Marriage Quote by Michel de Montaigne

Montaigne slips a knife into the Renaissance idol of romantic love and calls it practical wisdom. In an era that staged passion as a kind of noble fever - in poetry, courtly conduct, even in the theology of desire and sin - he offers a cooler metric: durability. The conditional opening, "If there is such a thing", is doing more than hedging. It’s skepticism as a rhetorical posture, the essayist’s trademark doubt turned toward an institution everyone praises and few interrogate honestly.

The provocation works because it demotes "love" from moral ideal to unstable weather. Love, in Montaigne’s usage, carries volatility: obsession, jealousy, appetite, performance. Friendship, by contrast, is chosen steadiness - a daily ethic rather than an emotional event. He’s not arguing for marriages without feeling; he’s arguing for marriages structured around a relationship model that can survive feelings. Friendship implies reciprocity, candor, and a shared life built on mutual recognition, not the flattering mirage of being "completed" by someone else.

Context matters: most marriages in his France were economic and familial arrangements, not romantic destinies. By praising friendship, Montaigne quietly smuggles in a radical standard for partnership inside a conservative reality. The subtext is almost modern: the best relationships aren’t powered by the peak moments; they’re built to handle the ordinary. In the long run, passion is a guest. Friendship is the furniture.