“Marriage is…the most natural state of man, and therefore the state in which you are most likely to find solid happiness…. It is the man and woman united that makes the complete human being….. man has not nearly the value he would have in the state of union. He is an incomplete animal; he resembles the odd half of a pair of scissors.” – Benjamin Franklin, in Advice on the Choice of a Mistress ( 25 Jun 1745)