I am anchored on a resolve you cannot shake. My heart, my conscience shall dispose of my hand -- they only. Know this at last.
Charlotte BrontëTags: love empowerment gender women choice integrity marriage conscience feminism self-determination independence courtship matrimony dignity social-norms wooing
No: I shall not marry Samuel Fawthrop Wynne."
"I ask why? I must have a reason. In all respects he is more than worthy of you."
She stood on the hearth; she was pale as the white marble slab and cornice behind her; her eyes flashed large, dilated, unsmiling.
"And I ask in what sense that young man is worthy of me?
Tags: empowerment equality gender men women choice integrity marriage feminism self-determination independence self-awareness marriage-proposal courtship matrimony suitability dignity inferiority worthiness social-norms wooing
There are certain phrases potent to make my blood boil -- improper influence! What old woman's cackle is that?"
"Are you a young lady?"
"I am a thousand times better: I am an honest woman, and as such I will be treated.
Tags: honesty love empowerment gender women integrity marriage self-respect self-determination independence respect influence expectations matrimony propriety uprightness
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 FraserTags: empowerment gender men women history marriage feminism guardianship self-determination misogyny inequality independence husbands fathers matrimony common-law feudalism social-norms married-life property bonds subjugation women-s-rights wedlock
[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 FraserTags: perception empowerment gender men women history marriage feminism self-determination misogyny inequality independence matrimony dignity social-norms married-life subjugation women-s-rights self-abnegation wedlock
[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'ArgenteuilTags: love women freedom integrity virtue marriage shame sin self-determination devotion honor wife vice matrimony misfortunes dignity worthiness social-norms married-life concubine bonds wedlock
[I]t is not by being richer or more powerful that a man becomes better; one is a matter of fortune, the other of virtue. Nor should she deem herself other than venal who weds a rich man rather than a poor, and desires more things in her husband than himself. Assuredly, whomsoever this concupiscence leads into marriage deserves payment rather than affection.
Héloïse d'ArgenteuilTags: honesty love power women integrity prostitution virtue marriage shame sin affection poverty greed materialism honor fortune possessions wives vice matrimony dignity married-life riches payment wedlock concupiscence venality
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 PizanTags: men women marriage suffering oppression slavery husbands wives matrimony married-life lovelessness harshness wedlock
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. SayersTags: hypocrisy devotion matrimony
What do you mean, 'Angle of Repose?' she asked me when I dreamed we were talking about Grandmother's life, and I said it was the angle at which a man or woman finally lies down. I suppose it is; and yet ... I thought when I began, and still think, that there was another angle in all those years when she was growing old and older and very old, and Grandfather was matching her year for year, a separate line that did not intersect with hers. They were vertical people, they lived by pride, and it is only by the ocular illusion of perspective that they can be said to have met. But he had not been dead two months when she lay down and died too, and that may indicate that at that absolute vanishing point they did intersect. They had intersected for years, for more than he especially would ever admit.
Wallace StegnerTags: love perspective marriage illusion pride separation resignation matrimony married-life life-lines intersection parallels
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