wedlock

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)The state of being married.

   “If I were about to marry, I should try it; that is, if I were a student of girldom with a view to wedlock for in truth, I am a marrying man.”

   “Nothing Jesus Christ more quemeth (pleaseth) Than love in wedlock where men it yemeth (keepeth);”

2. (countable, obsolete, uncountable)A wife; a married woman.

   “that lovely payre, / Enlincked fast in wedlockes loyall bond, / Bold Marinell with Florimell the fayre […]”

   “Which of these is thy Wedlock, Menelaus? thy Hellen? thy Lucrece? that we may do her Honour; mad Boy?”

   “What is it then but that desire which God put into Adam in Paradise before he knew the sin of incontinence; that desire which God saw it was not good that man should be left alone to burn in; the desire and longing to put off an unkindly solitarines by uniting another body, but not without a fit soule to his in the cheerfull society of wedlock.”