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 areone,
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.
| author = More
| work = The Dial.
| place = Bk. II. Ch. V.
| note = The saying, "the grey mare is the better horse," is found in Camden's Remains, Proverb concerning Britain. (1605, reprint of 7th ed. 1870.) Also in A Treatyse shewing and declaring the Pryde and Abuse of Women Now a Dayse. (1550)
| topic = Wife
| page = 870
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num = 7
| text = Giving honour unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel.
| work = I Peter.
| place = III. 7.
| topic = Wife
| page = 870
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = Uxorem accepi, dote imperium vendidi.
| trans = I have taken a wife, I have sold my sovereignty for a dowry.
| author = Plautus
| work = Asinaria.
| place = Act I. Sc. 1.
| note =
| topic = Wife
| page = 870
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>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 bosonngerpent, 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.
| author = Pope
| work = Moral Essays. Ep. II. L. 261.
WIFE
The contentions of a wife are a continual
dropping.
Proverbs. XIX. 13.
She looketh well to the ways of her household,
and eateth not the bread of idleness.
XXXI. 27.
Fat, fair and forty.
Scott—St. Roman's Well. Cb. VII. Prince
Regent's description of what a wife should
be. Found in an old song, The One Horse
Shay. Sung by Sam Cowell in the sixties.
| seealso = (See also {{sc|Trench)
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.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 61.
O ye gods,
Render me worthy of this noble wife!
Julius Cmsar. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 303.
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.
Merchant of Venice. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 162.
A light wife doth make a heavy husband.
Merchant of Venice. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 130.
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.
Taming of the Shrew. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 231.
Wriyj man, she is mine own,
And I as nch in having such a jewel
As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
The water nectar and the rocks pure gold.
Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act II. Sc. 4. L.
168.
Should all despair
That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind
Would hangthemselves.
Winter's Tale. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 198.
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.
Bernard Shaw—Man and Superman.
| seealso = (See also Disraeli under Matrimony)
| topic = Wife
| page = 870
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>My dear, my better half.
Sir Philip Sidney—Arcadia. Bk. III.
Of earthly goods, the best is a good wife;
A bad, the bitterest curse of human life.
Smontdes.
Light household duties, ever more 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 heavenward ever 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.
