Marriage. In Literature.

Jane Austen (1775-1817)

Wilkie Collins (1824 - 1889)

"Marriage shouldn't be driven by thoughts of money". That is what Jane Bennett says to her sister Elizabeth after meeting young Mr. Bingley in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

But Wilkie Collins thought it differently. Let's forgive him: he was a man, and was writing misteries, not romance.
"The woman I fixed my eye on was the woman who kept house for me at my cottage (...) Selina, being a single woman, made me pay so much a week for her board and services. Selina, being my wife,  couldn't charge for her board, and would have to give me  her services for nothing, That was the point of view I looked at it from. Economy - with a dash of love. (...)
How it was I don't understand, but we always seemed to be getting, with the best of motives in one another's way. When I wanted to go upstairs, there was my wife coming down; or when my wife wanted to go down, there I was coming up. That is married life, according to my experience of it.
After five years of misunderstandings on the stairs, it pleased an All-Wise Providence to relieve us of each other  by taking my wife.( ...)" (from The Moonstone)
So much for the joys of marriage. But that's just literature...is it not?