My dear, my better half. [ Sir Philip Sidney ]

Sorrow and an evil life,
Makes soon an old wife. [ Proverb ]

A man can never thrive
Who hath a wasteful wife. [ Proverb ]

Fire maks an auld wife nimble. [ Scotch Proverb ]

He that takes a wife takes care. [ Franklin ]

The wife is the key of the house. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

The thiefs wife laughs not always. [ Proverb ]

Hanging and wiving goes by destiny. [ William Shakespeare ]

My wife lies here.
All my tears cannot bring her back;
Therefore, I weep. [ Miscellaneous epitaph ]

As the husband is, the wife is:
Thou art mated with a clown,
And the grossness of his nature
Will have weight to drag thee down. [ Alfred Tennyson ]

She is neither maid, wife nor widow. [ Proverb ]

And all the carnal beauty of my wife
Is but skin-deep. [ Sir Thomas Overbury ]

Next to no wife a good wife is best. [ Proverb ]

There was all the world and his wife. [ Swift ]

An obedient wife commands her husband. [ Proverb ]

A light wife doth make a heavy husband [ William Shakespeare ]

Commend not your wife, wine, nor house. [ Proverb ]

Thou bringest the sailor to his wife.
And travell'd men from foreign lands,
And letters unto trembling hands;
And, thy dark freight, a vanish'd life. [ Tennyson ]

Wife and children are bills of charges. [ Proverb ]

What the good wife spares the cat eats. [ Proverb ]

Choose a horse made and a wife to make. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

A house ready made, but a wife to make. [ Proverb ]

What a husband forbids, a wife desires. [ Proverb ]

Caesar's wife should be above suspicion. [ Plut ]

A man's wife is his blessing or his bane. [ Gaelic Proverb ]

Lord of yourself, uncumbered with a wife. [ Dryden ]

The husband's mother is the wife's devil. [ German Proverb ]

Of earthly goods the best, is a good wife. [ Simonides ]

I have mental joys and mental health.
Mental friends and mental wealth,
I've a wife that I love and that loves me;
I've all but riches bodily. [ Wm. Blake ]

A man must ask his wife's leave to thrive. [ Proverb ]

As the good-man saith, so say we,
But as the good-wife saith, so it must be. [ Proverb ]

Here lies my wife, poor Molly, let her lie,
She finds repose at last, and so do I. [ Epitaph ]

A wife is not to be chosen by the eye only. [ Proverb ]

No man can thrive unless his wife lets him. [ Proverb ]

How much the wife is dearer than the bride! [ Lord Lyttleton ]

O, he's as tedious
As is a tired horse, a railing wife;
Worse than a smoky house; I had rather live
With cheese and garlic in a windmill, far,
Than feed on cates, and have him talk to me,
In any summer-house in Christendom. [ William Shakespeare ]

Here lies the body of Sarah Sexton,
Who as a wife did never vex one.
We can't say that for her at the next stone. [ Epitaph ]

Better a fortune in a wife than with a wife. [ Proverb ]

Even venture on, as Johnson did on his wife. [ Proverb ]

The greatest merit of some men is their wife. [ Poincelot ]

He that takes not up a pin, slights his wife. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

He that tells his wife is but lately married. [ Proverb ]

We'll leave a proof, by that which we will do,
Wives may be merry, and yet honest too. [ William Shakespeare ]

A man's best fortune, or his worst, is a wife. [ Proverb ]

If the wife sins, the husband is not innocent. [ Italian Proverb ]

Money, as well as need makes the old wife trot. [ Proverb ]

That I might live alone once with my gold!
Oh 't is a sweet companion I kind and true!
A man may trust it, when his father cheats him,
Brother, or friend, or wife. O wondrous pelf.
That which makes all men false, is true itself. [ Jonson ]

Choose a wife rather by your ear than your eye. [ Proverb ]

If you wish to ruin yourself, marry a rich wife. [ Michelet ]

In the husband, wisdom; in the wife, gentleness. [ Proverb ]

One can with dignity be wife and widow but once. [ Joubert ]

For my own pleasure, as the man struck his wife. [ Proverb ]

A child's birds, and a boy's wife are well used. [ Proverb ]

The world well tried, the sweetest thing in life
Is the unclouded welcome of a wife. [ Willis ]

It is a sweet sorrow to bury an outrageous wife. [ Proverb ]

Wife and children are hostages given to fortune. [ Proverb ]

For whom does the blind man's wife paint herself? [ Proverb ]

A fair wife and a frontier castle breed quarrels. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

A grunting horse and a groaning wife seldom fail. [ Proverb ]

He that tells his wife news is but newly married. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

Wit and judgment often are at strife,
Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife. [ Pope ]

He that speaks ill of his wife dishonours himself. [ Proverb ]

He fasts enough whose wife scolds all dinner-time. [ Proverb ]

Husband, you are a cuckold; Wife, who told you so? [ Proverb ]

He that hath a wife and children wants no business. [ Proverb ]

Never seek a wife till you know what to do with her. [ Proverb ]

Want makes strife between the good-man and his wife. [ Proverb ]

A lover is loved most, a wife best, a mother always.

He knows little who will tell his wife all he knows. [ Fuller ]

There are, whom heaven has blessed with store of wit,
Yet want as much again to manage it;
For wit and judgment ever are at strife,
Tho' meant each other's aid, like man and wife. [ Pope ]

An undutiful daughter will prove an unmanageable wife. [ Benjamin Franklin ]

If you make your wife an ass, she will make you an ox. [ Proverb ]

Like the wife with many daughters, the best comes last. [ Proverb ]

If a daughter you have, she's the plague of your life,
No peace shall you know though you've buried your wife!
At twenty she mocks at the duty you taught her -
Oh, what a plague is an obstinate daughter! [ Sheridan ]

My son is my son till he have got him a wife,
But my daughter's my daughter all the days of her life. [ Proverb ]

He that loses his wife and sixpence hath lost a tester. [ Proverb ]

He who would have fine guests, let him have a fine wife. [ Dr. Johnson ]

To swill and drink, is to turn tripe wife and wash guts. [ Proverb ]

He has great need of a wife that marries mamma's darling. [ Proverb ]

He that wants business may fit out a ship, or take a wife. [ Proverb ]

There is many a good wife, that cannot sing and dance well. [ Proverb ]

Be sure you take for wife a woman of your own neighbourhood. [ Hesiod ]

Mock not, quoth Mountford, when his wife called him cuckold. [ Proverb ]

But one on earth is better than the wife; that is the mother. [ Leopold Schefer ]

If you can abide a curst wife, you need not fear any company. [ Proverb ]

He would be quarter-master at home if his wife would let him. [ Proverb ]

He that hath a white horse and a fair wife never wants trouble. [ Proverb ]

He that marries a wife and three children marries four thieves. [ Proverb ]

No man can either live piously or die righteous without a wife. [ Richter ]

A fair wife without a fortune is a fine house without furniture. [ Proverb ]

One should choose a wife with the ears, rather than with the eyes. [ Proverb ]

He has a great fancy to marriage that goes to the devil for a wife. [ Proverb ]

If you make your wife a goldfinch, she may prove in time a wagtail. [ Proverb ]

In choosing a wife and buying a sword we ought not to trust another. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

I hope better, quoth Benson, when his wife bade him come in, cuckold. [ Proverb ]

He that can abide a curst wife need not fear what company he lives in. [ Proverb ]

A happy union with wife and child is like the music of lutes and harps. [ Confucius ]

He that goes a great way for a wife is either cheated, or means to cheat. [ Proverb ]

She commandeth her husband, in any equal matter, by constant obeying him. [ Fuller ]

Descend a step in choosing thy wife; ascend a step in choosing thy friend. [ The Talmud ]

He that kisses his wife in the market-place shall have enough to teach him. [ Proverb ]

There are three faithful friends - an old wife, an old dog, and ready money. [ Benjamin Franklin ]

She is not made to be the admiration of everybody, but the happiness of one. [ Burke ]

He that hath a wife and children must not sit with his fingers in his mouth. [ Proverb ]

Who can help sickness, quoth the drunken wife, when she fell into the gutter? [ Proverb ]

A wife is a gift bestowed upon a man to reconcile him to the loss of paradise. [ Goethe ]

You may beat the devil into your wife, but you would never bang him out again. [ Proverb ]

The man who enters his wife's dressing-room is either a philosopher, or a fool. [ Balzac ]

Body and soul like peevish man and wife, united jar, and yet are loath to part. [ Young ]

Go down the ladder when thou marriest a wife; go up when thou choosest a friend. [ Rabbi Ben Azai ]

A proverb says: A hearth of one's own and a good wife are worth gold and pearls. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well. [ Goldsmith ]

When the husband is fire, and the wife tow, the devil easily sets all in a flame. [ Proverb ]

All other goods by fortune's hand are given; a wife is the peculiar gift of heaven. [ Pope ]

A wise man in his house should find a wife gentle and courteous, or no wife at all. [ Euripides ]

Respect your wife. Heap earth around that flower, but never drop any in the chalice. [ A. de Musset ]

Of earth's goods, the best is a good wife; a bad, the bitterest curse of human life. [ Simonides ]

Heaven deprives me of a wife who never caused me any other grief than that of her death. [ Louis XIV ]

Should all despair that have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind would hang themselves. [ William Shakespeare ]

Thy wife is a constitution of virtues: she's the moon, and thou art the man in the moon. [ Congreve ]

There are few husbands whom the I wife cannot win in the long run, by patience and love. [ Marguerite de Valois ]

My son is my son till he get a wife, my daughter is my daughter all the days of her life. [ Proverb ]

The man who prates about the cruelty of angling will be found invariably to beat his wife. [ Christopher North ]

Nothing is more difficult than to choose a good husband - unless it be to choose a good wife. [ J. J. Rousseau ]

One should choose for a wife only such a woman as he would choose for a friend, were she a man. [ Joubert ]

The death of your first wife made such an impression in your heart, that all the rest fly through. [ Proverb ]

A bachelor seeks a wife to avoid solitude; a married man seeks society to avoid the tête-à-tête. [ De Varennes ]

When the husband drinks to the wife, all would be well; when the wife drinks to the husband, all is well. [ Proverb ]

He that takes a wife at Shrewsbury must carry her to Staffordshire, else she will drive him to Cumberland. [ Proverb ]

From yon blue heaven above us bent, the grand old gardener and his wife smile at the claims of long descent. [ Tennyson ]

The man who has taken one wife deserves a crown of patience; the man who has taken two deserves two crowns of folly. [ Proverb ]

As his wife has been given to man as his best half, so night is the half of life, and by far the better part of life. [ Goethe ]

Who lets his wife go to every feast, and his horse drink at every water, shall neither have good wife nor good horse. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

For one Orpheus who went to Hell to seek his wife, how many widowers who would not even go to Paradise to find theirs! [ J. Petit-Senn ]

An elegant writer has observed, that wit may do very well for a mistress, but that he should prefer reason for a wife. [ Colton ]

To nil married men be this caution, which they should duly tender as their life: Neither to doat too much, nor doubt a wife. [ Massinger ]

When a man is in indigence, picking herbs is his philosophy; the enjoyment of his wife his only commerce, and vassalage his food. [ Hitopadesa ]

Sovereign money procures a wife with a large fortune, gets a man credit, creates friends, stands in place of pedigree, and even of beauty. [ Horace ]

In the career of female fame, there are few prizes to be obtained which can vie with the obscure state of a beloved wife or a happy mother. [ Jane Porter ]

Husband and wife, - so much in common, how different in type! Such a contrast, and yet such harmony, strength and weakness blended together! [ Ruffini ]

It was in his own home that Fielding knew and loved her (Amelia); from his own wife that he drew the most charming character in English fiction. [ Thackeray ]

Nature has directly formed woman to be a mother, only indirectly to be a wife; man, on the contrary, is rather made to be a husband than a father. [ Jean Paul ]

It is most dangerous nowadays for a husband to pay any attention to his wife in public. It always makes people think that he beats her when they are alone. [ Oscar Wilde, Lady Windemere's Fan ]

There are few husbands whom the wife cannot win in the long run by patience and love, unless they are harder than the rocks which the soft water penetrates in time. [ Marguerite de Valois ]

Many a man who has never been able to manage his own fortune, nor his wife, nor his children, has the stupidity to imagine himself capable of managing the affairs of a nation.

The last word is the most dangerous of infernal machines; and husband and wife should no more fight to get it than they would struggle for the possession of a lighted bombshell. [ Douglas Jerrold ]

Your estate, your home, and your pleasing wife must be left, and of these trees which you are rearing, not one shall follow you, their short-lived owner, except the hateful cypresses. [ Horace ]

Husband and wife have so many interests in common that when they have jogged through the ups and downs of life a sufficient time, the leash which at first galled often grows easy and familiar. [ Edward Bulwer-Lytton ]

Lover, daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother: in those six words lies what the human heart contains of the sweetest, the most ecstatic, the most sacred, the purest, and the most ineffable. [ Massias ]

Socrates, who is by all accounts the undoubted head of the sect of the hen-pecked, owed, and acknowledged that he owed a great part of his virtue to the exercise his useful wife constantly gave him. [ Steele ]

A man may kill a tender and delicate wife by cold neglect, and ruin himself and her too by debauchery; but if he keeps within his own dwellings and does not disturb his neighbors, the law would be slow to move against him. [ A. S. Roe ]

I have no wife or children, good or bad, to provide for; a mere spectator of other men's fortunes and adventures, and how they play their parts; which, methinks, are diversely presetted unto me, as from a common theatre or scene. [ Burton ]

He said - and his observation was just - that a man on whom heaven hath bestowed a beautiful wife should be as cautious of the men he brings home to his house as careful of observing the female friends with whom his spouse converses abroad. [ Cervantes ]

Secrets from other people's wives are a necessary luxury in modern life, but no man should have a secret from his own wife. She invariably finds out. Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious. [ Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband ]

The grave is a sacred workshop of nature! a chamber for the figure of the body; death and life dwell here together as man and wife. They are one body, they are in union; God has joined them together, and what God hath joined together let no man put asunder. [ Hippel ]

Every man ought to be in love a few times in his life, and to have a smart attack of the fever. You are better for it when it is over: the better for your misfortune, if you endure it with a manly heart; how much the better for success, if you win it and a good wife into the bargain! [ Thackeray ]

A jealous man is suspicious, evermore judging the worst; for if his wife be merry, he thinketh her immodest; if sober, sullen; if pleasant, unconstant; if she laugh, it is lewdly; if she look, it is lightly; yea, he is still casting beyond the moon, and watcheth as the crafty cat over the silly mouse. [ J. Bodenham ]

If the man be really the weaker vessel, and the rule is necessarily in the Wife's hands, how is it then to be? To tell the truth, I believe that the really loving, good wife never finds it out. She keeps the glamor of love and loyalty between herself and her husband, and so infuses herself into him that the weakness never becomes apparent either to her or to him or to most lookers-on. [ Charlotte M. Yonge ]

Mutability is the badge of infirmity; it is seldom that a man continues to wish and design the same thing two days alike; now he is for marrying, and now a mistress is preferred to a wife; now he is ambitious and aspiring, presently the meanest servant is not more humble than he; this hour he squanders his money away, the next he turns miser; sometimes he is frugal and serious, at other times profuse, airy, and gay. [ Charron ]

Paraphernalia, Trappings or Regalia? We often hear paraphernalia used in the sense of trappings or regalia; as, The Grand Marshal was conspicuous in his gorgeous paraphernalia The word is derived from the Greek, and is strictly a law term, meaning whatever the wife brings with her at marriage, in addition to her dower, such as her dresses and her jewels. Hence the evident absurdity of the use of paraphernalia in the sentence cited. [ Pure English, Hackett And Girvin, 1884 ]

If we wish to know the political and moral condition of a state, we must ask what rank women hold in it; their influence embraces the whole of life; a wife! - a mother! - two magical words, comprising the sweetest source of man's felicity; theirs is a reign of beauty, of love, of reason, - always a reign! a man takes counsel with his wife, he obeys his mother; he obeys her long after she has ceased to live; and the ideas which he has received from her become principles stronger even than his passions. [ Aime Martin ]