How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"I want my daughters to be beautiful, accomplished, and good. To be admired, loved, and respected. To have a happy youth, to be well and wisely married, and to lead useful, pleasant lives, with as little care and sorrow to try them as God sees fit to send. To be loved and chosen by a good man is the best and sweetest thing which can happen to a woman, and I sincerely hope my girls may know this beautiful experience. It is natural to think of it, Meg, right to hope and wait for it, and wise to prepare for it, so that when the happy time comes, you may feel ready for the duties and worthy of the joy." (9.142)
Don't kid yourself: this is a nineteenth-century novel about four sisters, and getting married was considered the most important thing for a woman to do at that time period. Even Mrs. March, who is liberal and even radical for the time in many of her views, still thinks that marriage is the ideal for which women should strive.
Quote #2
"I just wish I could marry Meg myself, and keep her safe in the family." (20.29)
Jo's wish is intriguingly taboo, suggesting same-sex desire and an almost-too-intimate bond between sisters. It's also a reminder that marriage will divide the March girls; as each girl marries and becomes a wife, she will become the center of a new family, separate from her siblings.
Quote #3
I may be mercenary, but I hate poverty, and don't mean to bear it a minute longer than I can help. One of us must marry well. Meg didn't, Jo won't, Beth can't yet, so I shall, and make everything okay all round. (31.30)
Amy approaches marriage pragmatically: she's going to marry for money. Don't judge her too harshly until we see whether she can force herself to do something so mercenary or not!
Quote #4
"As friends you are very happy, and your frequent quarrels soon blow over, but I fear you would both rebel if you were mated for life. You are too much alike and too fond of freedom, not to mention hot tempers and strong wills, to get on happily together, in a relation which needs infinite patience and forbearance, as well as love." (32.91)
As Marmee's critique suggests, Jo and Laurie make good friends, but they would make a terrible married couple. What do you think – should you look for the same qualities in a spouse that you do in a friend?
Quote #5
"I can't say 'yes' truly, so I won't say it at all." (35.48)
Many of Louisa May Alcott's nineteenth-century fans – and, let's be honest, lots of fans from later centuries, too! – were disappointed that Jo doesn't marry Laurie. After all, the first half of the book leads the reader to believe that they're a natural couple. But part of what Alcott tries to show us is that they're not suited. Even if they were, Jo just doesn't feel that way about him. Don't get us wrong, he's a perfectly nice guy and everything, but she simply doesn't love him in a romantic way. You can't make yourself love somebody, and it's best not to pretend.
Quote #6
"I only mean to say that I have a feeling that it never was intended I should live long. I'm not like the rest of you. I never made any plans about what I'd do when I grew up. I never thought of being married, as you all did. I couldn't seem to imagine myself anything but stupid little Beth, trotting about at home, of no use anywhere but there." (36.24)
Beth's early death is strangely connected to the fact that she was never able to envision herself as a wife. For nineteenth-century women, marriage and adulthood are practically the same thing!
Quote #7
In France the young girls have a dull time of it till they are married, when 'Vive la liberte!' becomes their motto. In America, as everyone knows, girls early sign the declaration of independence, and enjoy their freedom with republican zest, but the young matrons usually abdicate with the first heir to the throne and go into a seclusion almost as close as a French nunnery, though by no means as quiet. Whether they like it or not, they are virtually put upon the shelf as soon as the wedding excitement is over, and most of them might exclaim, as did a very pretty woman the other day, "I'm as handsome as ever, but no one takes any notice of me because I'm married." (38.1)
Alcott's narrator insists that marriage doesn't change a woman's beauty or appeal. A matron, in her opinion, can be just as lovely and have just as much right to enjoy herself in society as a maiden. It seems unfair to her that only unmarried women are celebrated at balls and parties.
Quote #8
"Don't neglect husband for children, don't shut him out of the nursery, but teach him how to help in it. His place is there as well as yours, and the children need him. Let him feel that he has a part to do, and he will do it gladly and faithfully, and it will be better for you all." (38.27)
Mrs. March teaches Meg to view her marriage to John Brooke as a partnership. Even though the children are part of the domestic sphere and therefore primarily Meg's responsibility, John also has a definite role to play in their upbringing. Of course, their roles are stereotypical as well as complementary – Meg gives love and affection, while John is the disciplinarian.
Quote #9
This household happiness did not come all at once, but John and Meg had found the key to it, and each year of married life taught them how to use it, unlocking the treasuries of real home love and mutual helpfulness, which the poorest may possess, and the richest cannot buy. This is the sort of shelf on which young wives and mothers may consent to be laid, safe from the restless fret and fever of the world, finding loyal lovers in the little sons and daughters who cling to them, undaunted by sorrow, poverty, or age, walking side by side, through fair and stormy weather, with a faithful friend, who is, in the true sense of the good old Saxon word, the 'house-band,' and learning, as Meg learned, that a woman's happiest kingdom is home, her highest honor the art of ruling it not as a queen, but as a wise wife and mother. (38.91)
Alcott suggests that, under ideal circumstances, being stay-at-home wife and mother can be extremely fulfilling for a woman. However, this vision exists side-by-side with her ideas about women as artists and the important place of old maids in society.
Quote #10
At twenty-five, girls begin to talk about being old maids, but secretly resolve that they never will be. At thirty they say nothing about it, but quietly accept the fact, and if sensible, console themselves by remembering that they have twenty more useful, happy years, in which they may be learning to grow old gracefully. Don't laugh at the spinsters, dear girls, for often very tender, tragic romances are hidden away in the hearts that beat so quietly under the sober gowns, and many silent sacrifices of youth, health, ambition, love itself, make the faded faces beautiful in God's sight. Even the sad, sour sisters should be kindly dealt with, because they have missed the sweetest part of life, if for no other reason. And looking at them with compassion, not contempt, girls in their bloom should remember that they too may miss the blossom time. That rosy cheeks don't last forever, that silver threads will come in the bonnie brown hair, and that, by-and-by, kindness and respect will be as sweet as love and admiration now. (43.3)
Alcott was herself a "spinster" or "old maid" – a woman who never married. She lived to be 51, raised her niece, cared for her aging father, wrote many bestselling books, and moved in fascinating intellectual circles. She wrote in her diary that "liberty is a better husband than love" for many women. It's interesting to contrast her life with the pity that her narrator feels for old maids in this passage.
Quote #11
It was certainly proposing under difficulties, for even if he had desired to do so, Mr. Bhaer could not go down upon his knees, on account of the mud. Neither could he offer Jo his hand, except figuratively, for both were full. Much less could he indulge in tender remonstrations in the open street, though he was near it. So the only way in which he could express his rapture was to look at her, with an expression which glorified his face to such a degree that there actually seemed to be little rainbows in the drops that sparkled on his beard. If he had not loved Jo very much, I don't think he could have done it then, for she looked far from lovely, with her skirts in a deplorable state, her rubber boots splashed to the ankle, and her bonnet a ruin. Fortunately, Mr. Bhaer considered her the most beautiful woman living, and she found him more "Jove-like" than ever, though his hatbrim was quite limp with the little rills trickling thence upon his shoulders (for he held the umbrella all over Jo), and every finger of his gloves needed mending. (46.70)
Alcott deliberately makes both Jo and Professor Bhaer completely unromantic in this scene. In fact, they're almost comical in their shabbiness. Their love, however, is no less real because it lacks little details – like him going down on one knee, or her looking radiantly beautiful.