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Part of
Proverbs within Cognitive Linguistics: State of the art
Edited by Sadia Belkhir
[Cognitive Linguistic Studies in Cultural Contexts 16] 2024
► pp. 88–111

Chapter 4
Metaphors of love before and after marriage in proverbs and anti-proverbs

| J. Selye University, Komárno , Slovakia

In the present chapter I am going to discuss the ways how love after marriage is viewed and conceptualised in the body of Anglo-American proverbs and anti-proverbs (or proverb transformations), as well as in proverbs from around the world. My discussion is organised in two parts. While in the first part of the chapter I treat the paremiological issue of the metaphorical nature of proverbs, in the second part I address the relation between love and marriage in proverbs from around the world and Anglo-American anti-proverbs. I treat various metaphors of love which lead one to getting married (e.g., love is folly), as well as some metaphors of love after marriage (e.g., love is war).

Keywords: anti-proverb, proverb, Anglo-American, love, marriage, metaphor
Article outline
  • 1.Addressing the paremiological issue of the metaphorical nature of proverbs
    • 1.1Metaphor as one of the most powerful markers of proverbiality
    • 1.2Addressing the paremiological issue of the metaphorical nature of proverbs from a cognitive linguistic view
  • 2.“Matrimony is the root of all evil”
    • 2.1Anna T. Litovkina’s publications on love and marriage
      • 2.1.1“Metaphors we love by: The cognitive models of romantic love in American proverbs” (Tóthné Litovkina and Csábi 2002)
      • 2.1.2“‘Make love, not war … Get married and do both’: Negative aspects of marriage in anti-proverbs and wellerisms” (T. Litovkina 2017)
      • 2.1.3“Women through anti-proverbs” (T. Litovkina 2018a)
      • 2.1.4“Marriage seen through proverbs and anti-proverbs” (T. Litovkina and Mieder 2019)
    • 2.2“’Tis better to have loved and lost than to have loved and married”
      • 2.2.1Metaphors of love leading to marriage
        • 2.2.1.1“Marriages are made in heaven knows what state of mind”
        • 2.2.1.2“Fools rush in where bachelors fear to wed”
        • 2.2.1.3“When the blind lead the blind, they both fall into – matrimony”
      • 2.2.2Metaphors of love after marriage
        • 2.2.2.1“Love is blind – and when you get married you get your eyesight back”
        • 2.2.2.2“‘Every little bit helps,’ as the old lady said when she pissed in the ocean to help drown her husband”
        • 2.2.2.3“The course of true love never runs smooth – it usually leads to marriage”
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 30 May 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/clscc.16.04lit
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