Wives

"I am a wife-made man."

"He knew whose gentle hand was at the latch, Before the door had given her to his eyes."

"I do not think it altogether inappropriate to introduce myself to this audience. I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris, and I have enjoyed it."

"Sail forth into the sea of life, O gentle, loving, trusting wife, And safe from all adversity Upon the bosom of that sea Thy comings and thy goings be! For gentleness and love and trust Prevail o'er angry wave and gust; And in the wreck of noble lives Something immortal still survives."

"But thou dost make the very night itself Brighter than day."

"An incautious congressman playfully ran his hand over Nick's shiny scalp and commented, "It feels just like my wife's backside". Nick instantly repeated the gesture. "So it does", he replied."

"Le ciel me prive d'une épouse qui ne m'a jamais donné d'autre chagrin que celui de sa mort."

"How much the wife is dearer than the bride."

"O wretched is the dame, to whom the sound, "Your lord will soon return," no pleasure brings."

"In the election of a wife, as in A project of war, to err but once is To be undone forever."

"What thou bidd'st Unargu'd I obey, so God ordains; God is thy law, thou mine; to know no more Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise."

"Awake, My fairest, my espous'd, my latest found, Heaven's last best gift, my ever new delight!"

"For nothing lovelier can be found In woman, than to study household good, And good works in her husband to promote."

"For what thou art is mine: Our state cannot be sever'd; we are one, One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself."

"Here were we fallen in a greate question of ye lawe whyther ye grey mare may be the better horse or not."

"Regarding the treatment. of wives, the following verse in the Qur'an (Surah iv. 38) allows the husband absolute power to correct them: "Chide those whose refractoriness you have cause to fear. Remove them into sleeping chambers apart, and beat them. But if they are obedient to you, then seek not occasion against them.""

"That is the moat perfect Muslim whose disposition is the best, and the best of you is he who behaves best to his wives."

"When a man has two wives and does not treat them equally, he will come on the Day of Resurrection with half his body fallen off."

"When a man calls his wife, she must come, although she be at an oven."

"The Prophet used to divide his time equally amongst his wives, and he would say, 'O God, I divide impartially that which thou hast put in my power.'"

"Admonish your wives with kindness, because woman were created from a crooked bone of the side; therefore, if you wish to straighten it, you will break it, and if you let it alone, it will always be crooked."

"Not one of you must whip his wife like whipping a slave."

"A Muslim must not hate his wife, for if he be displeased with one bad quality in her, thou let him he pleased with another that is good."

"A Muslim cannot obtain anything better than an amiable and beautiful wife, such a wife who, when ordered by her husband to do a thing, will obey, and if her husband looks at her will be happy; and if her husband swears by her, she will make him a swearer of truth; and if ha be absent from her, she will honour him with her own person and property."

"It is related that on one occasion the Prophet said': "Beat not your wives." Then Umar came to the Prophet and said, "Our wives have got. the upper hand of the their husbands from hearing this." Then the Prophet permitted beating of wives. Then an immense number of women collected round the Prophet's family, and complained of their husbands beating them. And the Prophet said," Verily a great number of women are assembled in my home complaining of their husbands, and those men who beat their wives do not behave well. He is not of my way who teach a woman to go astray and who entices a slave from his master."

"Let the husband render to his wife the affection owed her, and likewise also the wife to her husband."

"The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband. And in like manner the husband also hath not power of his own body, but the wife."

"He who loves his wife loves himself."

"Giving honour unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel."

"Uxorem accepi, dote imperium vendidi."

"But what so pure, which envious tongues will spare? Some wicked wits have libell'd all the fair. With matchless impudence they style a wife The dear-bought curse, and lawful plague of life; A bosom-serpent, a domestic evil, A night-invasion and a mid-day-devil. Let not the wife these sland'rous words regard, But curse the bones of ev'ry living bard."

"All other goods by fortune's hand are given, A wife is the peculiar gift of heaven."

"She who ne'er answers till a husband cools, Or, if she rules him, never shews she rules; Charms by accepting, by submitting sways, Yet has her humour most when she obeys."

"The contentions of a wife are a continual dropping."

"She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness."

"We also know today why “wives” would be one of the resources over which men should compete. In most animal species, the female makes a greater investment in offspring than the male. This is especially true of mammals, where the mother gestates her offspring inside her body and nurses them after they are born. A male can multiply the number of his offspring by mating with several females—which will leave other males childless—while a female cannot multiply the number of her offspring by mating with several males. This makes female reproductive capacity a scarce resource over which the males of many species, including humans, compete. None of this, by the way, implies that men are robots controlled by their genes, that they may be morally excused for raping or fighting, that women are passive sexual prizes, that people try to have as many babies as possible, or that people are impervious to influences from their culture, to take some of the common misunderstandings of the theory of sexual selection."

"Fat, fair and forty."

"As for my wife, I would you had her spirit in such another; The third o' the world is yours; which with a snaffle You may pace easy, but not such a wife."

"O ye gods, Render me worthy of this noble wife!"

"Happy in this, she is not yet so old But she may learn; happier than this, She is not bred so dull but she can learn; Happiest of all is, that her gentle spirit Commits itself to yours to be directed."

"A light wife doth make a heavy husband."

"I will be master of what is mine own; She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house, My household stuff, my field, my barn, My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything; And here she stands, touch her whoever dare."

"Why, man, she is mine own, And I as rich in having such a jewel As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl, The water nectar and the rocks pure gold."

"Should all despair That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind Would hang themselves."

"It is a woman's business to get married as soon as possible, and a man's to keep unmarried as long as he can."

"My dear, my better half."

"Of earthly goods, the best is a good wife; A bad, the bitterest curse of human life."

"Light household duties evermore inwrought With placid fancies of one trusting heart That lives but in her smile, and turns From Life's cold seeming, and the busy mart, With tenderness, that ever homeward yearns To be refreshed where one pure altar burns. Shut out from hence, the mockery of life— Thus liveth she content, the meek, fond, trusting wife."

"Thou art mine, thou hast given thy word, Close, close in my arms thou art clinging; Alone for my ear thou art singing A song which no stranger hath heard: But afar from me yet, like a bird, Thy soul in some region unstirr'd On its mystical circuit is winging."

"Casta ad virum matrona parendo imperat."