In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved.

- Samuel Butler, The Note Books of Samuel Butler

Throwing caution to the wind, leaping merrily into the unknown,onwards they plunge,into the voyage of matrimony.

- Gunbir Singh

And such is your definition of matrimony and dancing. Taken in that light, certainly their resemblance is not striking; but I think I could place them in such a view. You will allow that in both man has the advantage of choice, woman only the power of refusal; that in both it is an engagement between man and woman, formed for the advantage of each; and that when once entered into, they belong exclusively to each other till the moment of its dissolution; that it is their duty each to endeavor to give the other no cause for wishing that he or she had bestowed themselves elsewhere, and their best interest to keep their own imaginations from wandering towards the perfections of their neighbors, or fancying that they should have been better off with any one else.

- Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

Still it is true that many same-sex couples want nothing more than to join society as fully integrated socially responsible family-centered taxpaying Little League-coaching nation-serving respectably married citizens. So why not welcome them in Why not recruit them by the vanload to sweep in on heroic wings and save the flagging and battered old institution of matrimony from a bunch of apathetic ne'er-do-well heterosexual deadbeats like me

- Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

As far as my experience of matrimony goes -- I think it tends to draw you out of, and away from yourself.

- Charlotte Brontë

Philip wasn't the sort of man to make a friend of a woman. He wanted devotion. I gave him that. I did, you know. But I couldn't stand being made a fool of. I couldn;t stand being put on probation, like an office-boy, to see if I was good enough to be condescended to. I quite thought he was honest when he said he didn't believe in marriage -- and then it turned out that it was a test, to see whether my devotion was abject enough. Well, it wasn't. I didn't like having matrimony offered as a bad-conduct prize.

- Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

I shall expect my husband to have no pleasures but what he shares with me; and if his greatest pleasure of all is not the enjoyment of my company - why - it will be the worse for him - that's all.''If such are your expectations of matrimony, Esther, you must, indeed, be careful whom you marry - or rather, you must avoid it altogether.

- Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

The critical period of matrimony is breakfast-time.

- A. P. Herbert

In matters of religion and matrimony I never give advice, because I will not have anybody's torments in this world or the next laid to my charge.

- Philip Dormer Stanhope

I disapprove of matrimony as a matter of principle.... Why should any independent, intelligent female choose to subject herself to the whims and tyrannies of a husband? I assure you, I have yet to meet a man as sensible as myself! (Amelia Peabody)

- Elizabeth Peters, Crocodile on the Sandbank