She would marry him?

[keannu]

Is it possible to say like this?

His income was small, but she would marry him.
According to what I learned here, would is tenseless, so this would just means "a past habitual action" in the context. For your willingness in the past, only the below can makes sense, I guess.

"She said she would marry him."= She said "I will marry him".

 

[5jj]

His income was small, but she would marry him.
According to what I learned here, would is tenseless, so this would just means "a past habitual action" in the context.

It is unlikely to be a past habitual action with the verb 'marry'.

Your sentence can have at least two meanings, suggested in the rough paraphrases below:

1. ... she insisted on marrying him.
2. ... (as we know from history,) she did marry him at some later time past time.

 

[smusca]

Is it possible to say like this?

His income was small, but she would marry him.
According to what I learned here, would is tenseless, so this would just means "a past habitual action" in the context. For your willingness in the past, only the below can makes sense, I guess.

"She said she would marry him."= She said "I will marry him".

I think it could be seen as a second conditional,
She would marry him ( if he asked her and even if he wasn't rich)

 

[azcl]

***Not a teacher***

Hello Keannu,

His income was small, but she would marry him.

I don't think this would be how a native speaker would express what I think you wish to say here. I think they would be more likely to say something like:

"Despite his small income, she was still willing to marry him"

As noted in a different post yesterday, this type of construction could be used to express a historical perspective or a narrative perspective from 'her' point of view (see https://www.usingenglish.com/forum/ask-teacher/139503-settle-them-she-would.html), but I don't think that is what you are trying to do here.

"She said she would marry him."= She said "I will marry him".

Yes, but a bit of clarity is needed...
If I was watching him propose to her, and she said 'yes, I will marry you', I might report that to someone else as 'She said she would marry him' (as in your example above).

If I was talking to her, and it was not in the context of being proposed to, but she just made the statment 'I am going to marry him', then I may report this as 'She said she will marry him' or 'She said she is going to marry him'.

I think this is because in the first instance, there is a degree of contingency (it is in the context of a request and reply), whereas in the second instance, it is an absolute statement and such, is a definite statement.

so this would just means "a past habitual action" in the context

.....'would' can indicate a past habitual action, and this can normally be inferred from the context as you suggest:
'When I was a boy, I would play football at the park every weekend with my dad'
- obviously, in the example you gave, this cannot be the case as we would assume that she was not habitually marrying him


Ade