The people people choose for friends
Your common sense appall,
But the people people marry
Are the queerest folk of all.

In four brisk lines, Gilman turns a social observation into a critique of conventional marriage. Friendships, she suggests, may already strain “common sense” because people’s tastes and loyalties can be surprising; yet marriage is even more startling, because it binds one to a person whose oddities become inescapably intimate and socially consequential. The rhyme and comic exaggeration (“queerest folk of all”) sharpen the point: romantic choice is not a purely rational act, and the institution of marriage often sanctifies mismatches, blind spots, or social pressures that outsiders can see more clearly than the couple can. The epigram’s humor masks a skeptical, reform-minded view of marriage consistent with Gilman’s broader feminist critique of domestic norms.