I dare lay my Lyfe to Wedde.²
Let me not to the marriage of
True Minds admit impediments.³
He shall forgo father & mother,
And to his Wife adhere, and they
Shall be: One Flesh, one Heart, one Soul.⁴
I give myself to him and take himself for pay—
The solemn Contract of a life is ratified this way:⁵
Two bosoms Interchained with an oath.⁶
Married by what we have Done
As much as by what we Intend.⁷
Marriage is a Long journey at Close quarters.⁸
A Long marriage makes Shorthand possible:
The Everything need not be said.⁹
In twenty-five years she’ll be Silver—
In fifty, Gold.¹⁰
¹ Nathaniel Hawthorne, The May-Pole of Merry Mount
² Anonymous, A Gest of Robyn Hode
³ William Shakespeare, Sonnet CXVI
⁴ John Milton, Paradise Lost
⁵ Emily Dickinson, I Gave Myself
⁶ William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
⁷ Wendell Berry, Ripening
⁸ Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince
⁹ Gwendolyn Brooks, Shorthand Possible
¹⁰ Sylvia Plath, The Applicant