#marriage

Alcohol makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provide what the Greeks called entheos, or the slight buzz of inspiration when reading or writing. The only worthwhile miracle in the New Testament—the transmutation of water into wine during the wedding at Cana—is a tribute to the persistence of Hellenism in an otherwise austere Judaea. The same applies to the seder at Passover, which is obviously modeled on the Platonic symposium: questions are asked (especially of the young) while wine is circulated. No better form of sodality has ever been devised: at Oxford one was positively expected to take wine during tutorials. The tongue must be untied. It's not a coincidence that Omar Khayyam, rebuking and ridiculing the stone-faced Iranian mullahs of his time, pointed to the value of the grape as a mockery of their joyless and sterile regime. Visiting today's Iran, I was delighted to find that citizens made a point of defying the clerical ban on booze, keeping it in their homes for visitors even if they didn't particularly take to it themselves, and bootlegging it with great brio and ingenuity. These small revolutions affirm the human. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#ancient-greeks #atheism #boredom #brotherhood #cana

Love is moral even without legal marriage, but marriage is immoral without love. ↗

— Ellen Key

#even #immoral #legal #love #love is

There was a time when the one singular thing that held a marriage together was the threat of getting the kids. ↗

— Erma Bombeck

#marriage

How do you write about something, even something real and painful-like suicide-when all of the writing that's been done on that subject has robbed you of any originality of expression? ↗

— Jeffrey Eugenides

#marriage

I know in my own marriage I stayed in it to provide my son with what I thought was a stable background and to give him what I thought was the family life a child should have with two parents. But that isn't always the best way, and it took me taking my son to therapy after the divorce to really see it. ↗

— Regina King

#always #background #best #best way #child

Y-naga: "That's the thing... It's like trying to find a guy who's a kid at heart but still a responsible adult, so he can be counted on when I find myself in a pinch, somebody who's a little wild at times but normally lets me have my way even when I'm being selfish and just says, "well, if you insist," a guy who's not too full of himself but understands what clothes suit his body type best..." S-hara: "What I'm saying is the pretty ones are stupid! The ones who have it all together are all so, so stubborn that they never do things my way! ↗

— Fumi Yoshinaga

#love #manga #marriage #food

To tell the truth, it is regarding the physical side of marriage that I have always been apprehensive...There so seldom seems to be enough of it," said Miss Teatime. ↗

— Colin Watson

#romance #teatime #marriage

If we change the definition of marriage to be more inclusive, then it is logical to argue that we should broaden the definition so that won't exclude anyone. ↗

— Jack Kingston

#argue #broaden #change #definition #exclude

Marriage cannot be severed from its cultural, religious and natural roots without weakening the good influence of society. ↗

— Jack Kingston

#cannot #cultural #good #influence #marriage

Marriage encourages the men and women who together create life to unite in a bond for the protection of children. ↗

— Jack Kingston

#children #create #encourages #life #marriage