Marriage Quote by Barbara Ehrenreich

Ehrenreich slips a stiletto into the soft underbelly of “romance” by treating it like any other consumer choice: if you can shop for a toaster in a glossy catalogue, why not shop for a spouse? The line works because it refuses to grant the downtown bar its cultural immunity. Happy hour is already a marketplace, dressed up in dim lighting and flirtation; the catalogue just has better lighting and clearer terms.

Her specific intent is to puncture the myth that certain courtship rituals are inherently more authentic than others. By juxtaposing a “nice four-color catalogue” (advertising’s most self-aware artifice) with the “average downtown bar” (a supposedly organic site of chemistry), she flips the prestige hierarchy. The joke is that the bar is no less curated: outfits, bodies, small talk, alcohol, and social scripts doing the same persuasive work as product copy. Ehrenreich’s cynicism lands because it’s observational, not abstract: anyone who’s watched dating slide into branding recognizes the bait-and-switch.

The subtext is feminist and class-conscious. “Romantic” here isn’t an eternal feeling; it’s a story society sells, one that often benefits industries (beauty, nightlife, weddings) and norms that keep women auditioning for approval. Coming from Ehrenreich, whose writing relentlessly interrogated labor, consumption, and the indignities of “normal” life, the quip reads as cultural critique in punchline form: if modern intimacy is mediated by commerce, at least be honest about the receipt.