...it tends to make marriage itself a lifestyle enclave.

It was no longer torture-torn and hateful, as I had seen it when she was cursing her dead rival by the leaping flames, no longer icily terrible as in the judgment-hall, no longer rich, and sombre, and splendid, like a Tyrian cloth, as in the dwellings of the dead.

Soshana Zuboff, b. 1951

He affirmed or promised on his word, or on his honour.