Bond (relationship)

“ Family ties have their own particular sancity, and the marriage relation, its omnipotent, heaven-inspiring, all-embracing love; but friendship, independent of family ties, recognizing no external bond of union,—the spontaneous out-gushing of kindred spirits towards each other, breathes in an atmosphere peculiarly its own. ”

“ But when once we part from the idea of such a rigid and eternal marriage bond—and the law of every civilised country and the general thought and sentiment everywhere have long since done so—then the whole question changes. If marriage is not so absolutely sacred a bond, if it is not an eternal bond, but a bond we may break on this account or that, then at once we put the question on a different footing. ”

“ Marriage, my dearest Flora, was an institution ordained for the happiness—not the misery—of the human race. If it be asserted that reciprocal affection constitutes the best reason for contracting such an union as the one indicated—and I am sure my Flora would never defend the meretricious mockery of money marriages—surely it follows as the natural correlative of this argument, that reciprocal aversion is a sound reason for dissolving the bond. ”

“ Each person is connected with every other person by some bond of attachment. It may be by the steel bond of brotherhood, by the silvern chain of religious fellowship, by the golden band of conjugal affection, by the flaxen cord of parental or filial love, or by the silken tie of friendship. One or more of these bonds of attachment may encircle each person, and each bond has its varying strength, and is capable of endless lengthening and contracting. ”

“ Likewise do they enjoy strong and lasting ties in the physical world as well, for if the marriage is based both on the spirit and the body, that union is a true one, hence it will endure. If, however, the bond is physical and nothing more, it is sure to be only temporary, and must inexorably end in separation. ”

“ Unlike the mere association of friends, in which two people may work together, share the same interests, enjoy the same games, or suffer the same hardships, pleasures and difficulties, the married couple are united chiefly by a physical bond which has its basis in an act of passion, an act of desire, an act of power. ”

“ If it be well, as it seems to me to be, that this most intimate relation between man and woman should be made as durable as the object for which it is formed will admit, surely the bond should be real to the last, a bond of kindliness, thoughtfulness, actual helpfulness. ”

“ No, no; by the smile with which your dying father took me to his breast, love alone, with the hope and confidence it gives, shall be the bond to draw us together and make of the two separate planes on which we stand, a common ground where we can meet and be happy."
And with one supreme gesture she tore into pieces the will which she held, and sank all aglow with woman's divinest joy into the arms held out to receive her.
* * * * * I was present at the wedding-reception given them by the Countess De Mirac in her elegant apartments at the Windsor. ”

“ Marriage was considered by our ancestors less as a union of two lovers than as an institution replete with duties and rights, not only of married people towards one another, but also towards their relatives, as a bond uniting two corporate bodies.... ”

“ You fancy to yourself the enjoyments you shall have in being bound to me by a bond which nothing but death can break: but know there is no such thing as sweet chains; and there is a thousand times more glory, honour, and pleasure, in keeping firm to an union which love alone has established, which is supported by mutual esteem and merit, and which owes its continuance to nothing but the satisfaction of seeing each other free. Shall the laws and customs which the gross and carnal world has invented hold us together more surely than the bonds of mutual affection? ”

“ Those who have advocated the marriage of inclination have found a strong argument for it in the fact that, even if the dream of compatibility has proved delusive and short, the mere fact that husband and wife came together of their own accord deprives them of the right to murmur, and interests their pride in the maintenance of the marriage-bond. ”

“ How should he tell her what sort of bond was on him not to marry? How would she receive the matter when it would be told to her? When she first heard of the bond she said it was a noble bond and a holy bond. What would she say now if she were told what sort it was, and what was the cause of it? If he were to tell her about the purse and about the Black Man and about the bargain, perhaps she would conceive a hatred for himself, and that she would not come to see him any more. And how could he explain and make clear to her what sort the bond was, without telling her the whole matter? ”

“ Both parties to the bond must feel that they appreciate each other’s motives and objects, and that every allowance will be made for what they say, and the best possible construction put on their words. ”

“ Hanson's eyes bulged, and his voice was fearful.
"We—we've done it again, Biggs! Busted clean out of our universe into something else!"
"No, sir. This is our universe. But we are seeing it as no man has ever seen it before. Our speed is so great that we are seeing the 'landmarks' of space with a distorted viewpoint. Our relationship—or I should say relativity—is no longer to Earth, or any of its sister planets, but to the Greater Constant, the fundamental motion of the universe itself. ”

“ Very often among rude races, particularly where the "genealogical organization is little developed or in process of decay," the marriage bond is lax, and it is readily dissolved at the pleasure of either party. ”

“ That under such circumstances the marriage-tie is, on the whole, maintained as well as it is, seems rather matter for wonder; and to argue that the introduction of a new source of very profound common interest for husband and wife must, of necessity weaken the bond, is, in my opinion, to evince a singular inability to appreciate the real dangers now besetting the institution. ”

“ The truth is, not only must the bond between man and wife be made subject to a reasonable consideration of the welfare of the parties concerned and of the community, but the whole family bond as well. ”

“ It is the happy husbands who are really in bondage; the little rift within the lute is often a passage to freedom. Marriage had given the Professor exactly what he had sought in it; a comfortable lining to life. The impossibility of rising to sentimental crises had made him scrupulously careful not to shirk the practical obligations of the bond. ”

“ With their more fortunate and envied sisters in the smart set, an engagement is the loosest kind of a bond, and neither man nor woman is safe from the wooing of other men and women until the marriage vows have been pronounced, and, if your society is very fashionable, not even then. ”

“ If then only by union with one's true mate one can enter the bliss of eternal life and love, should not we drop every other responsibility, sever all ties of relationship, give up wife or husband or family or work, and search for the one perfect complementary, finding which, is found the answer to all life's problems? ”

“ Marriages of this kind would perhaps be more frequent but for the want of some pledge or solid warranty of continuance equivalent to that which rivets wedlock between husband and wife. Without the vow and the bond, formal or virtual, no society, from the least to the greatest, will hold together. ”

“ Hundreds of wives would now rush despairingly to their parents, so as, with them or alone, to call their husbands to account, and cause a scene which would break the last bond, and drive him irretrievably from the house. ”

“ In common with an extensive circle of acquaintances, we wish the newly married couple a happy and prosperous future. It is but seldom that a matrimonial alliance has called forth so many heart felt wishes for the happiness of the parties. ”

“ It has been pointed out more than once that there are grave difficulties in the way of any hypothesis which assumes that terms of relationship, properly so called, were evolved in a state of pure promiscuity. ”

“ It is he who has broken the bond of marriage - not I. I only break its bondage. ”

“ Family love, where the tie of blood exists, the love between friends—purest of all affections—is often more essentially sacred than the so-called holy love between husband and wife. Marriage, the mere social and physical union of men and women, apart from parenthood, is simply a partnership—resulting, if you like, in an enormous increase of happiness and good to the contracting parties—essentially an excellent contract, but a mere mundane contract for all that. ”

“ As monogamy is likely to be raised in character by a public sentiment requiring that the legal bond shall not be entered into unless it represents the natural bond, so, perhaps, it may be that maintenance of the legal bond will come to be held improper if the natural bond ceases. ”

“ That night we gathered, as we never thought we should gather again in this world, round the family table—Guy, Edwin, Walter, Maud, Louise, and William Ravenel—all changed, yet not one lost. A true love-feast it was: a renewed celebration of the family bond, which had lasted through so much sorrow, now knitted up once more, never to be broken.
When we came quietly to examine one another and fall into one another's old ways, there was less than one might have expected even of outward change. ”

“ It surely is not conceivable that He to Whom marriage meant so much that He spoke of it as being made by God, Who conceived of the union of a man and woman as being the work of God Himself "Those whom God has joined together"—would have cared for the shell out of which the kernel had gone, for the mere legal bond out of which all the spirit had fled. Marriage should be indissoluble; but what is marriage? ”

“ A mutual confidence and a mutual dependence upon each other gradually took the place of early reserves, and now they sweetly draw together—now they smoothly glide along the stream of life blessed indeed in all their marriage relations. ”

“ Yet to the eyes that only beheld the surface, there was nothing but prosperity and happiness in a marriage between a pair who had loved so long and devotedly, and after going through so much for each other’s sake, were united at length, with wealth, honour, and distinction before them. ”

“ The general discontinuance of all friendly visiting, upon the engagement of either party, proves the nature of the bond. Having chosen the girl he is to marry, why care to call upon any others? having chosen the man she is to marry, why receive attention from any others? ”

“ As mutual love is the only substantial basis of the union, where that does not exist, the union ought not to be consummated; and though some evils generally result from a dissolution of the mutual pledge, yet they are fewer and less awful and destructive than those which follow a marriage without affection—or when the affection of one has to struggle against the cool indifference or positive dislike of the other. ”

“ He said that unless there was a strong foundation of love and respect, the 'unavoidable breaks and cataracts' of domestic life must soon end in mutual aversion, for that married life ought not to be in theory, and assuredly it never was in practice, a system of mere submission on either side, but it should be a system of mutual cooperation for the good of each. ”

“ Wherever husband and wife enter into partnership, they shall declare it before many men. Now if they have lived together twenty winters or more, they are partners according to the laws, if they were not before. ”

“ I have seen much, too much, of fashionable marriages formed for worldly aggrandizement—for riches; sometimes in pique at having lost a coveted lover. With my peculiar sentiments, I feel that I could endure no heavier curse than to contract an alliance like any of these. ”

“ As our mutual affection increased, my companion, whom I had informed of the outlines of my past life, and who was aware of the dangers to which I was daily exposed, being filled with tender fears of losing me for ever, and prompted by sincere affection, suggested the idea of uniting ourselves indissolubly by marriage ”

“ As Lynch puts it, "bonds of friendship or kinship are frequently what bring meaning, warmth and joy to life... They are both a vital component of what enables people to lead a successful life and an expression of our fundamental interdependence." ”

“ Both would thus say, 'In the early days of our marriage we shall enjoy all the illusions and joys of both lovers and spouses, and our hopes will be even sweeter than now, for we shall have more confidence in their realisation; new bonds will soon come to unite us closer and closer, and those bonds will be beautiful little creatures, whom we will love as parts of ourselves, and by whom we shall be loved, not alone for the life which we have given them, but also for the ceaseless care and affection which we have lavished on them. ”

“ Moreover, the full development of mutual love and dependence is with difficulty attained, and there is absence of that closest of bonds, the mutual coöperation of two persons in producing a new person. ”

“ Marriage converts an attachment between man and woman into a deliberate, permanent, responsible, intimate union for a common end of mutual good. Modern society requires that the husband and wife contemplate lifelong companionship, and the affection between husband and wife is enriched by the relation of parents to the children which are their care. The end of the family is not economic profit but mutual aid and the continuance and progress of the race."—Professor Tufts, in Ethics, by Dewey and Tufts. ”