Marriage-by Benjamin Franklin

"Marriage is...the most natural state of man, and therefore the state in which you are most likely to find solid happiness....It is the man and woman united that make the complete human being. Separate, she wants his force of body and strength of reason, he, her softness, sensibility, and acute discernment. Together they are more likely to succeed in the world. A single man has not nearly the value he would have in the state of union. He is an incomplete animal; he resembles the odd half of a pair of scissors."