If we women did not love you for your defects, where would you all be? Not one of you would ever be married. You would be a set of unfortunate bachelors. Not, however, that that would alter you much. Nowadays all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men.
– Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 15. Lady Narborough says this in response to Lord Henry putting forward the theory that women love men for their defects.