“Marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice. Rape, originally defined as abduction, became marriage by capture. Marriage meant the taking was to extend in time, to be not only use of but possession of, or ownership.”
- Andrea Dworkin
“It was a personal decision, but it was prompted by political considerations.”
- Hillary Clinton
“The basic approach is wrong. Many marriages last just because people believe they are safe. My suggestion is that marriages expire after seven years.”
- Gabriele Pauli
“The legal rights of access that married partners have to each other’s persons, property, and lives makes it all but impossible for a spouse to defend herself (or himself), or to be protected against torture, rape, battery, stalking, mayhem, or murder by the other spouse. . . . Legal marriage thus enlists state support for conditions conducive to murder and mayhem.”
- Claudia Card
“Male society has sold us the idea of marriage . . . . Now we know it is the institution that has failed us and we must work to destroy it. . . . The end of the institution of marriage is the necessary condition for the liberation of women.”
- Helen Sullinger , 1973.
“Angie [Jolie] and I will consider tying the knot only when everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able.”
- Brad Pitt
“Marriage has existed for the benefit of men; and has been a legally sanctioned method of control over women. . . . We must work to destroy it. . . . The end of the institution of marriage is a necessary condition for the liberation of women. Therefore it is important for us to encourage women to leave their husbands and not to live individually with men. . . . All of history must be rewritten in terms of oppression of women. We must go back to ancient female religions like witchcraft.”
- Helen Sullinger , 1973.
“We have to abolish and reform the institution of marriage. . . . By the year 2000 we will, I hope, raise our children to believe in human potential, not God. . . . We must understand what we are attempting is a revolution, not a public relations movement.”
- Gloria Steinem , March 1973.
“We can’t destroy the inequities between men and women until we destroy marriage.”
- Robin Morgan , 1970.
“The complete destruction of traditional marriage and the nuclear family is the ‘revolutionary or utopian’ goal of feminism.”
- Kate Millett