Domestic Contagion

George Washington, in a 1788 letter congratulating the Marquis de Chastellux on his recent marriage

"Now you are well served for coming to fight in favour of the American Rebels, all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, by catching that terrible Contagion — domestic felicity — which like the small pox or the plague, a man can have only once in his life: because it commonly lasts him (at least with us in America — I don't know how you manage these matters in France) for his whole life time."