#wedlock

To the moralist prostitution does not consist so much in the fact that the woman sells her body, but rather that she sells it out of wedlock. ↗

— Emma Goldman

#consist #does #fact #her #moralist

[I]f the name of wife appears more sacred and more valid, sweeter to me is ever the word friend, or, if thou be not ashamed, concubine ... And thou thyself wert not wholly unmindful of that ... [as in the narrative of thy misfortunes] thou hast not disdained to set forth sundry reasons by which I tried to dissuade thee from our marriage, from an ill-starred bed; but wert silent as to many, in which I preferred love to wedlock, freedom to a bond. I call God to witness, if Augustus, ruling over the whole world, were to deem me worthy of the honour of marriage, and to confirm the whole world to me, to be ruled by me forever, dearer to me and of greater dignity would it seem to be called thy concubine than his empress. ↗

— Héloïse d'Argenteuil

#concubine #devotion #dignity #freedom #honor

[In 16th century European society] Marriage was the triumphal arch through which women, almost without exception, had to pass in order to reach the public eye. And after marriage followed, in theory, the total self-abnegation of the woman. ↗

— Antonia Fraser

#empowerment #feminism #gender #history #independence

It was a fact generally acknowledged by all but the most contumacious spirits at the beginning of the seventeenth century that woman was the weaker vessel; weaker than man, that is. ... That was the way God had arranged Creation, sanctified in the words of the Apostle. ... Under the common law of England at the accession of King James I, no female had any rights at all (if some were allowed by custom). As an unmarried woman her rights were swallowed up in her father's, and she was his to dispose of in marriage at will. Once she was married her property became absolutely that of her husband. What of those who did not marry? Common law met that problem blandly by not recognizing it. In the words of The Lawes Resolutions [the leading 17th century compendium on women's legal status]: 'All of them are understood either married or to be married.' In 1603 England, in short, still lived in a world governed by feudal law, where a wife passed from the guardianship of her father to her husband; her husband also stood in relation to her as a feudal lord. ↗

— Antonia Fraser

#common-law #empowerment #fathers #feminism #feudalism

How many women are there ... who because of their husbands' harshness spend their weary lives in the bond of marriage in greater suffering than if they were slaves among the Saracens? ↗

— Christine de Pizan

#husbands #lovelessness #marriage #married-life #matrimony

Let's remember the children who come from broken homes, surrounded by crime, drugs, temptation, their peers having babies out of wedlock, but who still manage to get a good education despite the many obstacles they face every day. ↗

— Armstrong Williams

#broken #children #come #crime #day

The chain of wedlock is so heavy that it takes two to carry it - and sometimes three. ↗

— Heraclitus

#carry #chain #heavy #sometimes #takes

Unions in wedlock are perverted by the victory of shameless passion that masters the female among men and beasts. ↗

— Aeschylus

#beasts #female #masters #men #passion

The trouble with wedlock is that there's not enough wed and too much lock. ↗

— Christopher Morley

#enough #lock #much #too #too much

They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake. ↗

— Alexander Pope

#courtship #dream #wake #wedlock