Bachelor To Married Quotes

When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.

Marriage is not a process for prolonging the life of love, sir. It merely mummifies its corpse.

When you see what some girls marry, you realize how they must hate to work for a living.

When a man has seen the woman whom he would have chosen if he had intended to marry speedily, his remaining a bachelor will usually depend on her resolution rather than on his.

Some of us were brought into this troubled world primarily or only to increase our fathers’ chances of not being left by our mothers, or vice versa.

What business has an old bachelor like that to marry?' said Sir James. 'He has one foot in the grave.' 'He means to draw it out again, I suppose.

I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage: but doth not the appetite alter? a man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.

The ranks of society are once again filled with Ambitious Mamas, whose only aim is to see their Darling Daughters married off to Determined Bachelors

He quietly groaned. Again and again, he’d witnessed this phenomenon with his friends. They got married. They were happy in that sated, grateful way of infrequently pleasured men with a now-steady source of coitus. Then they went about crowing as if they’d invented the institution of matrimony and stood to earn a profit for every bachelor they could convert.

He'd missed matching wits with her. "Shall we duel with our lips?" "You may find yourself eating grass for breakfast.

Here’s a fact for you: Married men live seven to ten years longer than bachelors. Married women, on the other hand, die about eight years earlier than their single counterparts. Are you shocked? Me neither.

There’s a lot I don’t tell my father when he calls asking after Amy. He wouldn’t understand that she has no interest in getting married and was, in fact, quite happy to break up with her live-in boyfriend, whom she replaced with an imaginary boyfriend named Ricky. The last time she was asked out by a successful bachelor, Amy hesitated before saying, ‘Thanks for asking, but I’m really not into white guys right now.

While bachelors are lonely people, I'm convinced that married men are lonely people with dependents.

Morning, husband." He nuzzled the side of my face. "Nah, I'm a bachelor this morning. Marrying a hot dude this afternoon. Until then I can sleep with whoever I want." "Hearing a geezer like you say the word dude is off-putting.

If we women did not love you for your defects, where would you all be? Not one of you would ever be married. You would be a set of unfortunate bachelors. Not, however, that that would alter you much.

People think that they can love only when they find a worthy partner—nonsense! You will never find one. People think they will love only when they find a perfect man or a perfect woman. Nonsense! You will never find them, because perfect women and perfect men don’t exist. And if they exist, they won’t bother about your love. They will not be interested. I have heard about a man who remained a bachelor his whole life because he was in search of a perfect woman. When he was seventy, somebody asked, “You have been traveling and traveling—from New York to Kathmandu, from Kathmandu to Rome, from Rome to London you have been searching. Could you not find a perfect woman? Not even one?” The old man became very sad. He said, “Yes, once I did. One day, long ago, I came across a perfect woman.” The inquirer said, “Then what happened? Why didn’t you get married?” Sadly, the old man said, “What to do? She was looking for a perfect man.

Telling lies is a fault in a boy, an art in a lover, an accomplishment in a bachelor, and second-nature in a married man.

When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.

Every woman who has ever approached me about being in my circle of lovers knows that I'm a bachelor with no plans to get married. Thanks to New York's tabloids, it's practically common knowledge. And, to avoid any possibility of doubt or misunderstanding, I very clearly told her from the start what I tell every potential lover: I don't date anyone exclusively. Ever.

Why is it that at a bachelor's establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne? I ask merely for information. I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand. Good Heavens! Is marriage so demoralizing as that? I believe it is a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience of it myself up to the present. I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person.

Mr. St. Maur will help me make a most excellent match. Perhaps you should retain him as well." Minerva shook her head at the pair of them. "A man will have to fall out of the sky and into my bedroom before I marry him.

Oh, I'm so sick and tired of pretending this is a home! You won't help me! You won't put yourself out the least bit! You don't know how to act in a home! You don't really want one! You never wanted one - never since the day we were married! You should have remained a bachelor and lived in second-rate hotels and entertained your friends in barrooms!

Nowadays all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men.

Mr Wisdom,' said the girl who had led him into the presence. 'Ah,' said Howard Saxby, and there was a pause of perhaps three minutes, during which his needles clicked busily. 'Wisdom, did she say?' 'Yes. I wrote "Cocktail Time"' 'You couldn't have done better,' said Mr Saxby cordially. 'How's your wife, Mr Wisdom?' Cosmo said he had no wife. 'Surely?' "I'm a bachelor.' Then Wordsworth was wrong. He said you were married to immortal verse. Excuse me a moment,' murmured Mr Saxby, applying himself to the sock again. 'I'm just turning the heel. Do you knit?' 'No.' 'Sleep does. It knits the ravelled sleave of care.' (After a period of engrossed knitting, Cosmo coughs loudly to draw attention to his presence.) 'Goodness, you made me jump!' he (Saxby) said. 'Who are you?' 'My name, as I have already told you, is Wisdom' 'How did you get in?' asked Mr Saxby with a show of interest. 'I was shown in.' 'And stayed in. I see, Tennyson was right. Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lingers. Take a chair.' 'I have.' 'Take another,' said Mr Saxby hospitably.

Pandora was an unconventional girl: impulsive, intelligent, and usually filled with more energy than she seemed able to manage. Of all the three Ravenel sisters, she had been the least likely to marry the most eligible bachelor in England. However, it spoke well of Gabriel, Lord St. Vincent, that he was able to appreciate her. In fact, from all accounts, St. Vincent had gone head over heels for her.

There you are, you see. It’s no use. You’ve chosen to be a married person. You mustn’t expect to lead the life of a bachelor.’ ‘But

Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn't they'd be married too.

I often tease Peter because I have a master’s and he doesn’t—his Rhodes Scholarship covered a second bachelor’s. Nevertheless, I still have to listen to his introduction five times a day: “Harvard-educated Rhodes Scholar who was elected the youngest mayor of a town over one hundred thousand, who took a seven-month leave of absence to serve his country in Afghanistan.” There’s no animosity here, because he always builds me up, especially when it comes to areas I excel in. If anyone in this relationship is bragging too much about the other at dinner parties, it’s him. He never makes me feel like the dumber one in the relationship, even though I totally am the dumber one in the relationship. Not to be self-deprecating—I just married a polyglot superhuman.

Well, anyway, we walked around for a while, looking at the animals, and suddenly he asked me to marry him outside the cage of the Siberian yak". "No sir", exclaimed Sigsbee H with a sudden strange firmness, the indulgent father who for once in his life asserts himself. "When you get married, you'll get married in St Thomas's like any other nice girl".

In the Broadway play In Defense of the Cave Man, a man says that when he was first married, he saw his wife cleaning the bathroom and asked her, “Are we moving?” In his bachelor days that was the only time he and his roommates bothered to clean the bathroom.

Marriage is a partnership Phillip, not a feudal kingdom. Until you can accept that I have the right to dictate the course of my on life, I will not marry you. Until you can accept my wishes and my opinions are just worthy of consideration as yours, I will not marry you. Until you can accept that what I would give up to be your wife is just as important as what you offer in exchange, I will not marry you.

Why is it that at a bachelor’s establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne?  I ask merely for information. Lane.  I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir.  I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand.

In the East, he then believed, a man went to college not for vocational training but in disciplined search for wisdom and beauty, and nobody over the age of twelve believed that those words were for sissies. In the East, wearing rumpled tweeds and flannels, he could have strolled for hours among ancient elms and clock towers, talking with his friends, and his friends would have been the cream of their generation. The girls of the East were marvelously slim and graceful; they moved with the authority of places like Bennington and Holyoke; they spoke intelligently in low, subtle voices, and they never giggled. On sharp winter evenings you could meet them for cocktails at the Biltmore and take them to the theater, and afterwards, warmed with brandy, they would come with you for a drive to a snowbound New England inn, where they’d slip happily into bed with you under an eiderdown quilt. In the East, when college was over, you could put off going seriously to work until you’d spent a few years in a book-lined bachelor flat, with intervals of European travel, and when you found your true vocation at last it was through a process of informed and unhurried selection; just as when you married at last it was to solemnize the last and best of your many long, sophisticated affairs.

When Mrs. Pattern first came into my life, she was gossiping in the lane with a nursemaid who was wheeling a perambulator containing a baby of exceptional repulsiveness.Babies, as all bachelors will agree, should not be allowed at large unless they are heavily draped, and fitted with various appliances for absorbing sound and moisture. If young married persons persist in their selfish pursuit of populating the planet, they should be compelled to bear the consequences. They should be shut behind high walls, clutching the terrible bundles which they have brought into the world, and when they emerge into society, if they insist on bringing these bundles with them, they should see that they are properly cloaked, muted, sealed up and, above all, dry. They should not wave them about in the streets to the alarm of sensitive persons who are used to the company of Siamese cats.

I now need to marry you.

Ah! Master Rowley, when an old bachelor marries a young wife, he deserves—no—the crime carries its punishment along with it.

Bachelors know more about women than married men: If they didn’t, they’d be married too.” H. L. Mencken

Well, then. I think that makes you pretty well married.” Fletcher stuffed the paper back in his pocket. “See you both at your funeral.

She gave me the kind of a look and smile that I guess is what tends to turn bachelors into married men.

If we women did not love you for your defects, where would you all be? Not one of you would ever be married. You would be a set of unfortunate bachelors.

Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects. You will never ask me to dinner again after saying this, I am afraid, Lady Narborough, but it is quite true." "Of course it is true, Lord Henry. If we women did not love you for your defects, where would you all be? Not one of you would ever be married. You would be a set of unfortunate bachelors. Not, however, that that would alter you much. Nowadays all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men.

—Te quiero, Donna —al ver que ella no contestaba, controló el estremecimiento de pánico y siguió hablando con su mejor voz de mando—. Y será mejor que tú también me quieras. Es una orden.

She started to rise, for she feared Dash might become angry, lose his temper as he had before with Finn, but this Dash, this man who was struggling to find his footing, planted his feet solidly on the deck. "She married someone else, Finn," he said quietly. "There was no battle to fight once she'd done that. I'd lost, and sometimes when you lose, there is nothing you can do but move on." Finn sighed and shook his head, the arguments and problems of adults far beyond his ken, but he still persisted, struggling to understand. "Did you?" "Did I what?" "Move on? After you lost her?" Again, Dash shook his head. "Nay, I didn't. Not at all." "'Cause you loved her?" Dash looked away. "Aye. Without her, I lost my course and sailed about the seas rather like the Dutchman.

He was but a married old bachelor, and fancied he must keep up his dignity in the eyes of his wife, not having yet learned that, if a man be true, his friends and lovers will see to his dignity.

Why were you so happy to see me? You know, besides my general awesomeness." Marz pushed out of his chair, big grin on his face, and held out his hands. "I'm getting married!" Shane sighed. The expressions on the other two said they'd already been down this road. "All right. I'll bite." "I think the appropriate sentiment is 'congratulations'," Marz said, crossing his arms and feigning insult. "Just spill the brilliance of whatever this is about," Shane said. "Only because you acknowledged its brilliance." Marz sat excitement rolling off the guy. "I figured out how to solve the problem of getting us eyes and ears in the back of Confessions." "By getting married?" "By pretending to get married. And what does every pretend groom need?" Marz's grin was full of anticipation. "A bride?" Shane said. Marz rolled his eyes and waved his hands. "Okay, but what else?" Shane looked between the three of them. And then the lightbulb went on. "A bachelor party," Shane said. Marz clapped his hands. "Ding ding ding. Give the man a cigar." Yup. The idea was, in fact, brilliant. Really brilliant.

Enough, Aunt Josephine," Jack said, cutting her off, ignoring the stubborn light in her eyes. Oh, she was a Tremont all right, and one of the "mad" Tremonts at that, but she was no longer in charge of this house. He was. And it was about time he took the reins of this manor and ran it as he saw fit. "There will be no next time," he told her. "But Jack, my dear boy--" He rose from Miranda's side. "There will be no next time. For any of you. I have had enough of seeing my friends, my family, let alone the woman I love risk life, limb, and for what?" He paced the room. "There will never be an end to this if something isn't done, so I am ending it. Here and now." "But Jack--" Miranda protested. He swung around on her. "And not a word from you. Do you think I want my wife risking her life on such an improper fashion?" "You love me?" she whispered. "Yes," he barked at her. She grinned up at him. "You want to marry me?" "Should have years ago." He paced back and forth. "I lost you once, Miranda, I shall not lose you again." He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at everyone in the room, daring them to defy him.

Though himself married, Isaac Gosset advocated the bachelor state for collectors. “Never think of marriage,” he would say to young book-lovers, “and if the thought should occur, take down a book and begin to read until it vanishes.

What an excellent idea, Parkerton," Miranda agreed. "For then you can continue on with your life without a single inconvenience. You can just shake off the dustcovers and everything will be perfectly ordered once again." "And what is wrong with that?" he asked, his ire finally getting the better of him. Miranda came to stand before him. "Because you'll never know the most important thing about marriage." He crossed his arms over his chest. "Which would be?" "Why she married you.

Remain a bachelor for the next thirteen years; amuse yourself like a lost soul; then, at forty, on your first attack of gout, marry a widow of thirty-six. Then you may possibly be happy. If you now take a young girl to wife, you’ll die a madman.

Sweetheart," West murmured kindly, "listen to me. There's no need to worry. You'll either meet someone new, or you'll reconsider someone you didn't appreciate at first. Some men are an acquired taste. Like oysters, or Gorgonzola cheese." She let out a shuddering sigh. "Cousin West, if I haven't married by the time I'm twenty-five... and you're still a bachelor... would you be my oyster?" West looked at her blankly. "Let's agree to marry each other someday," she continued, "if no one else wants us. I would be a good wife. All I've ever dreamed of is having my own little family, and a happy home where everyone feels safe and welcome. You know I never nag or slam doors or sulk in corners. I just need someone to take care of. I want to matter to someone. Before you refuse-" "Lady Cassandra Ravenel," West interrupted, "that is the most idiotic idea anyone's come up with since Napoleon decided to invade Russia." Her gaze turned reproachful. "Why?" "Among a dizzying array of reasons, you're too young for me." "You're no older than Lord St. Vincent, and he just married my twin." "I'm older than him on the inside, by decades. My soul is a raisin. Take my word for it, you don't want to be my wife." "It would be better than being lonely." "What rubbish. 'Alone' and 'lonely' are entirely different things." West reached out to smooth back a dangling golden curl that had stuck against a drying tear track on her cheek. "Now, go bathe your face in cool water, and-" "I'll be your oyster," Tom broke in.

Bachelors must be married, and married men would be bachelors; they do not love their own wives, though otherwise fair, wise, virtuous, and well qualified, because they are theirs; our present estate is still the worst, we cannot endure one course of life long,

As a bachelor seeing the married life of others––their petty cares, their disputes, their jealousies––he used mentally to smile contemptuously. In his future married life he was to have nothing of this kind, and even the external forms of his married life would be quite unlike other people’s. And now, behold! his life with his wife had not shaped itself differently, but was made up of all those petty trifles which he had formerly so despised, but which now, against his will, assumed an unusual and incontestable importance.

I think that you would find a steady married man an improvement on these wild, flower-pot-throwing bachelors. If it would help to influence your decision, I may say that my bride-to-be is Miss Halliday, probably the finest library-cataloguist in the United Kingdom.

Ian Fleming The CBC Interview, 1953 He doesn’t use Anglo-Saxon four-letter words, “I don’t like seeing them on the page.” When asked why his novels are so popular in light of the dirtiness of the trade (of espionage), Fleming said, “The books have pace and plenty of action. And espionage is not regarded by the majority of the public as a dirty trade. They regard it as a rather sort of ah, ah very romantic affair… Spying has always been regarded as (a) very romantic one-man job, so-to-speak. A one man against a whole police force or an army.” Regarding heroes of his time, Fleming said, “I think that although they may have feet of clay, ah, we probably all have, and all human beings have, there’s no point in dwelling entirely on the feet. There are many other parts of the animal to be examined. And I think people like to read about heroes.” BBC Interview on Desert Island Discs Question: Had the character of James Bond been growing in your mind for a long time? Ian Fleming’s response: “No, I can’t say I had, really. He sort of, ah, developed when I was just on the edge of getting married, after having been a bachelor for so long, and I really wanted to take my mind off the agony. And so I decided to sit down and write a book.” Question: How much long do you think you can keep Bond going? Ian Fleming’s response: “Well, I don’t know. It depends on how much I, how much more I can go on following his adventures.” Question: You don’t feel he’s keeping you from more serious writing? Ian Fleming’s response: “No. I’m not in the Shakespeare stakes. I’ve got no ambitions.

Another misfortune was, that he was a bachelor. Ladies think, and I, for one, think that ladies are quite right in so thinking, that doctors should be married men. All the world feels that a man when married acquires some of the attributes of an old woman—he becomes, to a certain extent, a motherly sort of being; he acquires a conversance with women's ways and women's wants, and loses the wilder and offensive sparks of his virility. It must be easier to talk to such a one about Matilda's stomach, and the growing pains in Fanny's legs, than to a young bachelor.

You know, if I didn't know better, I would swear we were actually married." "I can't think of anything more off-putting," Wellington placed his hand in the small of her back as he continued, "than being married to a walking armoury. You, my dear Miss Braun, are a living, breathing advocate for bachelorism.

Jack la miró largamente. ¿Cómo había imaginado que podría vivir sin ella? Durante todo el infernal trayecto por la autopista cubierta de agua en un Jeep robado, mejor dicho, prestado, había ensayado lo que iba a decir, había pensado cómo iba a abordarla. Una vez allí, en la misión más arriesgada de toda su vida, solo podía hacer una cosa.

So how about you?" she asked. "Why did you and your" - she broke out the air quotes again - "'life partner' decide to move to Clam Bay?" "Not really a good reason for it, I guess. Just bad judgment on... Wait. What did you call us?" "Oh, I'm sorry." She blushed. "Was that the wrong term? I didn't mean to offend." "You think... Uh, we're not gay." She laughed. "Oh, it's all right. Nobody here cared about something like that. We're pretty tolerant of alternative lifestyles." "We're not gay," he said with a little more force than intended. "We're just friends." "Are you married?" "No." "Girlfriends?" "Not at the moment." "Confirmed bachelors?" She raised an eyebrow/ "Not confirmed," he replied. "So two single guys from the big city move to our little town and open a bed-and-breakfast. But you're not gay." "We're just friends," he said. "Right. Because straight men open bed-and-breakfasts all the time." "These straight men did." "Straight men names Philip and Vance." He wanted to argue, but he was suddenly beginning to question it himself.

He was determined never to marry a widow. If he did, it should be one, who had a vast fortune, and who never had a child. And he had still a more particular exception; and that was to a woman who had red hair. He held these exceptions till he was forty; and then being looked upon as a determin’d bachelor, no family thought it worth their while to make proposals  to him:

Teenage boys were very useful for farm work, of course. But the men did not like having their grown sons in the house. They took up too much space, for one. But also, it was not fit to have lusty young men share a roof with so many women. Since the girls in Paradise were married off at seventeen or eighteen, that meant that the youngest wives were often the same age as the bachelors.

Marriage is a partnership, Phillip, not a feudal kingdom. Until you can accept that I have the right to dictate the course of my own life, I will not marry you. Until you can accept that my wishes and my opinions are just as worthy of consideration as yours, I will not marry you. Until you can accept that what I would give up to be your wife is just as important as what you offer in exchange, I will not marry you.

BACHELOR NUMBER ONE IS A NO-GO, she texted Trish. HE TALKED TOO MUCH. Within seconds, Trish texted back. ISN’T TALKING A GOOD THING ON A FIRST DATE? Of course, Trish was trying to put a positive spin on things. As the happily-married-with-child best friend of a single, thirty-three-year-old woman, it was part of the job description. AS IN, DONKEY FROM SHREK TOO MUCH, Sidney typed back. OUCH. THAT’S NOT GOOD. No kidding.

The sight of a pretty girl provokes in him an overwhelming reaction of appreciation and approval, and correlatively his acquisitive instinct, but he has never married. Why not? Because he knows that if he had a wife, his reaction to pretty girls, now pure and frank and free, would not only be intolerably adulterated but would also be under surveillance and subject to restriction by authority. So the governor always stops him short of disaster.

He had pursued his strikingly beautiful, spirited, fashionable wife for years and years before marrying her in mid-Channel aboard a man-of-war: for so many years indeed that he had become a confirmed bachelor at last, too old a dog to give up his tricks of smoking tobacco in bed, playing his 'cello at odd untimely moments, dissecting anything that interested him, even in the drawing-room; too old to be taught to shave regularly, to change his linen, or to wash when he did not feel the need - an impossible husband. He was not house-trained; and although he made earnest attempts at the beginning of their marriage he soon perceived that in time the strain must damage their relationship, all the more so since Diana was as intransigent as himself and far more apt to fly into a passion about such things as a pancreas in the drawer of the bedside table or orange marmalade ground into the Aubusson.

As if Singh were thinking of stepping into the Tudor corner store in his uniform and turban to chat casually with the owners about canes. Lord Suffolk was the best of the English, he later told Hana. If there had been no war he would never have roused himself from Countisbury and his retreat, called Home Farm, where he mulled along with the wine, with the flies in the old back laundry, fifty years old, married but essentially bachelor in character, walking the cliffs each day to visit his aviator friend.

when Lord Shoreman and Mr. Worthing were dining with me, eight bottles of champagne are entered as having been consumed. Lane. Yes, sir; eight bottles and a pint. Algernon. Why is it that at a bachelor’s establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne? I ask merely for information. Lane. I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand. Algernon. Good heavens! Is marriage so demoralising as that?

It’s important to marry someone, she said. Not because you need them to complete you or because you ought to be someone’s wife by hook or by crook. It’s just that worlds want to combine, they want to marry, and they use people to do it, the way you mix medicine in with something sweet, so it’s easy to swallow. That’s why we have to have all those silly things: a frilly dress and something blue and a bachelor party and a priest. Just so that a boy and a girl can live together and make babies? Posh. Because the big worlds inside us are mating, and they need the pomp.

—Espero que hayamos hecho un bebé esta tarde, Donna. Quiero tener hijos contigo. Donna se quedó sin aliento y, maldición, volvió a sentir el escozor de las lágrimas. Jack la besó con suavidad y siguió hablando. —Quiero crear una familia contigo, Donna. La familia que siempre he querido pero nunca pensé que encontraría. Donna levantó la mano para acariciarle la mejilla. ¿Cómo podía habérsele pasado por la cabeza abandonar a aquel hombre amable y fuerte?, se preguntó, y le sonrió con orgullo. —¿Quieres bebés? —le preguntó—. Pues hoy es tu día de suerte, marine. ¿A que no sabes que sorpresa tengo reservada para ti?

Note: I won’t be considering any theologically based Judeo-Christian views about these subjects beyond this broad summary here. As far as I can tell, most of the theological discussions center around omniscience—if God’s all-knowingness includes knowing the future, how can we ever freely, willingly choose between two options (let alone be judged for our choice)? Amid the numerous takes on this, one answer is that God is outside of time, such that past, present, and future are meaningless concepts (implying, among other things, that God could never relax by going to a movie and being pleasantly surprised by a plot turn—He always knows that the butler didn’t do it). Another answer is one of the limited God, something explored by Aquinas—God cannot sin, cannot make a boulder too heavy for Him to lift, cannot make a square circle (or, as another example that I’ve seen offered by a surprising number of male but not female theologians, even God cannot make a married bachelor). In other words, God cannot do everything, He can just do whatever is possible, and foreseeing whether someone will choose good or evil is not knowable, even for Him. Related to this all, Sam Harris mordantly notes that even if we each have a soul, we sure didn’t get to pick it.

Nothing, in my opinion, sets the odious selfishness of mankind in such a repulsively vivid light, as the treatment, in all classes of society, which the Single people receive at the hands of the Married people. When you have once shown yourself too considerate and self-denying to add a family of your own to an already overcrowded population, you are vindictively marked out by your married friends, who have no similar consideration and no similar self-denial, as the recipient of half their conjugal troubles, and the born friend of all their children. Husbands and wives talk about the cares of matrimony; and bachelors and spinsters bear them.

Among the Bonerif, husbands disapproved of their wives having sex with bachelors, but the bachelors did it anyway. Husbands were relatively tolerant of their wives having sex with other husbands, perhaps because promiscuous sex involved less threat of losing her economic services than did promiscuous feeding. As in many other hunter-gatherer communities, Bonerif attitudes toward premarital sex are particularly open-minded. One girl had sex with every unmarried male in the community except her brother. But when a woman feeds a man, she is immediately recognized as being married to him. Western society is not alone in thinking that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.

As in most obituaries, the author said little about the man; they rarely do. But the reticence here was greater than usual. It mentioned that Ravenscliff left a wife, but did not say when they married. It said nothing at all about his life, nor where he lived. There were not even any of the usual phrases to give a slight hint: ‘a natural raconteur’ (loved the sound of his own voice); ‘Noted for his generosity to friends’ (profligate); ‘a formidable enemy . . .’ (a brute); ‘a severe but fair employer . . .’ (a slave-driver); ‘devoted to the turf’ (never read a book in his life); ‘a life-long bachelor’ (vice); ‘a collector of flowers’ (this meant a great womaniser. Why it came to mean such a thing I do not know.) More browsing

But China’s mandatory household registration system, the hukou, presents a significant barrier for this type of match. Citizens from the countryside are not allowed to move to urban areas without state approval. The prospect of more desirable employment lures many to cities anyway, but even if they find a good job, they are barred from accessing urban health care, education, and housing benefits. And since children inherit their mother’s hukou status, no self-respecting urban bachelor wants to marry a poor girl from the sticks—unless they are truly in love, and in which case, everyone lives happily ever after. Except for the woman and her children, who, because of their hukou, are essentially illegal aliens in their own country.

There are many rules a priest can’t break. A priest cannot marry. A priest cannot abandon his flock. A priest cannot harm the sacred trust his parish has put in him. Rules that seem obvious. Rules that I remember as I knot my cincture. Rules that I vow to live by as I pull on my chasuble and adjust my stole. I’ve always been good at following rules. Until she came. My name is Tyler Anselm Bell. I’m twenty-nine years old. I have a bachelor’s degree in classical languages and a Master of Divinity degree. I’ve been at my parish since I was ordained three years back, and I love it here. Several months ago, I broke my vow of celibacy on the altar of my own church, and God help me, I would do it again. I am a priest and this is my confession.

and even if I remembered them, whom could they interest?’ ‘Then how’s it to be?’ began the master of the house. ‘There was nothing much of interest about my first love either; I never fell in love with any one till I met Anna Nikolaevna, now my wife, – and everything went as smoothly as possible with us; our parents arranged the match, we were very soon in love with each other, and got married without loss of time. My story can be told in a couple of words. I must confess, gentlemen, in bringing up the subject of first love, I reckoned upon you, I won’t say old, but no longer young, bachelors. Can’t you enliven us with something, Vladimir Petrovitch?’ ‘My first love, certainly, was not quite an ordinary one,’ responded, with some reluctance, Vladimir Petrovitch, a man of forty, with black hair turning grey. ‘Ah!’ said

For a brief moment she considered the unfairness of it all. How short was the time for fun, for pretty clothes, for dancing, for coquetting! Only a few, too few years! Then you married and wore dull-colored dresses and had babies that ruined your waist line and sat in corners at dances with other sober matrons and only emerged to dance with your husband or with old gentlemen who stepped on your feet. If you didn't do these things, the other matrons talked about you and then your reputation was ruined and your family disgraced. It seemed such a terrible waste to spend all your little girlhood learning how to be attractive and how to catch men and then only use the knowledge for a year or two. When she considered her training at the hands of Ellen and Mammy, se knew it had been thorough and good because it had always reaped results. There were set rules to be followed, and if you followed them success crowned your efforts. With old ladies you were sweet and guileless and appeared as simple minded as possible, for old ladies were sharp and they watched girls as jealously as cats, ready to pounce on any indiscretion of tongue or eye. With old gentlemen, a girl was pert and saucy and almost, but not quite, flirtatious, so that the old fools' vanities would be tickled. It made them feel devilish and young and they pinched your cheek and declared you were a minx. And, of course, you always blushed on such occasions, otherwise they would pinch you with more pleasure than was proper and then tell their sons that you were fast. With young girls and young married women, you slopped over with sugar and kissed them every time you met them, even if it was ten times a day. And you put your arms about their waists and suffered them to do the same to you, no matter how much you disliked it. You admired their frocks or their babies indiscriminately and teased about beaux and complimented husbands and giggled modestly and denied you had any charms at all compared with theirs. And, above all, you never said what you really thought about anything, any more than they said what they really thought. Other women's husbands you let severely alone, even if they were your own discarded beaux, and no matter how temptingly attractive they were. If you were too nice to young husbands, their wives said you were fast and you got a bad reputation and never caught any beaux of your own. But with young bachelors-ah, that was a different matter! You could laugh softly at them and when they came flying to see why you laughed, you could refuse to tell them and laugh harder and keep them around indefinitely trying to find out. You could promise, with your eyes, any number of exciting things that would make a man maneuver to get you alone. And, having gotten you alone, you could be very, very hurt or very, very angry when he tried to kiss you. You could make him apologize for being a cur and forgive him so sweetly that he would hang around trying to kiss you a second time. Sometimes, but not often, you did let them kiss you. (Ellen and Mammy had not taught her that but she learned it was effective). Then you cried and declared you didn't know what had come over you and that he couldn't ever respect you again. Then he had to dry your eyes and usually he proposed, to show just how much he did respect you. And there were-Oh, there were so many things to do to bachelors and she knew them all, the nuance of the sidelong glance, the half-smile behind the fan, the swaying of hips so that skirts swung like a bell, the tears, the laughter, the flattery, the sweet sympathy. Oh, all the tricks that never failed to work-except with Ashley.

Kant distinguished between two types of truths: (1) analytic propositions, which derive from logic and “reason itself” rather than from observing the world; for example, all bachelors are unmarried, two plus two equals four, and the angles of a triangle always add up to 180 degrees; and (2) synthetic propositions, which are based on experience and observations; for example, Munich is bigger than Bern, all swans are white. Synthetic propositions could be revised by new empirical evidence, but not analytic ones. We may discover a black swan but not a married bachelor or (at least so Kant thought) a triangle with 181 degrees. As Einstein said of Kant’s first category of truths: “This is held to be the case, for example, in the propositions of geometry and in the principle of causality. These and certain other types of knowledge… do not previously have to be gained from sense data, in other words they are a priori knowledge.” Einstein

The members of the board were very sage, deep, philosophical men; and when they came to turn their attention to the workhouse, they found out at once, what ordinary folk would never have discovered - the poor people like it! It was a regular place of public entertainment for the poorer classes; a tavern where there was nothing to pay; a public breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper all year round; a brick and mortar elysium where it was all play and no work. "Oho!" said the board, looking very knowing; "we are the fellows to set this to rights; we'll stop it all in no time." So, they established the rule, that all poor people should have the alternative (for they would compel nobody, not they) of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or a quick one out of it. With this view, they contracted with the waterworks to lay on an unlimited supply of water; and with a corn-factor to supply periodically small quantities of oatmeal; and issued three meals of thin gruel per day, with an onion twice a week, and half a roll on Sundays. They made a great many other wise and humane regulations, having reference to the ladies, which it is not necessary to repeat; undertook to divorce poor married people, in consequence of the great expense of a suit in Doctor's Commons; and, instead of compelling a man to support his family, as they had theretofore done, took his family away from him, and made him a bachelor! There is no saying how many applicants for relief under these two heads, might have started up in all classes of society, if it had not been coupled with the workhouse; but the board were long-headed men, and had provided for this difficulty. The relief was inseparable from the workhouse and the gruel; and that frightened people. For the first six months after Oliver Twist was removed, the system was in full operation. It was rather expensive at first, in consequence to the increase in the undertaker's bill, and the necessity of taking in the clothes of all the paupers, which fluttered loosely on their wasted, shrunken forms, after a week or two's gruel.

Cerró los puños al sentir cómo aquel vacío crecía hasta amenazar con devorarlo por entero. Contempló la negrura que era su vida y comprendió lo que llevaba semanas negando. La amaba. La amaba de verdad. Tanto, que sin ella, su vida sería una sucesión interminable de días estériles y noches desoladoras. Pero Donna se había ido sin decir una palabra. Aun así, se preguntó, si él le hubiera confesado su amor, si se hubiera arriesgado a sufrir su rechazo y le hubiera confesado lo que sentía, ¿se habría ido? No lo sabía. Pero, maldición, ya estaba harto de retirarse. Iba a aferrarse a la oportunidad que se le ofrecía, la que tantas personas afortunadas daban por hecha todos los días: la oportunidad de amar, de pertenecer a una familia. Con paso rápido atravesó el despacho y salió por la puerta. Desfiló con paso raudo hasta el despacho del coronel, que estaba al final del pasillo. Llamó con los nudillos y abrió la puerta lo justo para asomar la cabeza. —Solicito permiso para tomarme el día libre por asuntos personales, señor —le pidió. —Concedido —gritó el coronel hacia la puerta que ya se estaba cerrando.

I WASN’T AWARE THE LADIES got a turn at the proposing. I thought it was up to us stalwart lads to risk rejection and to do the actual asking.” “We can take first crack,” the earl said, his finger tracing the rim of his glass, “but I took first through fifth, and that means it’s her turn.” “I’m sure you’ll explain this mystery to me, as I hope at some point to put an end to my dreary bachelor existence,” Dev murmured, taking a long swallow of his drink. The earl smiled almost tenderly. “With Anna, I proposed, explaining to her she should marry me because I am titled and wealthy and so on.” “That would be persuasive to most any lady I know, except the lady you want.” “Precisely. So I went on to demonstrate she should marry me because I am, though the term will make you blush, lusty enough to bring her a great deal of pleasure.” “I’d marry you for that reason,” Dev rejoined, “or I would if, well… It’s a good argument.” “It is, if you are a man, but on Anna, the brilliance of my logic was lost. So I proposed again and suggested I could make her troubles disappear, then failed utterly to make good on my word.” “Bad luck, that.

Almost unconsciously, his gaze shifted across the immense ballroom to fasten on the girl, inexorably pulled to her like metal filings to a magnet. He could barely make her out since she was surrounded by her usual jostling court of ardent admirers, most of them titled, wealthy, and considerably handsomer than Nigel. If he was honest with himself, he’d have to admit that obsession would be the most accurate description of his feelings, and he hadn’t the slightest notion as to when or how that obsession had developed. However it had happened, over the last several months a ridiculous amount of space in his skull had been taken up by thoughts of lovely Amelia Easton. Fortunately, until now, none of his acquaintances had suspected that he—the most sensible man in the ton—had succumbed to such a maudlin, hopeless passion. A hopeless passion, since Amelia Easton would no sooner marry a man like Nigel than she would a butcher from Smithfield. After all, she was widely acknowledged as one of the great prizes on the matrimonial mart—beautiful, kind, good-natured, and disgustingly rich, or at least her father was. It was a most potent combination, and meant that the girl couldn’t step foot outside her family’s Mayfair townhouse without a pack of slavering bachelors in pursuit. “How

Missy and I were married on August 10, 1990. To say our marriage got off to a rocky start would be an understatement. My brothers and closest friends took me frog-hunting the night before my wedding for my bachelor party. As we were searching for frogs, my oldest brother, Alan, gave me a lot of advice on marriage in general as we motored along the bayou. The main thing he reminded me of is that God is the architect of marriage. Having a great relationship with our Creator is the best thing you can do for your marriage relationship. Alan gave me an illustration of a triangle with the husband and wife on the bottom corners and God at the top corner. His point was that as each person moves closer to God, they also move closer to each other. I never forgot that and he was right. I was mainly the motorman that night and was filled with anxiety and anticipation of the wedding. As we moved along, we saw two big frogs mating on the riverbank. “Whoa, there you go!” Al shouted. It kind of broke the ice for a conversation about intimacy and sex. Missy and I had not seen each other much in the previous couple of months because we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. Many times we had to remind each other of our commitment to stay pure and had had many prayers together. We were not perfect, but one of us would always stop things from getting too heated. Eventually, we decided to have only a long-distance relationship via telephone and our face-to-face encounters became limited to church and public gatherings. As our wedding was approaching, Missy and I were both a little bit nervous about having sex for the first time. I think that’s the way it is when you’re both virgins. We were both excited because we’d decided to save ourselves for marriage and our big night was finally here!

Knowing Chris was getting married, his fellow Team members decided that they had to send him off with a proper SEAL bachelor party. That meant getting him drunk, of course. It also meant writing all over him with permanent markers-an indelible celebration, to be sure. Fortunately, they liked him, so his face wasn’t marked up-not by them, at least; he’d torn his eyebrow and scratched his lip during training. Under his clothes, he looked quite the sight. And the words wouldn’t come off no matter how he, or I scrubbed. I pretended to be horrified, but honestly, that didn’t bother me much. I was just happy to have him with me, and very excited to be spending the rest of my life with the man I loved. It’s funny, the things you get obsessed about. Days before the wedding, I spent forty-five minutes picking out exactly the right shape of lipstick, splurging on expensive cosmetics-then forgot to take it with me the morning of the wedding. My poor sister and mom had to run to Walgreens for a substitute; they came back with five different shades, not one of which matched the one I’d picked out. Did it matter? Not at all, although I still remember the vivid marks the lipstick made when I kissed him on the cheek-marking my man. Lipstick, location, time of day-none of that mattered in the end. What did matter were our families and friends, who came in for the ceremony. Chris liked my parents, and vice versa. I truly loved his mom and dad. I have a photo from that day taped near my work area. My aunt took it. It’s become my favorite picture, an accidental shot that captured us perfectly. We stand together, beaming, with an American flag in the background. Chris is handsome and beaming; I’m beaming at him, practically glowing in my white gown. We look so young, happy, and unworried about what was to come. It’s that courage about facing the unknown, the unshakable confidence that we’d do it together, that makes the picture so precious to me. It’s a quality many wedding photos possess. Most couples struggle to make those visions realities. We would have our struggles as well.

In other words, you'll pretend to be someone else in order to snag a husband." "Oh, for heaven's sake," she said defensively, "it's no different than what half the women in society do to catch a man. I don't want to waste my time in pointless flirtation when a little knowledge will improve my aim on the targets." He flashed her a condescending smile. "What is it?" she snapped. "Only you would approach courtship as a marksman approaches a shooting match." He licked the tip of his pencil. "So who are these hapless targets?" "The Earl of Devonmont, the Duke of Lyons, and Fernandez Valdez, the Viscount de Basto." His jaw dropped. "Are you insane?" "I know they're rather beyond my reach, but they seem to like my company-" "I daresay they do!" He strode up to her, strangely angry. "The earl is a rakehell with a notorious reputation for trying to get beneath the skirts of every woman he meets. The duke's father was mad, and it's said to run in his family, which is why most women steer clear of him. And Basto is a Portuguese idiot who's too old for you and clearly trawling for some sweet young thing to nurse him in his declining years." "How can you say such things? The only one you know personally is Lord Devonmont, and you barely know even him." "I don't have to. Their reputations tell me they're utterly unacceptable." Unacceptable? Three of the most eligible bachelors in London? Mr. Pinter was mad, not her. "Lord Devonmont is Gabe's wife's cousin. The duke of Gabe's best friend, whom I've known since childhood, and the viscount...well..." "Is an oily sort, from what I hear," he snapped. "No, he isn't. He's very pleasant to talk to." Really, this was the most ridiculous conversation. "Who the devil do you think I should marry, anyway?" That seemed to take him aback. He glanced away. "I don't know," he muttered. "But no...That is, you shouldn't..." He tugged at his cravat. "They're wrong for you, that's all." She'd flustered Mr. Pinter. How astonishing! He was never flustered. It made him look vulnerable and much less...stiff. She rather liked that. But she'd like it even better if she understood what had provoked it. "Why do you care whom I choose, as long as you're paid? I'm wiling to pay extra to ensure that you find out everything I want to know." Once more he turned into Proud Pinter. "It isn't a matter of payment, madam. I choose my own assignments, and this one isn't to my taste. Good day," Turning on his heel, he headed for the door. Oh, dear, she hadn't meant to run him off entirely.

Before their chaise drew to a complete halt in front of the house a door was already being flung open, and a tall, stocky man was bouncing down the steps. “It would appear that our greeting here is going to be far more enthusiastic than the one we received at our last stop,” Elizabeth said in a resolute voice that still shook with nerves as she drew on her gloves, bravely preparing to meet and defy the next obstacle to her happiness and independence. The door of their chaise was wrenched open with enough force to pull it from its hinges, and a masculine face poked inside. “Lady Elizabeth!” boomed Lord Marchman, his face flushed with eagerness-or drink; Elizabeth wasn’t certain. “This is indeed a long-awaited surprise,” and then, as if dumbstruck by his inane remark, he shook his large head and hastily said, “A long-awaited pleasure, that is! The surprise is that you’ve arrived early.” Elizabeth firmly repressed a surge of compassion for his obvious embarrassment, along with the thought that he might be rather likeable. “I hope we haven’t inconvenienced you overmuch,” she said. “Not overmuch. That is,” he corrected, gazing into her wide eyes and feeling himself drowning, “not at all.” Elizabeth smiled and introduced “Aunt Berta,” then allowed their exuberant host to escort them up the steps. Beside her Berta whispered with some satisfaction, “I think he’s as nervous as I am.” The interior of the house seemed drab and rather gloomy after the sunny splendor outside. As their host led her forward Elizabeth glimpsed the furnishings in the salon and drawing room-all of which were upholstered in dark leathers that appeared to have once been maroon and brown. Lord Marchman, who was watching her closely and hopefully, glanced about and suddenly saw his home as she must be seeing it. Trying to explain away the inadequacies of his furnishings, he said hastily, “This home is in need of a woman’s touch. I’m an old bachelor, you see, as was my father.” Berta’s eyes snapped to his face. “Well, I never!” she exclaimed in outraged reaction to his apparent admission of being a bastard.” “I didn’t mean,” Lord Marchman hastily assured, “that my father was never married. I meant”-he paused to nervously tug on his neckcloth, as if trying to loosen it-“that my mother died when I was very young, and my father never remarried. We lived here together.” At the juncture of two hallways and the stairs Lord Marchman turned and looked at Berta and Elizabeth. “Would you care for refreshment, or would you rather go straight to bed?” Elizabeth wanted a rest, and she particularly wanted to spend as little time in his company as was possible. “The latter, if you please.” “In that case,” he said with a sweeping gesture of his arm toward the staircase, “let’s go.” Berta let out a gasp of indignant outrage at what she perceived to be a clear indication that he was no better than Sir Francis. “Now see here, milord! I’ve been putting her in bed for nigh onto two score, and I don’t need help from the likes of you!” And then, as if she realized her true station, she ruined the whole magnificent effect by curtsying and adding in a servile whisper, “if you don’t mind, sir.” “Mind? No, I-“ It finally occurred to John Marchmen what she thought, and he colored up clear to the roots of his hair. “I-I only meant to show you how,” he began, and then he leaned his head back and briefly closed his eyes as if praying for deliverance from his own tongue. “How to find the way,” he finished with a gusty sigh of relief. Elizabeth was secretly touched by his sincerity and his awkwardness, and were the situation less threatening, she would have gone out of her way to put him at his ease.

There was also a handsome water-color portrait of the balaclava Buster, the work of a lady botany professor who had hoped to reach her colleague's heart through his rutabaga. Cross-pollination had not been successful. The lady married somebody else and shandy continued his comfortable bachelor's life

Now all the long phone call begins and ends with the same question, 'When are you getting married?

I’d Love You To Want Me” was the theme song of the bachelors and unhappily married males of my generation, whether in the English original or the equally superb French and Vietnamese renditions. What the song expressed so perfectly from lyric to melody was unrequited love, and we men of the south loved nothing more than unrequited love, cracked hearts our primary weakness after cigarettes, coffee, and cognac.

Telling a lie is a fault for a little boy, an art for a lover, an accomplishment for a bachelor and a matter of survival for a married man.

Gandhi’s second son, Manilal, had been sent away to South Africa. With Albert West, he was running the Phoenix settlement and publishing the magazine Gandhi had founded in 1903, Indian Opinion. Manilal was lonely, and desperately keen to get married (he was now in his mid-twenties, well past the age at which Indian males then found their brides). Gandhi insisted that Manilal continue to be celibate. In January 1918, Gandhi wrote to him that ‘You may consider marriage only when you can leave Indian Opinion in good order....We have a thousand desires; all of them cannot be satisfied.’ To West’s sister, Gandhi wrote that if Manilal ‘can stand a few more years of bachelor life, he will get hardened’. Writing to Manilal, Gandhi fretted that he ‘could not attract Harilal to my path of a truth-seeker and he dropped away from it’. He thought he might yet succeed with his second son. Gandhi told Manilal that 'You have stayed on in my life, but are discontented. You can’t bring yourself to go out of it, and yet do not altogether like being in it. This is why you are not at peace with yourself.... I have not harmed you intentionally. All I have done I did in the belief that it was for your good. Is not this enough to bring down your anger against me?'.

War bachelors, Frankie. Married men who think love’s a free-for-all when bombs are falling. Don’t you go all that way and shame us.”)

Rural Free Delivery (RFD) Home, upon that word drops the sunshine of beauty and the shadow of tender sorrows, the reflection of ten thousand voices and fond memories. This is a mighty fine old world after all if you make yourself think so. Look happy even if things are going against you— that will make others happy. Pretty soon all will be smiling and then there is no telling what can’t be done. Coca-Cola Girl Mother baked a fortune cake pale yellow icing, lemon drops round rim, hidden within treasures, a ring—you’ll be married, a button—stay a bachelor, a thimble—always a spinster, and a penny—you’re rich. Gee, but I am hungry. Wait a second, dear, until I pull my belt up another notch. There that’s better. So, you see, Hon, I am straighter than a string around a bundle. You ought to see my eye, it’s a peach. I am proud of it, looks like I’ve been kicked by a mule. You know, dear, that they can kick hard enough to knock all the soda out of a biscuit without breaking the crust Hogging Catfish This gives you a fighting chance. Noodle your right hand into their gills, hold on tight while you grunt him out of the water. This can be a real dogfight. Old river cat wants to go down deep, make you bottom feed. Like I said, boys, when you tell a whopper, say it like you believe it. Saturday Ritual My Granddad was a cobbler. We each owned two pairs of shoes, Sunday shoes and everyday shoes. When our Sunday shoes got worn they became our everyday shoes. Main Street Saturday Night We each were given a dime on Saturday opening a universe of possibilities. All the stores stayed open and people flocked into town. Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds set up a popcorn stand on Reinheimer’s corner and soon after lighting a little stove, sounding like small firecrackers, popping began. Dad, laughing shooting the breeze with a group of farmers, drinking Coca Cola, finding out if any sheds needed to be built or barns repaired, discussing the price of next year’s seed, finding out who’s really working, who’s just looking busy. There is no object I wouldn’t give to relive my childhood growing up in Delavan— where everyone knew everyone— and joy came with but a dime. Market Day Jim Pittsford’s grocery smelled of bananas ripening and the coffee he ground by hand, wonderful smoked ham and bacon fresh sliced. He’d reward the child who came to pick up the purchase, with a large dill pickle Biking home, skillfully balancing Jim Pittsford’s bacon, J B’s tomatoes and peaches, while sniffing a tantalizing spice rising from fresh warm rolls, I nibbled my pickle reward.

No one’s getting married anytime soon,” Ollie cuts in. “And if I was, fuck you both very much for being more interested in who you could fuck at the bachelor party than the happiest day of my life.” “Not to nitpick, but wouldn’t it be the third happiest day of your life?

He’s getting married.” “That means nothing. If it did, guys wouldn’t catch chlamydia at their bachelor parties.” “But

Even God could not create a rational will not oriented toward deifying union with himself, any more than he could create a square circle, a married bachelor, a two-dimensional cube, or a morally and intellectually competent supporter of Donald Trump.

I’m not married, but I’m not a bachelor.

If we women did not love you for your defects, where would you all be? Not one of you would ever be married. You would be a set of unfortunate bachelors. Not, however, that that would alter you much. Nowadays all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men.

I’m Maximillian McCallister—eternal bachelor, married to my job and my freedom. I don’t need anything or anyone else.

Marriage One of the most significant mechanisms through which gender ideology is produced and reproduced is marriage (Silberschmidt 2001: 659). In Africa, marriage is a cornerstone in the attainment of ‘manhood’ and ‘womanhood’; it gives one a social identity and is a crucial part of achieving adulthood (Kwesiga 2002: 58). Spinsters are generally not respected in African communities and they are an embarrassment to the family. Bachelors do not command the same social respect that married men do (Okeke 2001: 239; Kwesiga 2002: 139).

Max’s lips trembled against Horatio’s mouth. “Now comes the best part,” he whispered, emotion shaking his voice. “I get to marry the boy of my dreams.”   ♦