Women

"Awake, My fairest, my espous'd, my latest found, Heaven's last best gift, my ever new delight!"

"What thou bidd'st Unargu'd I obey, so God ordains; God is thy law, thou mine; to know no more Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise."

"In the election of a wife, as in A project of war, to err but once is To be undone forever."

"O wretched is the dame, to whom the sound, "Your lord will soon return," no pleasure brings."

"How much the wife is dearer than the bride."

"Le ciel me prive d'une épouse qui ne m'a jamais donné d'autre chagrin que celui de sa mort."

"But thou dost make the very night itself Brighter than day."

"My winsome marrow."

"My own experience of mescalin is described in the appendix of Beyond the Outsider. My 'trip' was pleasant enough, although I experienced none of the visual effects described by Huxley; I was plunged into an agreeable but sluggish dreaminess. In this torpid state, I became aware of the problem mentioned by Huxley: 'How was this cleansed perception to be reconciled with a proper concern with human relations...?' — in my case, with my concern for my wife and three-year-old daughter? Although I personally felt nothing but a sense of relaxation and trustfulness, I was aware that, in practice, the world is full of dangers, and in this state, I was incapable of the necessary vigilance; it made me feel guilty. I was neglecting my job of looking after them. Moreover, my ability to think was impaired. Huxley remarks that he found his own ability to remember and 'think straight' to be little, if at all, reduced. I could 'think straight', but I could not think to any purpose. Even the feeling of universal love was not particularly pleasant; I compared it to having a large alsation dog who puts his paws on your shoulder and licks your face."

"The world well tried—the sweetest thing in life Is the unclouded welcome of a wife."

"Look you, Amanda, you may build Castles in the Air, and fume, and fret, and grow thin and lean, and pale and ugly, if you please. But I tell you, no Man worth having is true to his Wife, or can be true to his Wife, or ever was, or ever will be so."

"A fat, fair and fifty card-playing resident of the Crescent."

"Nothing, Cyrnus, is more delightful than a good wife; to the truth of this I am witness to thee and do thou become witness to me."

"A love still burning upward, giving light To read those laws; an accent very low In blandishment, but a most silver flow Of subtle-paced counsel in distress. Right to the heart and brain, tho' undescried, Winning its way with extreme gentleness Thro' all the outworks of suspicious pride; A courage to endure and to obey: A hate of gossip parlance and of sway, Crown'd Isabel, thro' all her placid life, The queen of marriage, a most perfect wife."

"When choosing a wife look down the social scale; when selecting a friend, look upwards."

"Casta ad virum matrona parendo imperat."

"Thou art mine, thou hast given thy word, Close, close in my arms thou art clinging; Alone for my ear thou art singing A song which no stranger hath heard: But afar from me yet, like a bird, Thy soul in some region unstirr'd On its mystical circuit is winging."

"Light household duties evermore inwrought With placid fancies of one trusting heart That lives but in her smile, and turns From Life's cold seeming, and the busy mart, With tenderness, that ever homeward yearns To be refreshed where one pure altar burns. Shut out from hence, the mockery of life— Thus liveth she content, the meek, fond, trusting wife."

"Of earthly goods, the best is a good wife; A bad, the bitterest curse of human life."

"My dear, my better half."

"It is a woman's business to get married as soon as possible, and a man's to keep unmarried as long as he can."

"Should all despair That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind Would hang themselves."

"Why, man, she is mine own, And I as rich in having such a jewel As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl, The water nectar and the rocks pure gold."

"I will be master of what is mine own; She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house, My household stuff, my field, my barn, My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything; And here she stands, touch her whoever dare."

"A light wife doth make a heavy husband."

"Happy in this, she is not yet so old But she may learn; happier than this, She is not bred so dull but she can learn; Happiest of all is, that her gentle spirit Commits itself to yours to be directed."

"O ye gods, Render me worthy of this noble wife!"

"As for my wife, I would you had her spirit in such another; The third o' the world is yours; which with a snaffle You may pace easy, but not such a wife."

"Fat, fair and forty."

"We also know today why “wives” would be one of the resources over which men should compete. In most animal species, the female makes a greater investment in offspring than the male. This is especially true of mammals, where the mother gestates her offspring inside her body and nurses them after they are born. A male can multiply the number of his offspring by mating with several females—which will leave other males childless—while a female cannot multiply the number of her offspring by mating with several males. This makes female reproductive capacity a scarce resource over which the males of many species, including humans, compete. None of this, by the way, implies that men are robots controlled by their genes, that they may be morally excused for raping or fighting, that women are passive sexual prizes, that people try to have as many babies as possible, or that people are impervious to influences from their culture, to take some of the common misunderstandings of the theory of sexual selection."

"She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness."

"When I was born I drew in the common air, and fell upon the earth, which is of like nature, and the first voice which I uttered was crying, as all others do."

"Do you know who made you?" "Nobody, as I knows on," said the child, with a short laugh. The idea appeared to amuse her considerably; for her eyes twinkled, and she added— "I 'spect I growed. Don't think nobody never made me."

"The dew of thy birth is of the womb of the morning."

"Man alone at the very moment of his birth, cast naked upon the naked earth, does she abandon to cries and lamentations."

"Lest, selling that noble inheritance for a poor mess of perishing pottage, you never enter into His eternal rest."

"And show me your nest with the young ones in it, I will not steal them away; I am old! you may trust me, linnet, linnet— I am seven times one to-day."

"Esaw selleth his byrthright for a messe of potage."

"The present exploratory study measured pain and tactile thresholds in response to mechanical stimu-lation of the hand before labor, during labor, and after parturition in women. In women who had Lamaze childbirth preparation (but not in women who did not have childbirth preparation), pain thresholds were significantly higher during labor (determined up to 8 cm cervical dilatation) than prior to labor and 24 hours postpartum. Tactile thresholds did not change during any of these conditions. These findings support earlier findings in this laboratory that vaginocervical mech-anostimulation elevated pain thresholds in human and animal subjects, and more recent findings that pain thresholds increased in rats during delivery of individual young. The present findings suggest that an endogenous process that attenuates the pain of parturition is activated when the cervix dilates during labor."

"As some divinely gifted man, Whose life in low estate began, And on a simple village green; Who breaks his birth's invidious bar."

"Before becoming someone’s wife, I need to be a daughter first. I owe it to the one who gave me birth and life."

"There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval."

"If a true Christian mother weigh well these things, she will indeed understand with a sense of deep consolation that of her the words of Our Savior were spoken: "A woman...when she hath brought forth the child remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world;" and proving herself superior to all the pains and cares and solicitudes of her maternal office with a more just and holy joy than that of the Roman matron, the mother of the Gracchi, she will rejoice in the Lord crowned as it were with the glory of her offspring. Both husband and wife, however, receiving these children with joy and gratitude from the hand of God, will regard them as a talent committed to their charge by God, not only to be employed for their own advantage or for that of an earthly commonwealth, but to be restored to God with interest on the day of reckoning."

"The transmission of human life is a most serious role in which married people collaborate freely and responsibly with God the Creator. It has always been a source of great joy to them, even though it sometimes entails many difficulties and hardships. The fulfillment of this duty has always posed problems to the conscience of married people, but the recent course of human society and the concomitant changes have provoked new questions. The Church cannot ignore these questions, for they concern matters intimately connected with the life and happiness of human beings."

"There are two most powerful days in your life: the day you're born, and the day you discover why."

"The birth of a child that a woman says was unplanned—either mistimed or unwanted—at the time of its conception is a clear indication of a mismatch between reproductive intentions and outcomes. DHSs ask every woman who had any live births during the past 5 years to think back to the time she became pregnant and to say if she had wanted to become pregnant then, did not want to until later, or did not want to have any (more) children at all. Because interviewers refer to the child by name when asking about each pregnancy, women may redefine pregnancies that were unwanted at the time they occurred as having been wanted (perhaps less so for those that were mistimed). Even so, despite this almost certain bias, the proportions of births that women say were unwanted at conception range from 5% or fewer in 13 sub-Saharan African countries and in Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, up to 20% or more in Malawi, Yemen, Nepal, Cambodia, Haiti, Mexico, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. Proportions of births unplanned (unwanted plus mistimed) are far higher, exceeding half of all births in 9 of the 67 countries in developing regions for which data are available."

"You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star."

"Mean labor pain scores were significantly higher in control group than immersion bath (IB) group suggest that use of IB as an alternative form of pain relief during labor. WI in primipara at any stage of labor, from 2 cm external opening of the uterine cervix, significantly decreased parturition duration compared with traditional delivery. It raised both the amplitude and frequency of uterine contractions proportional to uterine cervix gaping with no disturbances in contraction activity of the uterus. A 3-cm gaping of uterine cervix is the optimal timing for WI in the primipara because earlier WI at 2-cm uterine cervix gaping also accelerated the labor but required repetitions of WI or use of oxytocin for correcting weakened uterine contraction. In contrast, IB did not influence the length of labor and uterine contractions frequency. However, contractions length was statistically shorter in IB and it can be an alternative for woman's comfort during labor, since it provides relief to her without interfering on labor progression or jeopardizing the baby. WI during first stage of labor reduces the use of epidural/spinal/paracervical analgesia/anesthesia compared with controls and there is no evidence of increased adverse effects to fetus/neonate or woman from laboring in water or water birth. Neonatal swimming can accelerate babies growth in early stage. In a microbiological study, comparing neonatal bacterial colonization after water birth to conventional bed deliveries with or without relaxation bath showed no significant difference between three groups in neonatal outcome, infant's and maternal infection rate."

"For the generation under age 35, nearly half of all births are now outside marriage. This family structure, once common mainly among African-Americans and the poor, is spreading across races and into the middle class. Factor in education, though, and the difference is stark, raising concerns of a new class divide. Among young women without a college degree — those like Michelle Sheridan — 55 percent of births are outside marriage, according to an analysis by the research group Child Trends. For those with at least a four-year degree, it's just 9 percent."

"Only about one-half of the 123 million women who give birth each year receive antenatal, delivery and newborn care. But, even many of those who get care do not receive all the components of care they need (including routine care and care for complications)."