The evil of marriage, as is it practiced in the European countries, extends further than we have yet described. The method is for a thoughtless and r… - William Godwin

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The evil of marriage, as is it practiced in the European countries, extends further than we have yet described. The method is for a thoughtless and romantic youth of each sex, to come together, to see each other, for a few times, and under circumstances full of delusion and then to vow eternal attachment. What is the consequence of this? In almost every instance they find themselves deceived. They are reduced to make the best of an irretrievable mistake. They are led to conceive it their wiser policy, to shut their eyes upon realities, happy, if by any perversion of intellect, they can persuade themselves that they were right in their first crude opinion of each other. Thus the institution of marriage is made a system of fraud; and men who carefully mislead their judgement in the daily affair of their life, must be expected to have a crippled judgement in every other concern.

English
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About William Godwin

William Godwin (3 March 1756 – 7 April 1836) was an English journalist, political philosopher, educationalist, novelist, historian and biographer. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and the first modern proponent of anarchism. He was the husband of Mary Wollstonecraft, father of Mary Shelley and father-in-law of Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Biography information from Wikiquote

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Additional quotes by William Godwin

Truth is powerful, and, if not instantly, at least by slow
degrees, may make good her possession. Gleams of good sense may
penetrate through the thickest clouds of error … and, as the true
object of education is not to render the pupil the mere copy of his
preceptor, it is rather to be rejoiced in, than lamented, that various
reading should lead him into new trains of thinking; open to him new
mines of science and new incentives to virtue; and perhaps, by a blended
and compound effect, produce in him an improvement which was out of the
limits of his lessons, and raise him to heights the preceptor never
knew.

Nothing could’ve been more easy to predict, than that it was of no avail for him to have right on his side when his adversary had influence and wealth, and therefore could so victoriously justify any extravagancies that he might think proper to commit. This maxim was completely illustrated in the sequel. Wealth and despotism easily know how to engage those laws as coadjutors of their oppression, which were perhaps at first intended for the safeguards of the poor.

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