Marriage Quote by Thomas Moore

A “pretty wife” here isn’t romance; she’s interior decor for a man’s moral retirement plan. Moore’s line cuts with the polished malice of a salon epigram: beauty becomes a trophy that lets a “rougue” (his misspelling practically winks at the reader) launder his reputation. The rogue doesn’t reform. He curates. “Fastidious vanity” is the tell - not just vanity, but the kind that cares about taste, presentation, and social optics. The wife is less partner than proof of arrival, a status object that signals the rake has become respectable without actually becoming good.

The verb “retire upon” does heavy lifting. It suggests a pension, a cushion, a soft landing after a career of indulgence. In the early 19th-century Anglo-Irish world Moore moved through, marriage was often a public transaction: alliances, property, and the performance of virtue mattered as much as private affection. The line recognizes how societies that preach propriety still adore a redeemed scoundrel story - and how easily that story can be purchased with the right woman on one’s arm.

Moore’s intent isn’t primarily to shame wives; it’s to puncture the male fantasy of consequence-free libertinism. He’s also taking a swing at the audience that rewards it: a culture so hungry for surfaces that it treats female beauty as moral collateral. The sting is that everyone involved knows the deal, and calls it respectability anyway.