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About this quote

What does it mean?
Marriage combines selfishness with suffering.
In plain terms
Weddings join two people who are both mean and suffering.
What can you take from it?
Institutions often mask dysfunction with idealization.

Where it applies

  • relationship advice
  • societal critique
  • psychology

Putting it to work

  • critique social norms
  • examine relationships

Questions to consider

  • What roles do sacrifice and ego play in marriage?

Another view

Many marriages succeed through mutual care rather than meanness or martyrdom.

More from Karl Kraus

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  2. Morality is a venereal disease. Its primary stage is called virtue; its secondary stage, boredom; its tertiary stage, syphilis.

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  3. Language is the mother of thought, not its handmaiden.

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