Marriage Quote by Joseph Addison

Addison’s line lands with the cool confidence of a man writing in a culture that treated “woman” as a type, not a person. The joke is compact: advice arrives after the irrevocable choice, when it can only ratify what’s already been decided. On the surface it’s a quip about wedding dresses; underneath it’s a diagnosis of how social rituals convert personal decisions into public performance. Once the “wedding clothes” are bought, the marriage is effectively announced. Consultation becomes theater.

The intent is less romantic than managerial. Addison, a key voice of early 18th-century British periodical culture, is always policing manners while pretending he’s merely observing them. Here he recasts female agency as a kind of consumer stubbornness: women don’t seek counsel to be guided, they seek it to be affirmed. That framing flatters the male adviser’s supposed rationality even as it implies women are ruled by impulse and image. The wit works because it taps a familiar human habit - asking for “feedback” when we really want applause - but it assigns that habit to women as a gendered flaw, not a general weakness.

Context matters: in Addison’s world, marriage was a legal and economic contract wrapped in lace. A bride’s clothing wasn’t just taste; it was status, family leverage, and reputational insurance. So the line also hints at the larger hypocrisy of polite society: decisions are made privately under pressure, then laundered through “advice” to look orderly, consensual, and virtuous. Addison’s civility is the blade; the punchline is the cut.