Marriage Quote by Voltaire

Voltaire turns the domestic “surprise” into a boomerang, and the joke lands because it punctures two fantasies at once: the husband’s belief he controls the narrative, and the culture’s assumption that marriage is a stable stage where one party can choreograph the other’s reaction. The line has the clean snap of a salon epigram, but the bite is philosophical. It implies that the person who thinks he’s the agent of shock is usually the one living inside the bigger illusion.

The verb “decides” matters. This isn’t spontaneous affection; it’s strategy, almost governance. Voltaire frames the husband like a miniature monarch planning a spectacle for his household, confident in his superior knowledge. The punchline reverses the hierarchy. Whatever the “surprise” is (a gift, an unexpected visit, a test of fidelity), the husband’s certainty becomes his vulnerability: he’s misread his wife’s inner life, underestimated her autonomy, or ignored what’s been happening offstage.

In Voltaire’s 18th-century world of etiquette, power, and appearances, marriage was often less romantic sanctuary than social contract. That’s why the line feels like a cousin to his broader satire of authority: institutions thrive on the arrogance of the people who think they’re running them. It also smuggles in a quietly modern insight about intimacy. The more you treat another person as a prop in your own clever plan, the more likely reality will make you the punchline.