Newly Married Couple Quotes

In ancient times, when the world was cold, prosperous, and flourishing, it was a birthing place for our people. Newly married couples traveled to the cove, spending their first days as husband and wife. It is where love began.

When they arrived at Parva Magna, everyone agreed that it was quite a good thing that the newly married couple had managed to find shelter in the storm, although there was some confusion as to why it had taken them a full three days to make their way fifteen miles.

The cards of the newly married couple are sent to those only whose acquaintance they wish to continue. No offense should be taken by those whom they may choose to exclude.

The idea that everyone should have a house of his own is based on an ancient custom of the Japanese race, Shinto superstition ordaining that every dwelling should be evacuated on the death of its chief occupant. Perhaps there may have been some unrealized sanitary reason for this practice. Another early custom was that a newly built house should be provided for each couple that married. It is on account of such customs that we find the Imperial capitals so frequently removed from one site to another in ancient days.

The idea that everyone should have a house of his own is based on an ancient custom of the Japanese race, Shinto superstition ordaining that every dwelling should be evacuated on the death of its chief occupant. Perhaps there may have been some unrealized sanitary reason for this practice. Another early custom was that a newly built house should be provided for each couple that married. It is on account of such customs that we find the Imperial capitals so frequently removed from one site to another in ancient days. The rebuilding, every twenty years, of Ise Temple, the supreme shrine of the Sun-Goddess, is an example of one of these ancient rites which still obtain at the present day. The observance of these customs was only possible with some form of construction as that furnished by our system of wooden architecture, easily pulled down, easily built up. A more lasting style, employing brick and stone, would have rendered migrations impracticable, as indeed they became when the more stable and massive wooden construction of China was adopted by us after the Nara period.

When a Southerner took the trouble to pack a trunk and travel twenty miles for a visit, the visit was seldom of shorter duration than a month, usually much longer. Southerners were as enthusiastic visitors as they were hosts, and there was nothing unusual in relatives coming to spend the Christmas holidays and remaining until July. Often when newly married couples went on the usual round of honeymoon visits, they lingered in some pleasant home until the birth of their second child. Frequently elderly aunts and uncles came to Sunday dinner and remained until they were buried years later. Visitors presented no problem, for houses were large, servants numerous and the feeding of several extra mouths a minor matter in that land of plenty. All ages and sexes went visiting, honeymooners, young mothers showing of new babies, convalescents, the bereaved, girls whose parents were anxious to remove them from the dangers of unwise matches, girls who had reached the danger age without becoming engaged and who, it was hoped, would make suitable matches under the guidance of relatives in other places. Visitors added excitement and variety to the slow-moving Southern life and they were always welcome.

Of course, no china--however intricate and inviting--was as seductive as my fiancé, my future husband, who continued to eat me alive with one glance from his icy-blue eyes. Who greeted me not at the door of his house when I arrived almost every night of the week, but at my car. Who welcomed me not with a pat on the arm or even a hug but with an all-enveloping, all-encompassing embrace. Whose good-night kisses began the moment I arrived, not hours later when it was time to go home. We were already playing house, what with my almost daily trips to the ranch and our five o’clock suppers and our lazy movie nights on his thirty-year-old leather couch, the same one his parents had bought when they were a newly married couple. We’d already watched enough movies together to last a lifetime. Giant with James Dean, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Reservoir Dogs, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, All Quiet on the Western Front, and, more than a handful of times, Gone With the Wind. I was continually surprised by the assortment of movies Marlboro Man loved to watch--his taste was surprisingly eclectic--and I loved discovering more and more about him through the VHS collection in his living room. He actually owned The Philadelphia Story. With Marlboro Man, surprises lurked around every corner. We were already a married couple--well, except for the whole “sleepover thing” and the fact that we hadn’t actually gotten hitched yet. We stayed in, like any married couple over the age of sixty, and continued to get to know everything about each other completely outside the realm of parties, dates, and gatherings. All of that was way too far away, anyway--a minimum hour-and-a-half drive to the nearest big city--and besides that, Marlboro Man was a fish out of water in a busy, crowded bar. As for me, I’d been there, done that--a thousand and one times. Going out and panting the town red was unnecessary and completely out of context for the kind of life we’d be building together. This was what we brought each other, I realized. He showed me a slower pace, and permission to be comfortable in the absence of exciting plans on the horizon. I gave him, I realized, something different. Different from the girls he’d dated before--girls who actually knew a thing or two about country life. Different from his mom, who’d also grown up on a ranch. Different from all of his female cousins, who knew how to saddle and ride and who were born with their boots on. As the youngest son in a family of three boys, maybe he looked forward to experiencing life with someone who’d see the country with fresh eyes. Someone who’d appreciate how miraculously countercultural, how strange and set apart it all really is. Someone who couldn’t ride to save her life. Who didn’t know north from south, or east from west. If that defined his criteria for a life partner, I was definitely the woman for the job.

As a young adult I became disenchanted with Valentine’s Day. I’d tell anyone who’d listen that Valentine’s Day was for rotten lovers to make up for their shortcomings and failures throughout the rest of the year. I firmly believed if a man was doing his job and caring for his companion then Valentine’s Day was just another day. It was easy to take such a stance because as a newly married couple we of course had it all figured out. We had plenty of time and energy to heap affection on one another every day and had vowed never to become disconnected like those old fogies no matter what circumstances life had in store for us. Adding to my distaste for Valentine’s Day was the fact that the same dozen roses I’d bought for her the previous week cost $20-$30 dollars more on this love sanctioned day. Overcrowded restaurants offered just one or two Valentine’s meals for a king’s ransom. And last but not least cards failed to provide an adequate expression of my love for her. Valentine’s Day was a needless day for a loving couple who felt no compulsion to share their affections with the masses.

One day when I went up there to work, sleepiness overcame me and I lay down on the floor behind the back pew to take a nap. Waking or sleeping (I couldn’t tell which), I saw all the people gathered there who had ever been there. I saw them as I had seen them from the back pew, where I sat with Uncle Othy (who would not come in any farther) while Aunt Cordie sang in the choir, and I saw them as I had seen them (from the back pew) on the Sunday before. I saw them in all the times past and to come, all somehow there in their own time and in all time and in no time: the cheerfully working and singing women, the men quiet or reluctant or shy, the weary, the troubled in spirit, the sick, the lame, the desperate, the dying, the little children tucked into the pews beside their elders, the young married couples full of visions, the old men with their dreams, the parents proud of their children, the grandparents with tears in their eyes, the pairs of young lovers attentive only to each other on the edge of the world, the grieving widows and widowers, the mothers and fathers of children newly dead, the proud, the humble, the attentive, the distracted—I saw them all. I saw the creases crisscrossed on the backs of the men’s necks, their work-thickened hands, the Sunday dresses faded with washing. They were just there. They said nothing, and I said nothing. I seemed to love them all with a love that was mine merely because it included me. When I came to myself again, my face was wet with tears.

St. Lawrence River May 1705 Temperature 48 degrees During the march, when Mercy was finding the Mohawk language such a challenge and a pleasure to learn, Ruth had said to Eben, “I know why the powwow’s magic is successful. The children arrive ready.” The ceremony took place at the edge of the St. Francis river, smaller than the St. Lawrence but still impressive. The spray of river against rock, of ice met smashing into shore, leaped up to meet the rain. Sacraments must occur in the presence of water, under the sky and in the arms of the wind. There was no Catholic priest. There were no French. Only the language of the people was spoken, and the powwow and the chief preceded each prayer and cry with the rocking refrain Listen, listen, listen. Joanna tugged at Mercy’s clothes. “Can you see yet?” she whispered. “Who is it? Is he from Deerfield?” They were leading the boy forward. Mercy blinked away her tears and looked hard. “I don’t recognize him,” she said finally. “He looks about fourteen. Light red hair. Freckles. He’s tall, but thin.” “Hungry thin?” worried Joanna. “No. I think he hasn’t got his growth yet. He looks to be in good health. He’s handsomely made. He is not looking in our direction. He’s holding himself very still. It isn’t natural for him, the way it is for the Indians. He has to work at it.” “He’s scared then, isn’t he?” said Joanna. “I will pray for him.” In Mercy’s mind, the Lord’s Prayer formed, and she had the odd experience of feeling the words doubly: “Our Father” in English, “Pater Noster” in Latin. But Joanna prayed in Mohawk. Mercy climbed up out of the prayers, saying only to the Lord that she trusted Him; that He must be present for John. Then she listened. This tribe spoke Abenaki, not Mohawk, and she could follow little of it. But often at Mass, when Father Meriel spoke Latin, she could follow none of it. It was no less meaningful for that. The magic of the powwow’s chants seeped through Mercy’s soul. When the prayers ended, the women of John’s family scrubbed him in sand so clean and pale that they must have put it through sieves to remove mud and shells and impurities. They scoured him until his skin was raw, pushing him under the rough water to rinse off his whiteness. He tried to grab a lungful of air before they dunked him, but more than once he rose sputtering and gasping. The watchers were smiling tenderly, as one smiles at a new baby or a newly married couple. At last his mother and aunts and sisters hauled him to shore, where they painted his face and put new clothing, embroidered and heavily fringed, on his body. As every piece touched his new Indian skin, the people cheered. They have forgiven him for being white, thought Mercy. But has he forgiven them for being red? The rain came down harder. Most people lowered their faces or pulled up their blankets and cloaks for protection, but Mercy lifted her face into the rain, so it pounded on her closed eyes and matched the pounding of her heart. O Ruth! she thought. O Mother. Father. God. I have forgiven.

A honeymoon doesn’t need to be an exotic, luxurious trip to some far-flung paradise island, though. It just needs to be a chance for the newly wedded couple to enjoy some quality time together at the start of their married life.

The great force! Few of us relate it with the dark, Many with the world unknown, A realm that erases every mark, Of every seed that in the farm of life was sown, Life fears it and hides at a place called nowhere, Yet it chases it and seeks it, Because its domain is everywhere, And life ultimately before it does submit, It rules over priests, emperors and paupers alike, A force that expects complete submission, It is not a feeling visceral that you may like, Because it enters every domain without any permission, Some say it even rules over time and its every moment, And it is not vindictive at all, Because even without the Sun its shadow is permanent, It has existed since the world witnessed the great fall, Its appearance is not due to serendipity, Because it is the final destiny of everything, It is an experience, felt just for a brevity, It appears from nothing and disappears into nothing, A force before which all kneel, Many incriminate it because it robs them entirely, Throughout one's life it seems unreal and in a moment becomes real, It leaves all sentimental and teary, It is death, the force all living shall experience one day, I wonder why flowers and butterflies do not dread it, I saw it capture and wilt a beautiful flower today, Yet the drooping and dead flower smiled as the hope of next Summer in its fading petals lit, Because death can wilt a summer flower, but it can't keep the Summer from returning again, It can kill a man and a woman, but it can never kill life’s spirit, Without life what shall it kill again and again, So you may despise it, but without it who shall renew life, if not it? There maybe no foreboding feeling about its arrival, But then it is the same about Summer’s advent too, Maybe life and death travel together for life’s continuous revival, And whose act is it who knows, because when a newly married couple says “We do!” We shower them with dead flowers, beautiful flowers, Who killed them, who hurled them, who ended their lives? Just for the sake of prolonging the romance of two lovers, I guess that is how death in mysterious ways strives, Killing all eventually but never taking the blame, So let me too pluck a beautiful rose and gift it to my beautiful lady, All for the sake of love and in the love’s name, Let me love her today and love her everyday, Because who knows when the dark force might strike, A rose too feels happier in her hands, Because it knows it makes her smile and in this act they are alike, Spreading happiness even in death forsaken lands, That is where all beautiful flowers go when they wilt here, To the land where there is everlasting Summer, And every form of beauty always looks the same everywhere, They go there to impart it colours and shades warmer, So when the flower fades and falls, Let us not blame death and curse it, Because it is the only way to climb and cross few walls, For it too ultimately before the mighty will of the Universe does submit!

After years of yearning to see beyond the borders of her provincial little town, the thought of journeying someplace new, even if it was only to show her father's invention at a neighboring village's fair, made her heart race. Maybe she would encounter a merry theater troupe on their way to perform the latest play. Or maybe merchants traveling with their wares to trade on the Silk Road. Oh, wouldn't it be wonderful to meet a newly married couple heading to Paris or Verona to celebrate their honeymoon? Who knew what types of adventures awaited her!

On the bus we got to know a newly married American couple – the groom was about to head off to Vietnam, which meant little to us in 1966; the full significance only hit me later on, and I still occasionally wonder if he survived.

That summer, the month he turned twenty-nine, my brother had proposed to his girlfriend, the one he’d met four years earlier, just before coming to stay with me in Brooklyn. Nearly everyone from high school and most of my friends from college were married, or soon to be, and as for ex-boyfriends: W married in 2005; R met his soon-to-be wife in 2006 (today both couples have two children). Even the close friends I’d made in New York were “joining the vast majority,” as Neith had put it. All of us wanted to believe this wouldn’t change anything. But it did, invariably, in ways small and large. It’s a rare friendship that transcends the circumstances that forged it, and being single together in the city, no matter how powerful a bond when it’s happening, can prove pretty weak glue. Alliances had been redrawn, resources shifted and reconsolidated; new envies replaced the old. Whereas before we were all broke together, now they had husbands splitting the rent and bills, and I couldn’t shake my awareness of this difference. A treacherous, unspoken sense of inequality set in, which only six months into my new magazine job had radically reversed: I’d become the one who could afford nice restaurants while they had to channel their disposable incomes toward a shared household, and I felt their unspoken judgment just as before they’d felt mine. One newly married friend lashed out at me for never inviting her to parties. I tried to explain: Didn’t she see I was going because someone else had invited me? And that if I didn’t go, I’d be home alone, whereas she had someone to keep her company? When a dear friend said, “You know, I may be married now, but I’m still just like you! I can still do whatever I want!” I blanched. She’d been on her own so recently herself. Didn’t she remember that being single is more than just following your whims—that it also means having nobody to help you make difficult decisions, or comfort you at the end of a bad week?