"A bread and cheese marriage"

Posted by Smokey Stover on April 22, 2006

In Reply to: "A bread and cheese marriage" posted by Nathan Longan on April 22, 2006

: "A bread and cheese marriage" has anyone ever heard, read or seen this phrase before? It is listed in several oriental reference works on English and in a Russian textbook, none of which have a definition or say where it might have come from. Google books have nothing.

According to the OED, " bread and cheese, fig. for plain fare, needful food, victuals, living". Applied to a marriage, I would expect it to mean one in which the partners were getting by but without much if anything in the way of amenities or luxuries. SS