Marriage Quote by Sacha Guitry

Guitry’s line lands like a cocktail-party compliment that turns, mid-sip, into a small act of sabotage. On its surface, it praises fidelity. Underneath, it frames marriage as performance: the “ideal” wife is not simply loyal; she must also keep up the flirtatious charge of the pre-commitment chase, as if the husband were still in competition. The wit is that the standard is impossible without a bit of hypocrisy. “As if she weren’t” faithful asks for the thrill of transgression without the risk, a safe imitation of infidelity staged for male reassurance.

That’s classic Guitry: the boulevardier’s cynicism dressed up as elegance, a worldview where desire is less an emotion than a social game with rules, costumes, and audience management. The joke’s real target isn’t women so much as the masculine fantasy of being perpetually wanted without having to be perpetually worthy. The husband gets stability and the illusion of volatility; the wife is tasked with sustaining both.

Context matters. Guitry’s France, between Belle Epoque swagger and postwar disillusion, loved drawing-room comedies about adultery, reputation, and the lies people tell to keep pleasure compatible with propriety. As a director and playwright steeped in that milieu (and notorious for complicated romantic entanglements), he writes from inside the machinery: marriage as a contract, charm as labor, fidelity as a narrative you maintain rather than a virtue you simply possess. The line works because it’s funny and bleak at once, admitting that for some, love isn’t threatened by deceit; it’s fueled by it.