Marriage is for women the commonest mode of livelihood, and the total amount of undesired sex endured by women is probably greater in marriage than in prostitution. A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day. The best friend is likely to acquire the best wife, because a good marriage is based on the talent for friendship. Friedrich Nietzsche Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years.
Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage.
I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient. Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures. John Updike Marriage, for a woman at least, hampers the two things that made life to me glorious-friendship and learning. Marriage is the operation by which a woman's vanity and a man's egotism are extracted without an anaesthetic. Marriage may often be a stormy lake, but celibacy is almost always a muddy horsepond.