Marriage Quote by Benjamin Franklin

Franklin’s charm is that he can smuggle a hard social critique into something that reads like homespun wisdom. “Three faithful friends” sounds like a toast at the tavern; the lineup that follows lands like a ledger entry. An “old dog” is loyal by instinct. “Ready money” is loyal by function. The provocative piece is “an old wife,” a phrase that flatters constancy while quietly reducing a lifelong partner to the same category as pet and cash: useful, dependable, proven.

That mix is the point. Franklin writes from a world where survival is practical and sentiment is suspect, especially in public. His America is building a middle-class morality around thrift, creditworthiness, and self-control. “Ready money” isn’t just cash; it’s liquidity, the ability to act without begging favors or waiting on patrons. In a volatile colonial economy, being able to pay now is a kind of autonomy. Calling it a “friend” exposes how quickly financial security becomes emotional security.

The subtext around marriage is darker. An “old wife” is “faithful” not because love is romantic, but because time, dependency, and social expectation bind her in place. Franklin’s compliment carries a patriarchal assumption: fidelity is her job, like the dog’s. The joke, if you want to call it that, flatters the male reader’s desire for reliability - affection without risk, companionship without surprise.

It works because Franklin’s aphorisms don’t moralize; they audit. He’s not selling tenderness. He’s selling a worldview where loyalty is measured by what stays when fortunes shift: the creature you fed, the spouse who endured, and the money you kept within reach.