Unharmonious Match

Unharmonious Match

In the play “Our Town”, the narrator says most people go to their graves “two by two”, but there are some who are not meant to stay together. The bliss of early love wears off, and to prevent a murder, the couple separates. My mother doesn’t like me to tell this story, but it will serve as an illustration that some people are better off apart. My mother divorced my father when I was ten. She has been married twice more, and I need to say she is very happy at this point in her life and I am happy to have an excellent step-father. I have had a couple. But Dad has pursued the legal route to polygamy by marrying and divorcing several times. My sister and I think the count is up to 15 marriages and 14 divorces, but some of these are to the same person. When I harassed my mom about this she was not very happy.

I told her between my two parents, there were almost 20 marriages. “With the divorce rate at 50 percent”, I continued, “that means 40 couples have had to stay married so you guys could get divorced.” Like I said, she was not very happy with me. I hope she doesn’t hear this on the air.

There are many people who agree an amicable parting is probably best. Here are some of our most famous writers with their mostly negative views on marriage

Anton Chekhov: If you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry.

Benjamin Disraeli: Every woman should marry -- and no man.

Sydney Smith said: Marriage resembles a pair of shears; so joined that they cannot be separated, often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing everyone who comes between them.

This quote by Socrates may surprise you: By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.

Socrates also said this about marriage: Call no man unhappy until he is married.

Herbert Spencer said: Marriage: a ceremony in which rings are put on the finger of the lady and through the nose of the gentleman.

Stephen Butler Leacock said this of marriage: Many a man in love with a dimple makes the mistake of marrying the whole girl.

Edward Verrall Lucas said: The trouble with marriage is that, while every woman is at heart a mother, every man is at heart a bachelor.

Helen Rowland said this of marriage: In olden times sacrifices were made at the altar -- a custom which is still continued.

and she also said: When you see a married couple walking down the street, the one who is two or three steps ahead is the one who's mad.

George Bernard Shaw tells us: It is a woman's business to get married as soon as possible, and a man's to keep unmarried as long as he can.

William Makepeace Thackeray’s view: Remember, it is as easy to marry a rich woman as a poor one.

Artemus Ward said: He is dreadfully married. He's the most married man I ever saw in my life.

Zsa Zsa Gabor is an expert on marriage. She’s been married nine times. She said: A man in love is incomplete until he has married; then he's finished.

Speaking of divorce, some of our more expert celebrities have weighed in, including Zsa Zsa.

She said: He taught me housekeeping, when I divorce I keep the house.

Sancha Guitry said: When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her.

Kin Hubbard said: Nobody works as hard for money as the man who marries it.

Carolyn Wells understands divorce. She said: The wages of sin is alimony.

Oscar Wilde: Divorces are made in heaven.

Arthur Baer: Alimony is like buying oats for a dead horse.

John Barrymore: You never realize how short a month is until you pay alimony.

It really does seem some people can’t stay married, and psychologists tell us many people continue to marry the same kind of person they just divorced. With a divorce rate of 50 percent, maybe we should just shuffle the deck and move down the road. You move next door, and the guy there moves down to the next house. It makes me think arranged marriages might not be so bad. If you didn’t like who was chosen, you could divorce, and the rate might still be fifty percent. Maybe you’d do better choosing on your own later if someone chose for you first. It couldn’t turn out much worse.

If you are married, I hope you are as happily married. Samuel Taylor Coleridge thought this: The happiest marriage I can picture would be the union of a deaf man to a blind woman.

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