Love equals excitement, Mr. Algernon"I really don't see anything romantic in the proposal. It's very romantic to be in love. But there's nothing romantic in a final proposal. Why, one can be accepted. One usually is, I think. Then the excitement is over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty, if I ever get married, I will certainly try to forget the fact." 2180). Through this statement and others in The Importance of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde creates a mockery and joke of society's most sacred tradition; marriage. Wilde's intent in this play is to satirize and poke fun at romantic situations that are far-fetched but also contain some reality in his characters' conversations. Marriage is discussed frequently by all the characters and the conversations are typically normal debates about what marriage is, but when the characters' lives find themselves in a situation regarding marriage the situation becomes anything but ordinary. Through this statement and the play Wilde shows how people say one thing but usually behave differently when thrown into a stressful but pleasant situation. Through these contradictions Wilde plays with our ideals and emotions by showing that living life in an ordinary way is boring. Wilde analyzes the institution of marriage from betrothal to the death of the spouse and the end of the marriage. There is a stark contrast between the way marriage was thought to be sacred at the time and the way it is portrayed when characters are placed in love situations. Throughout the play there is a pessimistic view of marriage and one of the first topics raised by Lady Bracknell is her friend's loss of her husband. "Lady Bracknell, I have not been there since the death of your poor husband. I never saw a woman so changed; she looks twenty years younger." (Norton 2184). The purpose of this statement is to shock the public because one would expect a widow to be in very poor health, but here we see the opposite. Likewise Algernon's statement is shocking because aristocrats are expected to view marriage as a good and positive event in a person's life. In the real world there is a system and rules about how one should behave when married, but Wilde shows how this marriage system supposedly kills love.