Interesting Marriage Proposals

Belisarius

Historical, Literary, or Made-Up welcome.

Possibly apocryphal, but one of my favorites:

After Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia was widowed for a year, he called his secretary into his office.

"You're fired," he stated.

"But, why?" she stammered.

"Because my wife can't work for me."

Gramps49

I think mine was the quickest. My wife to be and I had only four dates. I had a TDY (Temporary Duty Assignment) to Beale AFB. Wife to be said she would come out to see me. (She lived in St Louis, MO). She came out in July. The night she arrived I took her out to a park on base. It was a warm, quiet night. As we were walking along, I said, "A night like this makes a guy want to propose." She asked if I was serious. I said yes.

Mrs Gramps and I have been married 49 years.

Firenze

Irish story. A couple have been 'walking out' for a good few years. The woman decides it's time to move things on.
"People will be saying we're getting married".
"Ach away on, sure who'd have us?"

HarryCH

I especially love the proposal in "Gaudy Night", which is at Oxford and in Latin:

Peter asks: "Placetne, magistra?" (Does it please you, mistress/teacher?)
Harriet replies: "Placet." (It pleases.)

This is actually a sort of echo of a ceremony once used at Oxford:

Adapted from "The Wimsey Annotations": A ritualized vote is taken as to the worthiness of each student to be awarded a degree. First, an official will propose (in Latin) that the graduates be admitted to the relevant degree; a vote is then taken, although, in practice only, one vote will be cast in favor.

March Hare

Not really about a proposal, but I've always liked Samuel Butler's comment on the marriage of the curmudgeonly Carlyles: 'It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs Carlyle marry, thereby making only two people miserable and not four'.

RockyRoger

March Hare wrote: »

Not really about a proposal, but I've always liked Samuel Butler's comment on the marriage of the curmudgeonly Carlyles: 'It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs Carlyle marry, thereby making only two people miserable and not four'.

Nice! It could also be said of some couples we know!

Belisarius

Edward Causabon's written proposal to Dorothea Brooke in Middlemarch is arguably worse than Mr. Collins's, though Dorothea is naive and idealistic enough to be overjoyed by it.
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/145/pg145-images.html#chap05

Hedgehog

I was listening to a disc of old-time radio shows the other day. One of the shows was a game show and the host was interviewing the male contestant. The host asked how the contestant proposed to his wife. Answer: "I didn't, really." Host, taken aback, asks laughingly: "So she proposed to you?" Answer: "No, not really." Host, very confused: "So neither of you proposed?" Answer: "No, we just both felt like we belonged together."

North East Quine

Neither of us proposed. We were at the wedding of friends, were chatting about marriage in general terms, and at some point the conversation drifted into talking about us getting married.

We had been dating 18 months by that point, were both young Christians, and at no point were either of us interested in casual dating. So it was just a natural progression.

Belisarius

[Cross-Post]

To be honest, I'm slightly confused myself--I guess instead of "Will you marry me?", it was "When do you want to get married?".

Lamb Chopped

Mr Lamb and I were much worse--at some point he simply slid into saying in casual conversation, "After we get married, we should..."

Belisarius

Heh.

Firenze wrote: »

Irish story. A couple have been 'walking out' for a good few years. The woman decides it's time to move things on.
"People will be saying we're getting married".
"Ach away on, sure who'd have us?"

Punchline aside, at least she now knew how things stood and could take it from there.