How marriage ruins a man! It is as demoralizing as cigarettes

In the witty yet haunting words of Oscar Wilde, the master of irony and insight, we hear a paradox both humorous and profound: “How marriage ruins a man! It is as demoralizing as cigarettes, and far more expensive.” Though draped in jest, Wilde’s words reveal the cynicism of one who saw beneath the glitter of society’s conventions. Behind the laughter lies a lament—the cry of a man who observed how passion, when bound by duty and expectation, may lose its fire. He speaks not only of marriage, but of the burdens that institutions place upon the human spirit when they are lived without love or freedom.

To understand Wilde, one must first understand the age that shaped him. He lived in Victorian England, a time of rigid morality and shallow propriety, where reputation was valued more than truth, and appearances often crushed authenticity. Marriage, in that era, was less a union of hearts and more a contract of convenience, often arranged to secure wealth or social standing. Wilde, a man who worshipped beauty, art, and the ecstasy of living, found such conventions suffocating. Thus, his words carry both rebellion and satire—a poet’s mockery of the chains that society calls sacred.

When he declares that marriage “ruins a man,” Wilde is not condemning love itself; he is condemning the hypocrisy that surrounds it. He likens marriage to cigarettes—something addictive, habitual, and ultimately corrosive to the soul when pursued without reflection. The “expense” he speaks of is not only financial, but emotional and spiritual—the cost of surrendering one’s individuality to maintain appearances or please others. For Wilde believed that to love truly, one must first be whole within oneself; and that to enter marriage without self-understanding is to gamble one’s spirit on an illusion.

Yet there is also humor here—a glimmer of that brilliant Wildean wit that cloaked pain in laughter. He exaggerates to reveal truth, using the language of the dandy to critique the pretenses of the age. Beneath his jest lies a sorrowful wisdom: that many men, upon marrying, lose their passion, their curiosity, their art—their very essence. Bound by duty, dulled by routine, they trade adventure for comfort, and the fire of youth for the ashes of habit. In this way, Wilde’s satire becomes a mirror held to all who let the ordinary consume the extraordinary within them.

Consider the life of Wilde himself, who, though married to Constance Lloyd and father to two sons, lived with a divided heart. His love for men—most famously Lord Alfred Douglas—was deemed criminal by the laws of his time. To society, his marriage was a shield of respectability; to him, it became a prison of expectation. When the truth of his desires emerged, he was disgraced, tried, and imprisoned. His words, then, may be heard as the lament of a man who felt destroyed not by love, but by the false morality that corrupts love when it is bound by shame and pretense.

But Wilde’s wit does not end in bitterness. His mockery of marriage is, at its core, a call for authentic living. He teaches us that the truest bond between two souls cannot be built on fear, conformity, or convenience. It must be forged in freedom, in mutual respect, and in shared joy. If marriage “ruins a man,” it is only because the man has forgotten to remain himself within it. The sacred task, therefore, is not to reject marriage, but to redeem it—to keep alive within it the spark of individuality and the flame of truth.

So, let this teaching stand for all who love, wed, and dream: never let commitment become captivity. Marriage should not demoralize, but elevate; not silence, but inspire. Let it be a partnership of equals, where laughter outshines duty and passion outlives routine. Do not surrender your art, your curiosity, your soul, upon the altar of convention. Love bravely, but live freely.

For in the end, Wilde’s jest conceals a prophecy: when love is true, it liberates; when false, it enslaves. The ruin he speaks of is not inevitable—it is a warning. To those who will listen, it whispers still across the ages: build your union not upon expectation, but upon authenticity, and then—only then—will marriage become not ruin, but resurrection.