"That such reflection upon whether to marry is silly when there is no love has already been correctly perceived and profoundly propounded by a few wise men of antiquity, but not, as we will see, in order to put weapons into the hands of the mockers. It is told that Socrates is supposed to have answered someone who asked him about marriage: Marry or do not marry—you will regret both. Socrates was an ironist who presumably concealed his wisdom and truth ironically lest it become local gossip, but he was not a mocker. The irony is superb.The questioner's stupidity lies precisely in asking a third person for something one can never learn from a third person.But not all are as wise as Socrates, and they often become quite earnestly involved with the one who poses a stupid question. If the falling in love is lacking, then reflection cannot be exhausted at all, and if one is in love, one does not ask such a question.If a mocker wants to use the Socratic saying, then he acts as if it were a discourse and makes it into something other than what it is: namely, a deeply ironic, infinitely wise answer to a foolish question. But changing the answer to a question into a discourse, one can produce a certain crazy comic effect, but one loses the Socratic wisdom and does violence to the trustworthy testimony that expressly introduces the story thus: Someone asked him (Socrates) whether one should marry or not. To which he answered: Whether *you* do one or the other, you will regret it. If Socrates had not been so ironic, he presumably would have expressed it this way: As far as *you* are concerned, you can do as you wish—you are and remain a dunce. For not everyone who regrets demonstrates thereby that now, in the moment of regret, he is a stronger and better individuality than in the moment of the thoughtless action; sometimes regret can demonstrate most of all that the regretter is a fusspot.—There is a story about Thales that when his mother was urging him to marry he first answered that he was too young, that the time had not yet come, and when she later repeated the request, he replied that the time was now past. There is an irony also in this answer that chastises the worldly common sense that would make marriage an undertaking like buying a house.In other words, there is only one age at which it is timely to marry, and that is when one is in love; at any other age one is either too young or too old."

—Søren Kierkegaard, from_Stages of Life's Way_. Edited and Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, with Introduction and Notes, pp. 156-157

—The children were playing at marriage-by-capture by N.C. Wyeth