Marriage Inequality Quotes

Marriage has ever been a one-sided matter, resting most unequally upon the sexes. By it, man gains all- woman loses all; tyrant law and lust reign supreme with him- meek submission and ready obedience alone befit her.

Having deprived her [women] of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise. thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he [men] has oppressed her on all sides. He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead. He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns …. In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty. and to administer chastisement.

Marriage, n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.

The rule seemed to be that a great woman must either die unwed ... or find a still greater man to marry her. ... The great man, on the other hand, could marry where he liked, not being restricted to great women; indeed, it was often found sweet and commendable in him to choose a woman of no sort of greatness at all.

Women have always been more critical of marriage than men. The great mysterious irony of it is - at least it's the stereotype - that women want to get married and men are trying to avoid it. Marriage doesn't benefit women as much as men, and it never has. And women, once they are married, become very critical of marriages in a way that men don't.

Katherine of Aragon was speaking out for the women of the country, for the good wives who should not be put aside just because their husbands had taken a fancy to another, for the women who walked the hard road between kitchen, bedroom, church and childbirth. For the women who deserved more than their husband's whim.

It breaks my heart to know that millions of gay Americans still can’t marry the one they love, and I can. That makes no sense.

I prefer the word 'homemaker' because 'housewife' always implies that there may be a wife someplace else.

The very nature of the marriage contract was…nothing but giving up liberty, estate, authority, and everything to man, and the woman was indeed a mere woman ever after – that is to say, a slave.

I married beneath me—all women do.

I have always thought that every woman should marry and no man.

Imagine finding someone you love more than anything in the world, who you would risk your life for but couldn't marry. And you couldn't have that special day the way your friends do-you know, wear the ring on your finger and have it mean the same thing as everybody else. Just put yourself in that person's shoes. It makes me feel sick to my stomach

Despite the strength of the feminist movement in the 1970s and beyond, a fable has persisted that educated women are rejected as marriage partners.

Marriage was all a woman's idea and for man's acceptance of the pretty yoke, it becomes us to be grateful.

I suppose when they reach a certain age some men are afraid to grow up. It seems the older the men get, the younger their new wives get.

… laws make every married woman what she is, a bonded slave, who takes her master's name, her master's bread, her master's commands, and serves her master's passions

Say what you will, making marriage work is a woman's business. The institution was invented to do her homage; it was contrived for her protection. Unless she accepts it as such --as a beautiful, bountiful, but quite unequal association --the going will be hard indeed.

But it will be said that the husband provides for the wife, or in other words, he feeds, clothes and shelters her! I wish I had the power to make every one before me fully realize the degradation contained in that idea.

Marriage is such a lottery …. the poor woman is virtually a slave to her husband.

When there has been a problem in your marriage, you cannot forever go on thinking, 'I am the most terrible person in the world and he is the most wonderful person.' You cannot live in a marriage that is unequal, because after a while, you are just worn out.

When employers tell me they prefer married men, and encourage their men to have homes of their own, because it makes them so much steadier, I wonder if they have any idea of all that that implies.

Man proposes, woman forecloses.

As the husband is the wife is; thou art mated with a clown, As the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down.

Economically as well as emotionally, modern marriage has become like an affluent gated community. It has become harder for low-income Americans to enter and sustain.

The marriage institution cannot exist among slaves, and one sixth of the population of democratic America is denied it's privileges by the law of the land. What is to be thought of a nation boasting of its liberty, boasting of it's humanity, boasting of its Christianity, boasting of its love of justice and purity, and yet having within its own borders three millions of persons denied by law the right of marriage?