #45 (August 21, 1750)
Link
622. Anger; Marriage
"Wives and husbands are ... incessantly complaining of each
other; and there would be reason for imagining that almost every
house was infested with perverseness or oppression beyond human
sufferance, did we not know upon how small occasions some minds
burst into lamentations and reproaches, and how naturally every
animal revenges his pain upon those who happen to be near,
without any nice examination of its cause. We are always willing
to fancy ourselves within a little of happiness, and when, with
repeated efforts, we cannot reach it, persuade ourselves that it
is intercepted by an ill-paired mate, since, if we could find any
other obstacle, it would be our own fault that it was not
removed."
Johnson: Rambler #45 (August 21, 1750)
Link
623. Marriage
"When I see the avaricious and crafty taking companions to their
tables and their beds, without any inquiry but after farms and
money; or the giddy and thoughtless uniting themselves for life
to those whom they have only seen by the light of tapers at a
ball; when parents make articles for their children without
inquiring after their consent; when some marry for heirs to
disappoint their brothers, and others throw themselves into the
arms of those whom they do not love, because they found
themselves rejected where they were more solicitous to please;
when some marry because their servants cheat them, some because
they squander their own money, some because their houses are
pestered with company, some because they will live like other
people, and some only because they are sick of themselves; I am
not so much inclined to wonder that marriage is sometimes
unhappy, as that it appears so little loaded with calamity; and
cannot but conclude that society has something in itself
eminently agreeable to human nature, when I find its pleasures so
great that even the ill choice of a companion can hardly
overbalance them."
Johnson: Rambler #45 (August 21, 1750)
Link
