If thou dost marry—I’ll give
Thee this Plague for thy dowry.²
One husband, one wife, whaddya got?
Two people Sentenced for life!³
In twenty-five years she’ll be
Silver—in fifty, Gold.⁴
He shall forgo father & mother,
And to his Wife adhere, and they
Shall be: One Flesh, one Heart, one Soul—⁵
I give myself to him and take himself for pay—
The solemn Contract of a life is ratified this way.⁶
When I marry, there will be no time left for love:
New cares will Smother all the old feelings.⁷
If love were everything, few marriages
Would survive beyond the honeymoon.⁸
“I Hate you, I Hate you, I Hate you”—All
Spouses murmur to each other constantly:
It is the fundamental litany of marriage.⁹
Join new vows to old perjuries—
But dare not call it loving!¹⁰
¹ Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
² William Shakespeare, Hamlet
³ Jalacy Hawkins, Marriage is for Old Folks
⁴ Sylvia Plath, The Applicant
⁵ John Milton, Paradise Lost
⁶ Emily Dickinson, I Gave Myself
⁷ Anton Chekhov tr. Constance Garnett, The Sea-Gull
⁸ E.M. Forster, A Passage to India
⁹ Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince
¹⁰ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, A Woman’s Shortcomings