espouse vs maintain

espouse

verb
  • To accept, support, or take on as one’s own (an idea or a cause). 

  • To become/get married to. 

maintain

verb
  • To keep up; to preserve; to uphold (a state, condition etc.). 

  • To declare or affirm (a clause) to be true; to assert. 

How often have the words espouse and maintain occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )