Dickens's novel repeatedly satirizes the convention of marriage and the trope of the marriage plot, in which the central tensions of a novel are resolved at the end with a wedding. In Chapter 5, the depiction of the Sowerberrys' marriage challenges the notion that marriage leads to happiness:

Here there was another hysterical laugh, which frightened Mr Sowerberry very much. This is a very common and much-approved matrimonial course of treatment, which is often very effective. It at once reduced Mr Sowerberry to begging as a special favour to be allowed to say what Mrs Sowerberry was most curious to hear, and, after a short altercation of less than three quarters of an hour’s duration, the permission was most graciously conceded.

Although at first glance this passage seems to praise the marriage, the narrator sets forth a certain verbal irony. A modern reader might recognize the dynamic between the Sowerberrys as abusive: Mr. Sowerberry is "frightened," and "reduced [...] to begging" to tell his wife what he knows she wants him to say. Mrs. Sowerberry is exercising disturbing power over her husband. In Victorian England, this dynamic was not necessarily troubling so much as laughable. This is the kind of power Mr. Sowerberry might exercise over his wife according to the conventions of the time, and Dickens uses the gender reversal as comic relief from the depressing tale of Oliver's childhood. To the extent that we do take the narrator seriously, the remark that this is "a very common and much-approved matrimonial course of treatment" plants the idea that this abusive dynamic is typical of marriages. Whereas Victorian England and the trope of the marriage plot had both come to emphasize marriage as a step up in the world—financially and morally—this passage suggests that marriage can also be a powder keg for bad behavior and unhappiness.

Dickens uses other unhappy marriages to advance his point. The heading of cChapter 27 reads:

In which the reader, if he or she resort to the fifth chapter of this second book, will perceive a contrast not uncommon in matrimonial cases.

Chapter 37 depicts Mr. and Mrs. Bumble's new marriage. The chapter heading directs the reader's attention to the "contrast" between the Bumbles' marriage and their courtship several chapters earlier. Whereas the Bumbles seemed highly invested in flattering one another the last time they appeared, now that they are married, they seem contemptuous of one another. The narrator describes their relationship as a battle of wills, waged with manipulation and power plays:

Mrs. Bumble, seeing at a glance that the decisive moment had now arrived, and that a blow struck for the mastership on one side or other must necessarily be final and conclusive, [...] dropped into a chair, and with a loud scream that Mr Bumble was a hard-hearted brute, fell into a paroxysm of tears.

Now that the couple is married, they have fallen into some of the same bad behavior as the Sowerberrys. This damning depiction of their marriage follows immediately after a loving scene between Harry and Rose, setting up an additional contrast between that unmarried couple and this married one. Dickens seems to be suggesting that Harry and Rose might be happier if they never got married at all. Dickens was not the only satirist at the time to depict marriage as a social and economic institution that causes more problems than it solves. His satire does not necessarily demonstrate total cynicism about matrimony, but it does cut at the idea that marrying people off will automatically fix social problems.