Marcus Aurelius married ill. For women there is less of this danger.
Marriage is of so much use to a woman, opens out to her so much more of
life, and puts her in the way of so much more freedom and usefulness,
that, whether she marry ill or well, she can hardly miss some benefit.
It is true, however, that some of the merriest and most genuine of women
are old maids; and that those old maids, and wives who are unhappily
married, have often most of the true motherly touch. And this would seem
to show, even for women, some narrowing influence in comfortable married
life. But the rule is none the less certain: if you wish the pick of men
and women, take a good bachelor and a good wife.

I am often filled with wonder that so many marriages are passably
successful, and so few come to open failure, the more so as I fail to
understand the principle on which people regulate their choice. I see
women marrying indiscriminately with staring burgesses and ferret-faced,
white-eyed boys, and men dwell in contentment with noisy scullions, or
taking into their lives acidulous vestals. It is a common answer to say
the good people marry because they fall in love; and of course you may
use and misuse a word as much as you please, if you have the world along
with you. But love is at least a somewhat hyperbolical expression for
such lukewarm preference. It is not here, anyway, that Love employs his
golden shafts; he cannot be said, with any fitness of language, to reign
here and revel. Indeed, if this be love at all, it is plain the poets
have been fooling with mankind since the foundation of the world. And
you have only to look these happy couples in the face, to see they have
never been in love, or in hate, or in any other high passion all their
days. When you see a dish of fruit at dessert, you sometimes set your
affections upon one particular peach or nectarine, watch it with some
anxiety as it comes round the table, and feel quite a sensible
disappointment when it is taken by some one else. I have used the phrase
"high passion." Well, I should say this was about as high a passion as
generally leads to marriage. One husband hears after marriage that some
poor fellow is dying of his wife's love. "What a pity!" he exclaims;
"you know I could so easily have got another!" And yet that is a very
happy union. Or again: A young man was telling me the sweet story of his
loves. "I like it well enough as long as her sisters are there," said
this