Romantic partner

“ They will become love-sick, too, and long for marriage with one who is like the hero of their last-read romance. Perhaps they will not think their matrimonial debut sufficiently flavored with romantic essence, unless they run off with some self-constituted count, or at least with their papa’s Irish groom! ”

“ And she gazed with silent admiration at her noble husband, who loved her so devotedly, and who had not been too proud to marry a simple working girl and lift her to his own station in life. Although she did not love him in a romantic fashion, she admired his noble, manly nature more and more daily. ”

“ However close the sympathy between woman and her lover—however each thinks to have learned the other—what a world is there left un-learned, until marriage brings all those charming confidences, that holy and sweet intercourse, which leaves no separate interest, no undivided thought! ”

“ So each young man, as he cast a last complacent glance in his mirror, recalled all sorts of romantic episodes in which wealthy damsels had fallen in love at first sight with some stranger, whom they had finally married against the wishes of their relatives,—for all these worthy bachelors had but one thought in this instance, marriage, and they even carried their honesty so far as to love marriage for the sake of marriage itself, and the bride became little more than an accessory in their eyes. ”

“ The truly monogamic couple, where the man and the woman go chaste to the marriage-bed, and go through life in mutual love and respect, these feelings growing stronger as the years go by, finding full satisfaction in each other, without any desire for any other man or woman – what nobler, what more appealing ideal can one conjure up? ”

“ Romantic love as a general experience in marriage has developed only during the past few hundred years. No one of these phases—the biological, economic, social, or spiritual—can be ignored in marriage to-day without disaster, as divorce records and daily observation show so clearly. ”

“ You will not, of course, suppose that every bachelor among us finds his mates at the first wooing in this universal Marriage Chorus. On the contrary, the process is by most of us many times repeated. Few are the hearts whose happy lot it is at once to recognize in each other's voices the partner intended for them by Providence, and to fly into a reciprocal and perfectly harmonious embrace. With most of us the courtship is of long duration. ”

“ True love for a conjugial partner surpasses in excellence all other kinds of mutual affection. Being more deeply rooted in the human heart,—having, indeed, a deeper ground in the constitution of our nature,—its sympathies and its duties, its sorrows and its joys, call into action more interior principles of our minds, and, affecting us more deeply, act upon us more powerfully and beneficially. ”

“ If love exists between couples, it ought to show itself in something better than mere empty words. If it does not, whole troops of discontentments come crowding at our fireside; for neglected duties, broken promises, lip affection, magnetic, or passional attraction, will not fill the bill of an anxious heart! ”

“ Never yet have I seen two young beings so happy in their mutual love; and as we have broken through some cold forms, in consideration of the many services which the lover has rendered to his future bride, they are always together, and clinging to each other, as if they fancied that something would yet separate them. ”

“ This lover has strewn the roses of a month's gathering on his lady's path, only for the chance of her seeing them: as he has conquered the difficulties of the lute, only for the chance of her liking its sound; thrown his whole life into a love, which is hers to accept or reject. ”

“ But lover, if you ask of me
that I shall be your comrade, friend, and mate,
to live and work, to love and die with you,
that so together we may know the purity and height
of passion, and of joy and sorrow,
then o husband, I am yours forever
and our co-equal love will make the stars to laugh with joy
and to its circling fugue pass, hand holding hand
until we reach the very heart of God. ”

“ The emotions of a husband are those of a mariner who has entered into the calm harbor of matrimony with his treasure safe and sound, while the romantic lover is as one who is still on the high seas of uncertainty, storm-tossed one moment, lifted sky-high on a wave of hope, the next in a dark abyss of despair. It is indeed lucky that conjugal affection does differ so widely from romantic love; such nervous tension, doubt, worry, and constant friction between hope and despair would, if continued after marriage, make life a burden to the most loving couples. ”

“ There is, in the daily married companionship of two people who love each other, an overtone that comes from the harmony of that love, independent of and diviner than the conscious efforts of either. It is the thing that cannot be reckoned on, cannot be formulated, cannot be explained, cannot be compelled. ”

“ Not only may a deviated passion be brought back to the conjugal bed, but certain discords may be restored to harmony, and the couple may find new desire and mutual affection which have been put to the test. ”

“ I would open my romance with the marriage of a couple united by sentiment, taste, and inclination. Can we conceive a higher felicity, than the blending of their interests and lives in such an union? The lover has the pleasure of giving his mistress the last testimony of esteem and confidence ”

“ If he turns up his sleeves and by chance tangles your curls, where really is the harm? Thank Heaven if in the marriage which you have hit upon you find a laughing, joyous side; if in your husband you find the loved reader of the pretty romance you have in your pocket; if, while wearing cashmere shawls and costly jewels in your ears, you find the joys of a real intimacy—that is delicious! In short, reckon yourself happy if in your husband you find a lover. ”

“ Marriage is the miracle that transforms a kiss from a pleasure into a duty, and a lie from a luxury into a necessity.
A husband is what is left of a lover, after the nerve has been extracted.
A man's heart is like a barber shop in which the cry is always, "NEXT!"
The discovery of rice-powder on his coat-lapel makes a college-boy swagger, a bachelor blush, and a married man tremble.
It takes one woman twenty years to make a man of her son—and another woman twenty minutes to make a fool of him. ”

“ it makes the whole situation impossible . . . and . . . and I so loved our partnership, and was proud of it. Don’t you see?—I can’t go on being your partner if you make love to me. ”

“ The lover, no less than the friend, gratifies his social instinct, his desire for companionship, his need of confessing his own and sharing another’s hopes and fears, his craving for stimulating conversation, his sympathetic disposition to give and receive aid in the trials of life. But if modern friendship ever had any moments to compare with the romantic episodes, the tragic agonies and wild delights of love, would it be conceivable that our realistic novelists and poets could neglect it altogether and devote all their attention to Love? ”

“ So various are we all as individuals, so complex all the reactions and later-reactions of sex relations, that no hard and fast rule can be laid down. Each couple, after marriage, must study themselves, and the lover and the beloved must do what best serves them both and gives them the highest degree of mutual joy and power. ”

“ There are women who read romances in order to feast upon the images of love cleverly depicted and always varied, of love crowned yet triumphant; or in order to familiarize themselves in thought with the perils of an intrigue.
She will profess the highest esteem for you, she will tell you that she loves you as a sister; and that such reasonable friendship is the only true, the only durable friendship, the only tie which it is the aim of marriage to establish between man and wife. ”

“ Would you not say that with such a woman the transitory pleasure of early conversation and intercourse had been the stepping-stone to the lasting happiness of such a friendship as you could never hope for in your old age among your sex? Would not her faithful love and abounding sympathy be dearer to you every day, though the roses in her cheek should fade and the bright hair whiten with the dust of life's journey? ”

“ Now, the marriage contract is made between two persons each of whom is to the other, and therefore philosophically speaking is, the most beautiful creature in the world. They are married, a shadow grows up between them, there are scenes, difficulties—suddenly they wake up to find that they are no longer in love with one another. ”

“ I would have made the lover insignificant and the husband good-looking. Nevertheless she loved the lover better. I know of nothing more noble than for a man to marry the woman he loves, and to raise her by the force of his love ”

“ My young friend and a gentleman whom she met abroad fell in love with each other, and, unlike the usually uneven course of true love, all went smoothly until within a fortnight of the celebration of their marriage, when she learned that her lover had been married before, and that his divorced wife was still living. ”

“ When knowledge and love together go to the making of each marriage, the joy of that new unit, the pair will reach from the physical foundations of its bodies to the heavens where its head is crowned with stars. ”

“ Glancing across the room I intercepted the tender looks of two lovers, looks of mutual love that brought me back to my own misery, and made my heart bleed afresh at the thought that love like this might have been mine! What is more touchingly beautiful than the sight of a betrothed couple who exist in a little world of their own, and, ignoring the indifferent crowd around them, gaze at each other with such a wealth of love and trust in the future! ”

“ True Love, in a bachelor, is exemplified by his willingness to marry a woman—against all his instincts, his sense of self-preservation, and his better judgment.
True Love, in a born flirt, is evidenced by his inability to think of any other woman, while he is kissing a particular one. ”

“ It is the happy privilege of every Bachelor to have loved fully and deeply once in his life; but if his passion is not appreciated, it is his duty to try again; for, even as a stolen kiss is not a real kiss because it lacks the thrill of mutuality, so Love is not Love ”

“ It had been a love-match, as the world calls it—that is to say, a marriage brought about by a schoolgirl’s impatience to break her bonds, and a woman’s first delight in hearing herself called beautiful. ”

“ All my early friends—all my vagrant fancies—all my daydreams of the future I was now to surrender—for, what becomes of any man's bachelor friends when he is once married? Where are his rambles in high and bye-ways when he has a wife? ”

“ A warm and constant friend, she never admitted, never showed herself, a lover. Satisfied with the arrangement which gave her from an early age nothing more than the name and status of a wife, she could let her natural affection range with freedom and security wherever it met with a response that left intact her dignity and self-respect. ”

“ That which may be anticipated, at length comes to pass; the lover returns—he flies to his mistress—she receives him with blushing cheek and palpitating heart. I shall not attempt to describe the scene, but throughout the day and night that succeeds that interview the lover seems like one distracted. In the city, in the fields—alone, or in company—he hears nothing but the magic words, “I LOVE YOU!” ringing in his ears, and feels that ecstatic delight which it is permitted mortals to taste but once in their lives. ”

“ Wisdom marriages are incompatible with Courtship, which becomes a superfluous preliminary to marriage. Modern methods of Courtship and engagement ordinarily prolong this period to about a year or two. This is the honeymoon, not of marriage, but of life itself, the time when earth is a paradise. During these two years the soul makes more progress in refinement, maturity, and insight than during any other decade of life. Shall all this happiness, all this refining influence, be thrown away with Love? ”

“ It's the life-long companionship that matters. It's the living together from day to day, not the sleeping together once or twice. You and I are married, no matter what happens to us. We have the habit of each other. And habit, to my thinking, is more vital than any occasional excitement. The long, slow, enduring thing ... that's what we live by ... not the occasional spasm of any sort. Little by little, living together, two people fall into a sort of unison, they vibrate so intricately to one another. That's the real secret of marriage, not sex; at least not the simple function of sex. ”

“ At all events we have been a very contented couple. Our early admiration and simple liking have ripened into a deep and lasting affection, and we have been as quietly happy as most married people, I believe. ”

“ The accent rests on the word necessary; for it is this feeling of necessary communion of interests that distinguishes conjugal affection from Love and from friendship, in both of which there is a mutual sympathy, but not so far-reaching and inevitable. A lover’s fame or disgrace may be keenly felt by his sweetheart or his friend, yet society does not associate them with the other’s reputation or disgrace; and if the infamy is too great, they can easily sever their bond, without leaving a spot on their own good name. ”

“ The young bride assumes the air and pretenses of extraordinary modesty, and in the event of meeting one of her former associates, invariably turns her back or hides her face, and puts on all the simper of an American girl of twenty years ago—not now-a-days—when accused of having a lover. ”

“ Lovers when married like to look back to the time they first met and to other times and situations; and when happily married they like to look forward to an eternity of happiness with one another. That is real romance. ”